Apple to ship 1 million masks per week during coronavirus crisis
Yahoo Finance’s Alexis Christoforous, Brian Sozzi and Dan Howley discuss Apple’s decision to produce face shields to help fight the coronavirus pandemic.
Video Transcript
ALEXIS CHRISTOPHOROUS: Apple is doing what it can in the fight against COVID-19. Apple's CEO, Tim Cook, took to Twitter to say that the company is now refocusing its resources to make masks and face shields for health care workers in the US. And I believe some of them have already shipped. Let's check in with Dan Howley, our tech editor for more on this story. Hey. Good morning, Dan.
DAN HOWLEY: Hi. How are you doing? Yes, Tim Cook has said yesterday that they're going to be delivering originally 10 million face masks throughout the country. Now they're saying that they're going to do 20 million face masks. And in addition to that, they're working with Apple's design teams as well as distributors in the US and in China to help produce face shields. They're plastic shields that go over your face, designed to be one size fits all, basically. They're adjustable, and they'll have straps in the back. And that'll help prevent any kind of, I guess, droplets coming at health care workers.
And this is something that they're going to be producing and then delivering a million a week. And they're already starting to do that. They delivered it to the Kaiser medical centers in Santa Clara. And that was something that they had done already, said they got great feedback. So they're going to continue to do that. So obviously, Apple really putting its money where its mouth is when it comes to helping with this fight against COVID-19 and coronavirus.
ALEXIS CHRISTOPHOROUS: And Dan, I know that there's also a rumor going on out there that Apple is actually working on a new iPhone. They want to release it soon. What do you know?
DAN HOWLEY: Yeah. This is supposed to be that low-cost iPhone that we originally thought was going to launch back in March. It's going to be called the iPhone SE, according to reports, and it'll be based on the iPhone 8, so similar to the original SE. It'll be kind of an older design, but it should have the guts of the current phones.
That means, though, it won't have face ID. It'll still have a fingerprint reader, supposedly. It won't have an OLED display. It'll have an LED display. But it'll still be a retina panel, so it will have great resolution. So this will likely be a lower-cost device meant to get entry-level users in, thinking international market. They're trying to grow a lot in China-- sorry-- India, and that would be a great place for them right now. So that kind of phone would be perfect for them.
ALEXIS CHRISTOPHOROUS: All right. Dan Howley, only editor, thank you.
