Talk:Apple supply chain

MacBook
The very recent MacBooks have no USB-A hubs, SD card slot & integrated SuperDrive. --2001:569:7D81:3000:9CED:1D34:64D7:603C (talk) 08:29, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

No mention of outfitting Amerikkkan sturmtruppen with iPhones?
Hmph. Even here in the imperial core, it was big news. 76.69.87.99 (talk) 17:03, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

Criticism of Apple Inc. and Apple worker organizations
I am trying to figure out what's the best way to sort/mix/match information between Criticism of Apple Inc. and Apple worker organizations and welcome copy editing on either articles. The issues are complex, involving multiple firms across multiple years. ~ Shushugah (he/him • talk) 23:45, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

Strays away from WP:POVFORK
Like all Criticism articles for corporations, this page just got filled with huge amounts of content, a large amount of undue cruft, and ended up becoming very unappealing to read. I know editors want to be thorough, to "hold these companies to account", but these articles always become so poorly-organized and unwieldy that no one wants to read them; and they require so much effort to "fix" that no one wants to fix them. Again, that's a common problem with all Criticism of [CORP] articles. One-sided articles don't "hold corporations to acccount", they just end up as "dump-alls" that no one reads, and we can do better.


 * Per WP:POVFORK, this should be moved to Practices of Apple Inc., and cover both about their efforts to protect the environment and any damage they cause; both about their privacy efforts and their surveillance, etc.


 * The "legal troubles" Apple faces should be a proper WP:SUMMARY of Apple Inc. litigation, which I moved to Litigation involving Apple Inc. so that it include both litigation Apple is a target of, and litigation started by them.


 * The labor-stuff should perhaps be in Apple worker organizations, or perhaps Labor practices of Apple Inc., and WP:SUMMARYzed here. Page isn't long enough for a split to be warranted at this time. DFlhb 02:30, 4 December 2022 (UTC)


 * Anything to do with public perception should be at Public perception of Apple Inc., which should talk about both positive ("fanboyism") and negative opinions; could talk customer loyalty on one hand, the reality distortion field on the other; both their innovativeness and accusations of lack of innovativeness; things like that. Has the potential to be an interesting article.

DFlhb (talk) 08:48, 3 December 2022 (UTC)


 * did you seriously just spend a few hours removing 80% of the content from an article that is specifically about the criticism of Apple? the entire point of the article was to list as many major criticisms as possible, even if they were already mentioned elsewhere. you said that an article whose whole purpose is to document criticisms is "one-sided", but then went ahead and moved - basically obscured - all of those criticisms away, to the point where not even the Apple, Inc. article has a criticism section. how could you think that that is helping to correct bias in any way? 2A02:C7E:321D:3600:B9E7:E6D0:12DF:2AE1 (talk) 15:44, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

"The corporate practices of Apple?" too subjective perhaps leading to essay
I think DFlhb (talk) did a great job editing this article as it has far improved from where it started. As mentioned by Dflhb, "Corporate Practices"  can talk about the positive and negative; with the original article being a laundry list criticism. Perhaps, the article may be more of an essay because there are a wide variety of topics that can be selected for inclusion. The post above speaks to articles for litigation and relationships with China. and other topics. Can the concern regarding f this article being an essay be considered? Flibbertigibbets (talk) 22:35, 8 December 2022 (UTC)


 * WP:ESSAY has more to do with quality of sourcing and "persuasive" vs "encyclopedic" writing, rather than with the article's scope, no? DFlhb (talk) 16:30, 9 December 2022 (UTC)
 * By mentioning "essay" I was really speaking to "original research" and how the article is synthesized.    There are so many things mentioned about Apple - that is why the scope of the article may be subjective (or even become endless).  There are some topics that are directly searchable such as Apple - litigation,  labor relations, government relations, ESG - they might actually be stand alone topics (something you mentioned).   "Corporate practices" is not directly searchable.
 * It's almost as if this article is unnecessary - if the topic is covered in the main article or in a series of specific articles for each topic. I looked at the original article and changed the lead and then "threw up my hands" because I think the article is just too broad and subjective.       Flibbertigibbets (talk) 18:46, 9 December 2022 (UTC)
 * eg "Tony Blevins" dismissed from apple from making remarks on tic-toc. <-it could be construed that it is a "corporate practice" to censure/fire employees for remarks made on social media. There are no express mentions of "corporate practices anywhere" on the other hand "criticism" can be found by direct search.   My point is that the article can speak (or not speak) to almost anything.    It's good that you are addressing the article  Alternately, Perhaps the best thing to do might be to create more specific stand alone articles. Flibbertigibbets (talk) 18:58, 9 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Undecided on this; I can see good points either for or against. Maybe you're right; in that case we would have the following articles:
 * Environmental practices of Apple Inc.
 * Litigation involving Apple Inc.
 * Anticompetitive practices of Apple Inc. (title may violate NPOV since I think these are currently allegations, someone else can come up with something better; maybe Market impact of Apple Inc.? But that sounds a little euphemistic)
 * And then those articles would be summed up directly in Apple Inc. rather than here. DFlhb (talk) 00:43, 10 December 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm looking at this again, and I agree that splitting into several articles is the best solution. Ultimately, I don't think there should be a "Practices of" article or a "Criticism of" article, as these are both unfocused. My proposal would be to split whatever articles can be made from this one and then to merge whatever is left back into Apple Inc. From there, Apple Inc can be expanded, and further WP:SIZESPLITs can be carried out as needed. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 20:03, 18 December 2022 (UTC)
 * I think a key challenge is to also find out what information/details can be removed due to being unweighted. This topic of supply chains in particular...could rely on more scholarly sources than mere newspaper clippings. Some sample jstor articles include:
 * Supply chain dependency on China, with expansion in Brazil/India pre but also during COVID.
 * Apple's corporate codes of conduct/internal human rights enforcement.
 * More sources on Uygher forced labor.
 * ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 01:42, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Focusing mainly on scholarly sources for criticism of corporations is a solid idea; the press as a whole can be quite sensationalistic, and even when it's not, it encourages recentism, proseline, straight retellings of the facts (as opposed to a bird's eye view), and commentary over analysis; critical newspaper coverage can lead to pretty low-quality content. DFlhb (talk) 01:50, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

January 2023 split
For background on the January 2023 split, see Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Apple_Inc.. Please only discuss the split on that page, not here. DFlhb (talk) 01:41, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Actual suppliers other than Foxconn/HonHai
Foxconn/HonHai is a very large contract manufacturer (CM) for Apple, but hardly the only one. Compal, Quanta, Wistron, and Pegatron, which are important first tier Taiwan-based CMs that serve several tech companies, manufacture many Apple products.

This article doesn't get into component suppliers to these CMs. While coverage of labor problems at Foxconn/HonHai is important, that should be a separate article or a "Controversies" section of a supply chain article. Apple's supply chain is strategically significant and deserves better coverage. Zigurd~enwiki (talk) 20:38, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Criticism of Apple Inc. redirects here
The various criticism of Apple redirects target here. Through a series of page moves the page went from "Criticism of Apple Inc." to "Practices of Apple Inc." to "Apple supply chain." The history is preserved on this page. StreetcarEnjoyer (talk)  16:21, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

"Criticism of Apple Inc." listed at Redirects for discussion
The redirect [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Criticism_of_Apple_Inc.&redirect=no Criticism of Apple Inc.] has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at  until a consensus is reached. InfiniteNexus (talk) 18:43, 19 May 2024 (UTC)


 * I recreated Criticism of Apple Inc. with a simple and higher level summary of the issues. I think focusing on what the situation is today and including only WP:SUSTAINED coverage of historic topics, e.g. Foxconn suicides makes the most sense. It will help us stray from including random WP:CRUFT as many here have eloquently mentioned. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 23:04, 17 June 2024 (UTC)