Better late than never. 
I’m glad to see the conversation moving back to Apple’s role and actions in all this. I really don’t like deleting posts, so I’ve been just sitting on the ones that have been marked as off-topic (and thus require another click to view) by various members of the community. In part that’s because I don’t mind an occasional off-topic comment as long as it doesn’t take the entire conversation down an off-topic path. If we can stay on topic, I’ll restore those hidden posts for posterity. If not, I’ll sweep through and delete ruthlessly.
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Apple’s response is appropriate and good. Great to see.
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I wonder how flights will be diverted in the coming days - not only around Ukraine but across the Pacific - a lot (or virtually all?) of Apple shipments to the US originated from China.
Screenshot of Flightradar24:
- Most of Apple products are assembled in factories in Guangdong.
- TSMC fabs are in Taiwan, and in particular Fab 18 (its 5nm facilities) is in Tainan.
- Some components are manufactured in Southeast Asia (primarily Malaysia and Singapore), but flights to these areas should not be affected.
- Shanghai and Incheon are major freight air hubs.
- Kamchatka Peninsula is Russian territory and hosts a number of military facilities, including a submarine base.
- Many freighter flights make a stop at Anchorage, AK en route to Lower 48.
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China - USA which is what most of our Apple products do will likely not be much affected.
But cargo between Asia and Europe is being affected big time. LH Cargo for example is seriously considering re-routing their freighters from FRA to Japan/Korea/China through ANC. That’s a massive 8,100 nm vs. what presently is 5,800 nm. A huge blow to their bottom line in a market already reeling from the high cost of Jet-A1. They could also circumnavigate via the Middle East, DBX or DOH for example. But it’s a similar detour, only slightly less at about an extra 2,200 nm.
It’s all been done before. During the cold war routes from Europe to Japan or Korea were much longer than they are/were until just last week. Perhaps we’ll now see returns to those routings of the 1980s and before.
I read that Finnair is taking a really hard hit. They made a good business out or their East Asia routes since HEL is pretty much exactly on the great circle between most wealthy Western European cities and Japan/Korea. But now that they have to somehow fly around Russia they lose both their time and cost advantage. They just canceled all their flights to NRT, KIX, PVG, and INC through at least next week. Yikes.
I also just read a piece on Russian jets. Apparently, 80% of the commercial jet fleet in Russia is leased and a lot of the lessors are now asking for their kit back since Russia will have a hard time paying for them. Problem is, it’s not trivial getting jets out of Russia anymore. There’s an Aeroflot A320 blocked in GVA right now. Even though the Swiss left their air space open to Russia longer than the rest of the EU, GVA is surrounded by EU states. No way to fly that little 'bus back to Russia. I wonder what GVA charges for ramp storage these days. That’s going to be a pretty penny for an airline that has exceedingly zero access to USD. Oh well, the Swiss can always impound and sell off that jet to pay off its storage fees. 
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I think it’s all but certain that Putin will be gone, eventually. As everything Russia plays out, a bigger focus will have to be on China. Apple, like so many international companies, is smack in the middle of this and it did the right thing concerning Russia. I do not believe Tim Cook felt he had a choice in suspending business with Russia. China will be massively tougher for Apple and us. All should be preparing for far more trouble from China, and lowering critical business (dependence) is the first thing we need to do. So far, be it governments, businesses, and us, we are too slow to act.
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I agree with that. China is much harder to isolate. When they can shut down Apple’s factories and freeze Apple’s assets in country, that’s a massive threat. Considering the trajectory China has been on, especially under Xi, I’m still amazed not more companies like Apple are divesting at a faster rate, or at least building up alternate capacity. I mean, they certainly are but considering the severity of the threat, I guess I’m surprised they’re not doing it faster.
Here in the US people have been quick to point to Germany and accuse them of being too soft on Putin because of 50% of their natural gas imported from Russia etc. Well, if it were us and China, we’d be talking about potentially jeopardizing the production of American mega businesses like Apple, I’m all but certain we’d be no less timid than Germany was now. In fact, possibly hardly noticed here in the States, Germany basically redefined its entire foreign and defense policy that it’s been following since after WW2 within essentially 3 days. When that day comes with China, I doubt we in the US will be that quick to react. I’d hope we’d be, but looking at all our quibbling and bickering in DC and the farce that is our two-party zero-sum game system, I highly doubt it. As always, I hope to be wrong and proven too pessimistic by unfolding reality.
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How Apple could do something for Ukraine and at the same time fulfill a year-old promise to Mac users worldwide.
Absolutely – one of the challenges though, is that you don’t want to be a piece of equipment on the battlefield emitting radiation too obviously as that’s a super easy way to target something.
The other part of this is that it’s an asymmetric advantage for the Ukrainians. The Russian army is likely to already have extensive comms network, down to the squad level. The UKR army may not, and having that capability levels things a bit with the Russians.
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There’s a service/app called Flightradar24 that shows this sort of thing in real time. @peternlewis turned me on to it when we were in London several years ago for a wedding—it’s fascinating to be able to identify the planes overhead. But you can also zoom around the world to see where planes are—and aren’t—flying. Ukraine is conspicuously empty of civilian air traffic and has been since the start.
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Jason just wrote about how China is different from Russia over at Macworld.
I just read that Ukraine is allowing Russian POWs to call their families back in Russia. I don’t know if it is via Ukraine’s cellular network or landline nor, if the former, using the POW’s own phones. Smart move on Ukraine’s part.
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There’s no technical reason why not. Every mobile device’s SIM card contains many different identifiers that can be used to identify the network(s) that own its account. An operator could easily (if allowed by law, of course) configure a network to refuse connections by cards that identify as Russian (or any other undesirable country).
But it may not be desirable to do so. People often have SIM cards whose provisioning doesn’t always correspond to their home country. A mistake here could lock out people you definitely don’t want to cut off from the network.
For example, go a a page like this one and type in the number printed on your SIM card (the “ICCID” - Integrated Circuit Card Identifier), it will tell you information about the card. And it may not be what you thought.
In my case, when entered the number on the card from my Verizon iPhone 4s (CDMA, with a SIM for roaming onto GSM networks), the card identified itself as Vodafone, Netherlands. This makes sense, because the SIM isn’t used in the US and Vodafone is (or at least was, at the time) a part of Verizon. But someone trying to identify my country of origin from that number would get incorrect information.
Similarly, if I enter the number on the card from my old Verizon iPhone 6+ (or the one on my new iPhone 13), it decodes to four networks in three countries: SSi Connexions in Canada, Choice Phone in Guam, Choice Wireless/AmeriLink in the US and Verizon Wireless in the US.
It would not surprise me if at least some Ukranian operators issue SIM cards that identify with multiple operators, possibly including a Russian one, depending on what kind of partnership agreements the operators had established with each other.
I’ve heard from another Ukrainian company: Unclutter. They make a neat little app for storing notes and files and clipboards.
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For happier occasions when I ordered items online, sometimes I used Flightradar24 and Flightaware coupled with tracking status to guess which flight the shipments were on. Always amazed me how UPS/FedEx/DHL coordinate their flights, and I can travel vicariously during the pandemic - it’s surprising to see some of the routes.
Or maybe not. Some feel it may be against Article 12 of the Genova Conventions https://www.icrc.org/en/doc/assets/files/publications/icrc-002-0173.pdf
Mac software developer Many Tricks is running a 50% off sale to benefit Ukraine.
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How so? That article requires humane care and treatment of wounded and sick POWs. Allowing the POWs to contact their families back in Russia sounds like humane care of them. Unless they are not allowed to use iPhones; only Android phones - THAT would definitely be inhumane!
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Russian iOS users would be less affected if there was a alternative App Store, or a sideloading option.