Apple CEO Tim Cook confirmed this morning that his company's exciting new and cylindrical Mac Pro is being manufactured in Austin, TX. Apple announced on Wednesday that the Mac Pro would be available starting on Thursday, but Mr. Cook noted in a tweet that the devices were being built in Austin.
We have begun manufacturing the Mac Pro in Austin. It’s the most powerful Mac ever. Orders start tomorrow. pic.twitter.com/Jrd1Gic3Ya
— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) December 18, 2013
Mr. Cook said more than a year ago that one Mac model would come back to the U.S., but it seemed a tossup on whether it would be the Mac mini or the Mac Pro. In June's World Wide Developer Conference, the radical new design that was shown off gave weight to the notion that this was what Mr. Cook had been talking about.
Computer manufacturing of all sort fled the U.S. for offshore manufacturers based mostly in Taiwan and China. Low-paid workers willing to work long hours, little or no regulation, and a race to the bottom in the PC world combined to make manufacturing in the U.S. too expensive.
At least that's been the prevailing wisdom, but here Apple is building stuff in the U.S., and the company is expanding its U.S. manufacturing infrastructure, too. Those efforts were recognized by President Barack Obama during the 2013 State of the Union address, too.
It bears noting, however, that the Mac Pro is currently Apple's lowest volume Mac, and every Mac combined is still tiny compared to the tens of millions of iPhones and iPads made each and every quarter. There's little or no chance that Apple could bring it all back to the U.S. even if it wanted to.
But, it's cool that Apple is building anything at all in the U.S., and it's something the company's U.S.-based competition can't claim.