Ω BRAVO!! Tim Cook confirms one line of Macs will be exclusively US-manufactured in 2013 | Engadget

I asked “Why not in the US?” regarding iPhone assembly two years ago. Tim Cook has answered (not directly to me, of course) with the best news out of Apple in decades:

Apple CEO Tim Cook has said “we will do one of our existing Mac lines in the United States,” vaguely confirming that production of either iMacs, Mac Minis or Mac Laptops will make a wholesale move to the US in 2013.

I’m going to guess that it’ll be either iMacs of Mac Pros because neither ships particularly well from China (lots of air in their boxes), and doing customization locally would be a lot easier that way, too.

We can hope this turns out to be a good more for Apple, but more especially so for the U.S. Apple is demonstrating a confidence in and optimism for the U.S. which we desperately need more of, especially right now. I’m also hopeful that other companies will follow suit and reverse the trend of offshoring jobs of the past decade.

Do I care if the factory is stocked with robots? Of course not. Somebody still has to build and maintain the facility. Somebody still has to build and program the robots. Truckers still have to haul material in and out. Managers still have to manage. And those are high- and low-tech jobs which would otherwise not exist at all in the U.S.

Bravo, Tim. Bravo.

via Engadget