According to The Verge, the tech giant has debated adding health-related functions to its AirPods for years.

According to Mark Gurman of Bloomberg, this is now finally taking place.

In the next year or two, the iPhone manufacturer “may improve the AirPods to become a health tool,” and they “could even come with the capacity to receive hearing data of some form,” Mark Gurman claims.

It was revealed in 2020 that the tech giant intended to include ambient light sensors in the subsequent iterations of the AirPods to track information like blood oxygen saturation and pulse rate.

Another rumour from later in 2021 stated that the business was looking towards new health-related capabilities for its AirPods.

Nevertheless, in 2023 January, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said that the tech giant will begin shipping new AirPods Max, which might cost USD 99, in the second half of 2019 or the first part of 2025.

Meanwhile, photos from a Twitter account named MrWhite128 reportedly showed ribbon cables that look like they’d fit perfectly in a set of eye-shaped goggles, thus giving rise to chats that the tech community might have just witnessed the looks of cables and sensors for Apple’s upcoming and much-rumoured virtual/ augmented reality headset.

The account also shared pictures of a cable that has three bulbous sections, which, for The Verge, could be some sort of sensor/camera array. The headset is rumoured to have colour-passthrough capabilities that let the users see the real world outside of it, similar to the Meta Quest.

There are rumours that Apple may announce the launch of the interactive headset at the 2023 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) and release it before the end of the year.

These developments come at a time when the tech giant is facing a talent exodus at the leadership level. Since the second half of 2022, Apple has lost about a dozen high-ranking executives, as per media reports.

Most of these people carried the title of vice-president, which is just below the senior vice-president level that reports to the company CEO Tim Cook. They are some of the most important figures at Apple, responsible for the daily operations of many core functions.

The departures included vice-presidents overseeing Apple’s fields like industrial design, the online store, information systems, cloud efforts, aspects of hardware and software engineering, privacy matters, sales in emerging markets, subscription services and procurement. In total, close to 12 key officials have left the company so far.

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However, the US-China trade conflict has forced many businesses to reevaluate their global supply chains. In the next five years, according to a recent study by the McKinsey Worldwide Institute, businesses may move a quarter of their global product sourcing to new countries. This tendency is being further accelerated by threats from the climate, cyberattacks, and the continuing pandemic. An increasing number of countries are optimistic that they might dethrone China as the world’s next major manufacturing hub in this rocky trade environment.

Vietnam
By absorbing a large portion of the manufacturing capacity that China lost, Vietnam has so far been one of the biggest gainers of the US-China trade war.

Vietnam boasts progressively liberalised trade and investment rules that make it an attractive location for firms wishing to diversify out of China, in addition to having affordable labour and stable politics. Since tensions between the two powers deteriorated, several of the greatest names in technology moved some of their businesses to Vietnam.

Early in May 2020, Apple declared it would make around 30% of its AirPods in Vietnam rather than China for the following three months.

Mexico
Mexico is another country that has gained from the US-China trade war. The investment firm Nomura noted in a report that Mexico, which opened six new factories in multiple industries between April 2018 and August 2019, could emerge as a top choice for US businesses.

Additionally, a number of businesses are presently thinking about moving their operations to Mexico, including the Taiwanese manufacturers Foxconn and Pegatron, which are known as Apple contractors.

As US businesses adopt “near-shoring,” Mexico’s proximity to the US represents a significant benefit. To encourage businesses to relocate production facilities from Asia to the US, Latin America, and the Caribbean, the US administration is looking at financial incentives.

India
India has significantly increased its efforts in recent years to attract manufacturing investments into the country. The “Made in India” project of PM Narendra Modi aims to assist India in displacing China as a centre of the world’s manufacturing.

The promotion of the largest smartphone manufacturers in the world to manufacture in India is a key component of this strategy. India started a USD 6.6 billion incentive scheme in June of this year to increase the production of electronics there.

However, the trade battle has so far only yielded small benefits for the country. Analysts attribute this to India’s severe regulatory environment. On the FDI Regulatory Restrictiveness Index, India ranks 62nd out of 70 countries.

Malaysia
The Malaysian island of Penang witnessed a spike in foreign investment between 2018 and 2019. According to the Malaysian Investment Development Authority, the US contributed significantly to this, spending USD 5.9 billion in Malaysia in the first nine months of 2019, an increase from USD 889 million the year prior.

A new drive assembly and test facility would cost RM1.5 billion (USD 364.5 million) over five years, according to a statement from US chipmaker Micron Technology.

Malaysia, however, has been severely impacted by China’s loss of trade. Up to 60% of the materials and components used by Penang’s tech companies come from China.

Singapore
Over the last few years, Singapore’s ability to manufacture goods has somewhat diminished. While manufacturing accounts for roughly 30% of the GDPs of Taiwan and South Korea, it accounts for only 19% of the GDP in Singapore.

The trade conflict and the coronavirus outbreak might alter this. Singapore is in a good position to take advantage of this potential as a global hub with open investment and trade regulations and a track record of steady economic growth.

Singapore, like Malaysia, is coping with the consequences of the decline in Chinese demand, though. The trade war has caused the export-dependent nation’s industrial output to plummet, an indication that the country could gain from being more independent of China.

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