In 2011, pitching for approval for Apple’s new headquarters in what was his last public appearance, Steve Jobs told city councillors in Cupertino, California, that the company had “a shot at building the best office building in the world”. Opened in 2017, Apple Park is a circular temple of high technology. It nods to the perfectionism of the company’s founder, from its integrated door handles to the distressed-stone cladding of its yoga room and its tree-filled inner-ring park.
It is a long way from this Silicon Valley palace to workers’ cramped living quarters in “iPhone City” in Zhengzhou, the Chinese factory town that earned notoriety a year ago when inhabitants protested at Covid-19 curbs. Yet Foxconn, the biggest iPhone-maker, is now replicating this model in India as it seeks to house tens of thousands of workers serving the Apple supply chain.