spaces & exchanges 3

  • the iPhone project lasted for (a duré) 6 weeks.
Wrong : line 11, "for over two years, the company had been working on a project code named Purple 2, [...] reimagin[ing] the cellphone?"
  • the components in the iphone came from many different countries.
Right : line 14, "The answers [...] were found outside the USA, [...] all iPhones countain hundreds of parts, [...] 90 percent of which are manufactured abroad."
  • these components were assembled / put together in China
Right : lines 17-18, "And all of it is put together in China."
  • Steve Jobs made a test with an iPhone in his pocket
Right : line 3, "Mr Jobs held up his iPhone [...], tiny scratches marring its plastic screen [...], people will carry [it] in their pocket."
  • S. Jobs demanded a glass screen.
Right : line 22, "Mr Jobs demanded a glass screens in 2007."
  • S. Jobs didn't want the screen to come from China, so he had it made in the USA.
Wrong
  • S. Jobs wanted to have the screen come from the USA, but it was too expensive.
Right : line 28-34, "The Chinese government had agreed to [help] the glass-cutting factory. [...] The Chinese plant got the job."
  • This text is about the period before the iPhone was released.
Right : line 1, "In 2007, a little over a month before the iPhone was scheduled to appear in stores."

visiting Foxconn


Today we listened to a long video about Apple's biggest supplier (fournisseur), Foxconn. Foxconn is one of the most prestigious factories in China. This piece of news started with three thousand people who want to be employed there, to get a decent pay or to get some experience. Foxconn recruited / hired 80% of them. These new employees will be paid $1.70 an hour.
They can sleep in buildings near the factory, in 7 bed dorms (dormitories). Even if it seems shocking to us, for some of them, it's an improvement over their quality of life (the document also shows the typical house that they had back in their hometown), because they can be really poor.
Some people from the outside have never seen a device made in the Foxconn factories. 
In the document, the journalist tried and asked the employees whether they were happy (s'ils étaient heureux), but they seemed happy, working in that factory. Maybe they were lying to protect their jobs, or maybe the journalist was full of stereotypes. They only complained (to complain=se plaindre) about the dorms, the lack of light because of overgrown trees (des arbres trop grands) and the price of food.

To put it in a nutshell, the US journalist is looking for problems in the factory, but cannot find any : is it because Foxconn employees are not in fact unhappy ? That exploitation of Foxconn workers is a stereotype ? Or is it because Foxconn wanted to hide its horrible methods ?

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