Foxconn to Employ Robots to Assist with iPhone 6 Assembly; New Design Renders Show Gold, Gray and Silver iPhone 6

With iPhone 6 release date left hanging in the air between Sept 12, Sept 19 and Sept 25, Apple (via Foxconn) will be employing robots to assist in assembling the upcoming iPhone 6. Terry Gou, CEO of Foxconn said earlier in a shareholder meeting that the company is planning to improve the assembly process by employing robots instead of human. Terry also said that Apple will be the first company to experience the new process of assembly by robots for its iPhone 6, says MacRumors.

The robots, also known as "Foxbots," will have the ability to assemble approximately 30,000 iPhone 6 smartphone units. There are a total of 10,000 robots planned for iPhone 6 assembly. Also the price of "Foxbot" would be roughly between $20,000 and $25,000.

Terry also revealed that the robotic assembly of devices are undergoing their final testing phase and all 10,000 planned robots will be deployed to work shortly. It is worth noting that, Foxconn and Apple's partnership have stayed solid over the years. And Foxconn is Apple's primary vendor for all its devices.

Interestingly, the idea to employ robots for the assembly of devices is not new to Foxconn. During 2011, Foxconn infamously announced that the company would be positioning 1 million robots in the near future, by replacing its workers. Back then, the company did not reveal the number of workers that will be losing the jobs to robots.

However, this worrisome trend doesn't stop here. In another exercise to reduce manpower, Apple is planning to automate the iPhone battery production process as well.

Nevertheless, with Apple's iPhone 6 release date approaching, Foxconn has bolstered up its production efforts. The company has recruited 100,000 new workers to assist in assembling the upcoming iPhone 6. But there is no information available right now to ascertain to what extent employing robots will affect the manual labourers in the future.

New iPhone 6 Renders

Last week, a Japanese portal named Nikkei revealed that the antennae lines from the recently leaked iPhone 6 images are nothing but placeholders for glass inserts that is prevalent in iPhone 5 series of phones. Taking this new information into account, designers Tomas Moyano and Nicolàs Aichino have come up with brand new iPhone 6 renders in gold, space gray and silver shades.

Interested readers can check out the iPhone 6 renders from TheTechBlock.

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