Purism has called it Liberty Phonebut in addition to that liberating name this phone stands out for something very special: it is assembly In the United States. The good news is that it shows that it is possible to manufacture an iPhone within the US borders. That may make the government of this country happy, but in reality practically everything is bad news.
A mobile “made in USA” (more or less). As they explain In The Wall Street Journalthe Liberty Phone motherboard is manufactured in the Purism facilities, the main chip comes from Texas, and the assembly is carried out at the plant that the company has in Carlsbad, California. Other components come from China and other countries in Asia, but in essence we are facing a telephone that meets the demands of the Donald Trump government.
Not for those. Todd Weaver, CEO of Purism, explained in WSJ how it has been working for 10 years and has done everything possible to have a 100% mobile component of US components, “but but There are some pieces which simply do not have supply chain. “their intention, however, is to continue working so that in the end they all come from US suppliers.
Its scale is tiny. Even with these difficulties, Purism is able to face this manufacturing process because it produces about 10,000 units per month and have sold less than 100,000 in total. In 2024 Apple sold Something more than 230 million mobiles, about 19 million a month. Manufacturing all of them in the US makes clear the amount of resources that would need to transfer the country. Of course: the CEO of Purism clarifies that the production could upload up to 100,000 units per month in six months if you need it.
And it is not even a latest generation mobile. The Liberty Phone chip is an I.MX 8m from the Dutch company NXP semiconductor that occurs in an Austin plant, in Texas, and that is not even thought for mobiles, but for cars. Other components such as the screen and battery come from China, while the rear camera comes from South Korea. The operating system is Pure OS, a variant of Debian Linux that is not compatible with Android or iOS and that has a very limited application catalog
And it costs 2,000 dollars. Weaver states that manufacturing the Liberty Phone costs $ 650 – the estimated hardware cost on the iPhone 16 Pro is 550 dollars – but Purism sells it for a much higher price. According to him, the $ 1,999 that it costs – and that in its 4 GB version of RAM and 128 GB of storage – reflects its orientation: it is a mobile specially prepared to maintain user privacy. In fact, half of Purism’s clients are US government agencies.
The iPhone and tariffs. Liberty Phone is a clear example of how Apple and its users could affect the demand of the Trump government to manufacture the iPhone in the United States. One of the big problems It is the fact that the components that this mobile needs are not manufactured in the US, or do not do it on a large scale. The efforts of companies such as TSMC to create production plants in the North American country It will mitigate the problembut it won’t eliminate it.
Specialized labor. But there is another even greater problem: manufacturing millions of iPhone in the United States would force specialized labor. China has become the Great World Factory of technological devices, not only by cheap labor – which was originally – but for its qualification. Before a practically insurmountable situation, Apple has chosen to manufacture in India Most iPhone who end up selling in the US. That will expose some sensitive tariffsbut even so It will be cheaper than manufacturing them in the US or facing the huge tariffs applied to Chinese imports.
Mission almost impossible. The example of the iPhone is clear, but there is a especially striking one: The T1 Phone which was announced a week ago told us about a completely assembled mobile in the US, and that would also have specifications Very notable (although it does not indicate which soc will rule it). The surprising thing is that the mobile will theoretically cost $ 499 and will be available in August, but it seems absolutely impossible to do so fulfilling all those promises. Everything points to an obvious solution: that in reality that mobile that presumes to be manufactured in the US is not manufactured in the US, but rather – like almost always – in China.
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