iPod Cities: Massive Chinese iPod Sweatshops
This morning we’re going to be doing some hating on Apple. Might as well just warn you now. So if you’re one of those smug idiot Apple zealots who were the main reason why I put off buying a Mac for as long as I did, you might want to avert your eyes. Because Steve Jobs isn’t God, iTunes DRM sucks and, oh yeah: iPods are made in Chinese sweatshops.
According to the Mail on Sunday, the average Chinese worker who puts together that sleek, reflective black iPod 5G for you works fifteen hours a day in a dirty factory surrounded by police and makes only
27 a month. We don’t know how many iPods you can make in a fifteen hour shift, but no matter how you slice it, that translates to pennies per iPod.
All employees live on the factory grounds. Long hours and lack of money practically cut them off from the rest of the world. How many people live in these iPod cities? One factory supposedly houses two hundred thousand workers: “This iPod City has a population bigger than Newcastle’s.”
If this report is true, this certainly makes me love my new iPod less. Oh, who am I kidding? It could be made with human flesh and only play mp3s of the Necronomicon Ex Mortis for all I care. I am a sucker for sex appeal.
Inside Apple’s iPod factories [Macworld UK]
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