You might have heard about Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the US House of Representatives, and her visit to Taiwan. It’s been all over the news lately. But how is that relevant to the iPhone 14 release, you might ask?
Well, as most of you know, Apple is TSMC’s top customer and the company ships chips to Pegatron in China where iPhones are assembled. And Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan has put an even bigger strain on the China-Taiwan relationship. As a result, the CCP has come up with new regulations forbidding any mention of “Taiwan” or “Republic of China” in the shipping documents. This in turn means that some, if not all, of the hardware could be returned back to Taiwan and delay the iPhone 14 production as a result.
To make matters worse, Pegatron’s Vice Chairman and top executives from TSMC were seen with Pelosi during the visit, so this could just be a beginning of a more fierce trade war between the CCP and Taiwan in which Apple and other US-based companies are caught in the middle.
Apple is already in talks with its Taiwanese partners and has requested that all labeling with “Made in Taiwan” or “Republic of China” be removed or replaced. It’s also no surprise that Ming-Chi Kuo’s sources claim that somne 6.1-inch iPhone 14 units will come out of Foxconn’s Indian factory. For the first time ever Apple is strongly diversifying its production.
The news comes at the worst possible time since the iPhone 14 is just around the corner and there are rumors going around that there are some quality production issues with the displays and the camera lenses of the iPhone 14 Pro Max.
