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Re:Human Costs Are Built Into an iPad by memset on Thursday January 26, 2012 @12:31AM (#3513035)
Wow. I'm kind of appalled by everyone's response which amounts to "meh this has always been happening, nobody cares."

Possibly the central point of the article is not that "Apple is bad" but that most of us are quite oblivious to the working conditions which bring us cheap and fun gadgets.

We recognize that we cannot avoid benefiting from cheap labor on a daily basis. But just as (according to the article) companies could choose to enforce safety standards, we too might be swayed to demand better from Apple and other companies if we had a bit more exposure to the realities of the situation.

And the article drives home the point that we (customers) don't really care; if we did, we would stop buying [widgets] and [company] would enforce those standards.

Nothing new, sure, but it helps to put a face on the reality of the situation in terms of icons that all of us can recognize.

Re:Human Costs Are Built Into an iPad by salimane on Thursday January 26, 2012 @10:08AM (#3514395)
something to notice too is that the work and attention required to assemble Apple's products are greater than other companies thus Apple expose workers to more health damages
Re:Human Costs Are Built Into an iPad by Someone on Thursday January 26, 2012 @11:18AM (#3514661)
I do not follow that logic. Surely, "work and attention" do not cause health damages, do they?

I do not think there is any correlation either way, but one could argue that, say, putting together a 'work fast, but the end result must be spotless' item is less risky for one's health than putting together a (purely hypothetical, for the sake of the argument) 'we do not care about shards on the glass screen; blood spots on the screen are OK, too, but do it in ten seconds or we will not make a profit' product.

Re:Human Costs Are Built Into an iPad by salimane on Friday January 27, 2012 @12:22AM (#3517240)
what i meant with "work and attention" is "greater work and attention in bad working conditions". Apple products should be ,well as S.Jobs wants them, "perfect" despite the working conditions, like polishing that gorgeous ipad back cover in a non-ventilated room. While motorola's back cover doesn't require that polishing .
Re:Human Costs Are Built Into an iPad by kiloaper on Thursday January 26, 2012 @12:29PM (#3515017)
Take a look at teardowns of any modern mobile device and you'll see there's nothing really spectacular about the iPhone. It's kind of like saying workers at McDonalds suffer more health problems because their work requires more 'attention' than workers at Burger King.