The secret lives of iPhone factory workers, this week on The CultCast

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This week: an iPhone factory mole tells all.
This week: an iPhone factory mole tells all.

This week on The CultCast: Official new Nvidia drivers make your Mac compatible with the best GPUs on the market! Plus: A mole gives us our best look yet at what it’s really like to work in an iPhone factory; Apple’s working on a “breakthrough” diabetes treatment with the Apple Watch; and the saga of Ron Wayne, the forgotten Apple co-founder who traded his $22 billion of Apple stock for just $800.

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Episode

CultCast #279 – Undercover in an iPhone production factory! Subscribe on iTunes

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This week’s links

NVIDIA releases Mac drivers for Pascal graphics cards

  • NVIDIA released new drivers that make its Pascal graphics cards compatible with a Mac.
  • The drivers support all 10 Series GPUs, including the GTX 1050 through GTX 1080 Ti, and the newly announced GTX Titan Xp.
  • Until now, you had to settle for older 9 Series cards.
  • Now the newest cards, from the GTX 950 to the GTX Titan Xp, are supported.

Undercover in an iPhone factory: What it’s really like to work in a Chinese mega-factory, according to a student who spent 6 weeks there

Pegatron mole describes ‘torture’ of working at iPhone factory

Today in Apple history: Apple co-founder quits and cashes in his stake for $800

  • In Apple lore, Ron Wayne is the man who threw away the winning lottery ticket.
  • It’s April 12, 1976: Apple’s third co-founder, a former Atari colleague of Steve Wozniak’s named Ron Wayne, is cashing in his 10 percent of Apple shares for $800.
  • Hell of a nice guy.
  • Drew Apple’s original logo.
  • Wayne also wrote up the first contract in Apple’s history, solidifying what all three co-founders would do. Wozniak was to be in charge of electrical engineering, Jobs was responsible for marketing, and Wayne would oversee mechanical engineering and documentation.
  • “I was 40 and these kids were in their 20s,” Wayne told Cult of Mac, referring to Wozniak and Jobs. “They were whirlwinds — it was like having a tiger by the tail. If I had stayed with Apple I probably would have wound up the richest man in the cemetery.”
  • “He was a very focused fellow,” Wayne said. “You never wanted to be between him and where he wanted to go, or you’d find footprints on your forehead. To put it simply, if you had your choice between Steve Jobs and an ice cube, you’d nuzzle up to the ice cube for warmth. But that’s what it took for him to turn Apple into what it became.”
  • When asked about passing on Apple, he said: “Just pick yourself up and move on. I didn’t want to waste my tomorrows bemoaning my yesterdays.”
  • Today, Wayne resides in a $150,000 house in Pahrump, Nevada, an unincorporated town about 16 miles west of Las Vegas. Aged 80, he lives on his Social Security checks and money made selling rare coins and stamps on the internet.

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