An 'Apple' a day keeps the doctor away

Yes folks, it's that time again ! " Apple" are rolling out their new iPhone 5, and the scramble has begun.
Applemania is once again taking hold, and habitually rational people are once more going a little gaga and frothing at the mouth at the prospect of owning this new next must have.

We have seen the reports of said fashion victims, setting up camp outside the prospective shops which will be selling them.
The status of this Gadget has achieved a  cult like following. The allure being so strong that some are willing to sleep rough for days just to get their hands on one, or to say they were the first .

Hat's off to Apple for being capable of making grown men cry at the very prospect of owning a mobile phone with a logo of an apple on the back ! Their hypnotic powers have cast such a spell, that leads me to wonder where will all this end? Oh yeah, more than likely, an upgraded version next year or the year after, and the madness will restart.

As per my previous posting, I would like to question what the human cost is of our never ending love affair with the next Avant-garde Gadget.

Apple outsources the manufacturing/production of the iphone to Foxconn in China.
With the demand and release of the iphone 4 we saw suicides rocket inside these factories. As workers were put under such intense pressure to produce the goods for us in the west, they could no longer cope with the stringent quality control, the relentless push to achieve and meet orders, under poor conditions, soon things began to take it's  toll on the mental health of their working drones.

With the mounting pressure to once again meet demands for the release of the iphone 5, there have been reports of more trouble breaking out at Apple's chinese manufacturing plant Foxconn today.

Back in March, reports trickled out about riots within the factory due to poor working conditions. Today, more riots. Over 2000 workers involved in the production of the iphone 5 within the Foxconn factory in China were rioting over similar grievances. Over 5000 state police were called in to quell this uprising, and reports of over 40 people were hospitalised. Demand for the iPhone 5 is so high that one Foxconn factory, in Zhengzhou, Henan province, had to recruit an additional 200,000 workers.

According to the Sunday Telegraph: "The riot, which started on Sunday evening as a dispute between a worker and one of the plant’s 1,500 security guards spiralled out of control.

Witnesses claimed that thousands of workers streaming off their shifts joined the fray. They began battling the security forces and each other amid fury over pay and working conditions. It took four hours for the police to bring the situation under control. On Monday, the 79,000-worker factory was shuttered while at least 35 police and paramilitary trucks remained parked outside the front gate."

If you are still unconvinced of the human cost our demand is causing, I would recommend reading the following article. Cyril Chang, an experienced journalist from 'The Shanghai Evening Post' went under cover working at this factory..his findings were pretty shocking to say the least.

http://micgadget.com/29723/the-undercover-report-on-how-the-new-iphone-5-is-made-inside-foxconn-factory/

In a country that has a terrible human rights record,where most average chinese people don't have a choice when it comes to working, they must work or starve, most send money home to their families in rural areas, so they are wide open to exploitation. Reducing human beings to mere working machines can never be a positive thing.

It's high time that Apple and all similar companies start to take some corporate and ethical responsibility, practice transparency and fairness, not pass the buck, indeed I think the time has come, when we as consumers should demand it ! Don't you?