Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo called it – Apple is conducting early production work on the iPhone 17 at a factory in USA, and not in China as has been the case in the past. The article by The information emphasizes the importance of this milestone.
What Apple is doing now is called ‘New Manufacturing Launch’: figuring out how to turn a prototype design into a real product suitable for mass production. Previously this work was done in China. Please note: this only applies to the vanilla iPhone 17, not to the Pro or Pro Max and not to the new iPhone 17 Slim which will replace the Plus.
Cupertino wants to diversify its supply chain as it was completely dependent on China. The plan for now is to move 25% of production capacity to USA. It was already building vanilla iPhones in USA and this year it started also builds iPhone 16 Pro units. Just yesterday Bloomberg reported that Apple has done so exported $6 billion value of iPhones made in USA in the last six months.
Anyway, the iPhone 16 series is barely out of the door, the iPhone 17 will be introduced at the end of next year. But figuring out how to build millions of phones is no easy task. Even as we speak, leaked information is emerging that offers a taste of what the iPhone 17 series has to offer shall are like.