All the news, rumors, and tips you missed this week.
Welcome to our weekend Apple Breakfast column, which includes all of the Apple news you missed this week in a handy bite-sized roundup. We call it Apple Breakfast because we think it goes great with a morning cup of coffee or tea, but it’s cool if you want to give it a read during lunch or dinner hours too.
When the chips are down
When running for office in early 2016, Donald Trump vowed to “get Apple to build their damn computers and things in this country instead of other countries.” This vague, half-formed plan was widely ridiculed because it seemed so impractical: You can’t just tear up a complex overseas supply chain and start from scratch in a territory with almost none of the required skills and infrastructure. But publicly at least, Apple gave the idea a polite reception.
Perhaps looking for patriotic cover against accusations of leftwing bias—the biggest company in the world can’t afford to alienate half of its home market—Apple is quite keen on the idea of building some hardware in the U.S. Despite Trump’s comments, the company was already making one of its “damn computers” on U.S. soil: the Mac Pro, proudly manufactured at a factory in Austin, Texas. But it’s important to stress that the Mac Pro is a niche product made in small numbers, and therefore orders of magnitude easier to build at home than the iPhone, for example.
Read more at MacWorld.com