Foxconn Warns Staff to Keep Away From Shenzhen iPhone Plant as Virus Prevention Efforts Continue
Apple's main iPhone assembler Foxconn has told employees not to return to work at its Shenzhen facility in China when the extended Lunar New Year break ends on February 10, according to a memo obtained by Bloomberg.
"To safeguard everyone's health and safety and comply with government virus prevention measures, we urge you not to return to Shenzhen," Foxconn wrote in a text message sent to employees. "We'll update you on the situation in the city. The company will protect everyone's work-related rights and interests in the duration. As for the happy reunion date in Shenzhen, please wait for further notice."
Foxconn has reportedly halted almost all of its production in China as the government and businesses attempt to contain the coronavirus outbreak in the country, where more than 31,000 cases have been reported so far.
It's unclear whether the Shenzhen policy extends to all employees or to Foxconn's other facilities. Earlier this week, the iPhone manufacturer said it planned to resume full-scale production by February 10. Other Apple suppliers such as Quanta Computer, Inventec and LG Display also said they would go back to work next week in China, but sticking to that plan seems less certain by the day.
"As a matter of policy and for reasons of commercial sensitivity, we do not comment on our specific production facilities," Foxconn told Bloomberg. "We have been closely monitoring the current public health challenge linked to the coronavirus and we are applying all recommended health and hygiene practices to all aspects of our operations in the affected markets."
Foxconn has slashed its 2020 revenue outlook after strict quarantines at its main base in China to guard against the coronavirus outbreak. The company has adopted a quarantine policy so that workers returning from outside Henan province will be sequestered for 14 days, while staff who reside within the province will be isolated for one week.
The timing of the coronavirus outbreak could impact supply of the new lower-cost iPhone that Apple is expected to announce in March. Bloomberg recently reported that production of the device was slated to begin in February, but the coronavirus outbreak could delay that timeframe.
Apple typically sources components from multiple suppliers, and Foxconn has factories outside of China, so it's likely that Apple will still release the lower-cost iPhone in March, even if supply is limited at launch.
Popular Stories
Apple has announced it will be holding a special event on Tuesday, May 7 at 7 a.m. Pacific Time (10 a.m. Eastern Time), with a live stream to be available on Apple.com and on YouTube as usual. The event invitation has a tagline of "Let Loose" and shows an artistic render of an Apple Pencil, suggesting that iPads will be a focus of the event. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more ...
Apple has dropped the number of Vision Pro units that it plans to ship in 2024, going from an expected 700 to 800k units to just 400k to 450k units, according to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. Orders have been scaled back before the Vision Pro has launched in markets outside of the United States, which Kuo says is a sign that demand in the U.S. has "fallen sharply beyond expectations." As a...
Apple is finally planning a Calculator app for the iPad, over 14 years after launching the device, according to a source familiar with the matter. iPadOS 18 will include a built-in Calculator app for all iPad models that are compatible with the software update, which is expected to be unveiled during the opening keynote of Apple's annual developers conference WWDC on June 10. AppleInsider...
The upcoming iOS 17.5 update for the iPhone includes only a few new user-facing features, but hidden code changes reveal some additional possibilities. Below, we have recapped everything new in the iOS 17.5 and iPadOS 17.5 beta so far. Web Distribution Starting with the second beta of iOS 17.5, eligible developers are able to distribute their iOS apps to iPhone users located in the EU...
Apple today released several open source large language models (LLMs) that are designed to run on-device rather than through cloud servers. Called OpenELM (Open-source Efficient Language Models), the LLMs are available on the Hugging Face Hub, a community for sharing AI code. As outlined in a white paper [PDF], there are eight total OpenELM models, four of which were pre-trained using the...
Apple has stopped production of FineWoven accessories, according to the Apple leaker and prototype collector known as "Kosutami." In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Kosutami explained that Apple has stopped production of FineWoven accessories due to its poor durability. The company may move to another non-leather material for its premium accessories in the future. Kosutami has revealed...
Top Rated Comments
Ultimately, it doesn't really matter if you believe in the severity of this. It does happen to be a nasty flu season too so wash your hands well with soap, wipe down your phone, and stay home if you're sick so you don't spread whatever it is that you have even if it's only a mild cold.
A lot of what's being done here is recommendation, at the end of the day the virus is highly infectious and it simply makes sense to reduce the risks of it spreading.
Q-6