Apple faces exposure, public backlash, and a loss of market share. Apple will be exposed more so for its illegal, unethical, and toxic manufacturing practices. This will create a worldwide awakening against the big corporation and cause a substantial loss of market share. This thread will cover the problems Apple faces in-depth, and use a SWOT Analysis to conclude the findings.
Apple Face ID, Artificial Intelligence, and surveillance which tracks everything you do, say, think, monitors your location, and sells your data to foreign countries and other big corporations–sounds like a utopia, right? Apple is involved in high-level treason against the USA, and more importantly, mankind. In a Bloomberg article, "The Big Hack: How China Used a Tiny Chip to Infiltrate U.S. Companies" by Jordan Robertson & Michael Riley, Apple is exposed as being part of the most significant supply chain attack in history. Unlike what usually happens to big corporations just paying a small fine and no one facing jail time, the American company and Chinese government will be held accountable. The main points of the article:
"In 2015, Amazon.com Inc. began quietly evaluating a startup called Elemental Technologies, a potential acquisition to help with a major expansion of its streaming video service, known today as Amazon Prime Video…Elemental’s national security contracts weren’t the main reason for the proposed acquisition, but they fit nicely with Amazon’s government businesses, such as the highly secure cloud that Amazon Web Services (AWS) was building for the CIA."
"Elemental’s servers could be found in Department of Defense data centers, the CIA’s drone operations, and the onboard networks of Navy warships."
"Multiple people familiar with the matter say investigators found that the chips had been inserted at factories run by manufacturing subcontractors in China."
"One official says investigators found that it eventually affected almost 30 companies, including a major bank, government contractors, and the world’s most valuable company, Apple Inc."
"One country in particular has an advantage executing this kind of attack: China, which by some estimates makes 75 percent of the world’s mobile phones and 90 percent of its PCs."
"But that’s just what U.S. investigators found: The chips had been inserted during the manufacturing process, two officials say, by operatives from a unit of the People’s Liberation Army. In Supermicro, China’s spies appear to have found a perfect conduit for what U.S. officials now describe as the most significant supply chain attack known to have been carried out against American companies."
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-10-04/the-big-hack-how-china-used-a-tiny-chip-to-infiltrate-america-s-top-companies
Imagine what a foreign country could do to its enemies by actually manufacturing the tech used in their drones and naval warships. Think of a killswitch. Are you awake yet? Who would've thought with all the media hysteria about Russia and its criminal organizations, which…shocker…every country has some form of criminal enterprise, that China would be carrying out this attack? Now let's look at this situation from a business perspective.
These chips could also be placed in the smart, advanced, iPhones. They could be used, if they haven't already, to track your location, what you purchase, and sell the data, which is okay with some people, but why would you want a foreign country using this data to exploit you? It wouldn't be okay if Russia were doing this, so why should it be okay for China to be colluding with a trusted, reputable, American company in order to obtain this data? In the Marketing Strategy text, this is clearly not some mere, conspiracy theory, and it has already been somewhat addressed by the US Government outlined as such:
"In 2011 Apple and Google disclosed that certain features of their cell phones collect data on the phones’ locations. Consumers and government officials saw this as an infringement on user privacy. The companies announced that users have the option to disable these features on their phones. However, this was not entirely true for Apple as some of its phones continued to collect location information even after users had disabled the feature. Apple attributed this to a glitch that it remedied with new software."