
Japanese ink supplier Seiko Advance produces colors for Apple’s iPhones - MrJagil
https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Technology/Apple-ink-supplier-in-Japan-makes-mark-with-iPhone-11-Pro-colors
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9nGQluzmnq3M
Despite the apparent similarity in English, and that they both now use the
kanakana セイコー in their official names, it appears that this Seiko (正興, "revive
justice") has nothing to do with the far larger Seiko (精工, "qualify craft")
group of watches, Epson printers etc fame.

[http://www.seikoadvance.co.jp/company/profile.php](http://www.seikoadvance.co.jp/company/profile.php)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seiko#History_and_development](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seiko#History_and_development)

~~~
desdiv
On a related note, the Mitsubishi Group is a huge conglomerate that makes
everything from cars to fighter jets to nuclear plants. Mitsubishi pens also
dominate the stationery market, and I just assumed that it was part of the
group. But it turns out the pen maker is actually unrelated to the
conglomerate[0].

To add to the confusion, both the pen maker and the conglomerate have
identical English names, Japanese kanjis, and even share the same three-red-
diamonds logo.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uni-
ball](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uni-ball)

~~~
kd5bjo
At some point, the company was renamed from Masaki to Mitsubishi, and the logo
similarity can’t be an accident. They may not be officially related, but
there’s almost certainly an interesting history between the two companies.

~~~
rtpg
It’s likely a similar story to Mitsui, where it’s actually just a huge family
and people use their name to increase trust.

EDIT: turns out both companies came to this logo independently. The pen
company got to it first, and the Mitsubishi Group and the pen company decided
to allow mutual usage due to non-competing business areas.

[https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%B9%E3%83%AA%E3%83%BC%E3...](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%B9%E3%83%AA%E3%83%BC%E3%83%80%E3%82%A4%E3%83%A4)

^ here’s some more info for Japanese speakers. Basically both companies
derived their logo from various family crests and it’s a pretty common shape
so it ended up like this

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saagarjha
An interesting topic for Tim Cook to tweet about. Perhaps he’s trying to
emphasize their use of non-Chinese companies in their manufacturing process?

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utopian3
Sometimes a "public reference" is part of an enterprise's contractual
negotiation. They can then use this (Tim Cook's visit + quote) to garner
future sales.

~~~
saagarjha
Tim Cook is a very private person, and he puts a lot of work into maintaining
his public persona. Every word that he says publicly is vetted and checked to
make sure that it aligns with his and Apple’s position on whatever the
relevant topics might be. I doubt that a small supplier in Japan would make
them reconsider that policy.

~~~
Klonoar
Uhhhhh... no.

Having worked with Apple in Japan directly (not just engineering related work,
but having worked with former Apple Japan execs), I can tell you that the
relationships they hold with companies over there are valued internally. It's
part of the culture, for better or for worse.

I can't state for certain whether it matters in the context of Cook's Tweet,
but it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest either. Don't be so quick to cast
it aside. ;P

~~~
saagarjha
Of course they are, I’m not saying they’re not. But that doesn’t mean Tim Cook
doesn’t have a reason behind his tweets. (Note that I’m not saying this is a
bad thing; it’s just that if they have anything to do with Apple they always
align with something that the company would like to comment on, be it
education or the environment or immigration policy.)

~~~
jjeaff
I see no reason a tweet like that couldn't be a mutually beneficial one. Seiko
gets the shout-out and in exchange apple gets a better deal and also
telegraphs a little tidbit that shows thought and quality that go into Apple
products.

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dsalzman
I love mittlestand companies like this. Global, highly specialized, and all
about product quality and customer service.

~~~
rhizome
Thanks for the TIL word!

~~~
Kyro38
And of course it's a german word. These companies are the strength of the
german industry !

~~~
dmix
And the driving force of capitalism, megacorps only represent about 1% of
companies and ~20% of employment (minimum wage jobs are also a very small
percentage of all jobs despite the constant attention it gets).

SMB are the real business world and where the majority of upward mobility is.
Sadly most critiques of markets are hyper focused on the mega corps and policy
gets made which only considers the big bad guys, which squeezes out the
smaller firms as side effects of otherwise well intentioned policy.

The rate of people starting new businesses has been declining lately and it’s
concerning. Megacorps dominating absolutely everything is a big part of
dystopian fiction for a good reason.

~~~
toyg
I agree, but part of the reason is that such small businesses consistently
fail to differentiate their policy objectives from the ones of megacorps. If I
give a tax breaks to companies, megacorps will benefit disproportionately more
than SMBs, but SMBs oppose thresholds and caps because they “discourage
growth” and “increase red tape”. What is a legislator going to do?

SMBs in many ways act as “temporarily embarrassed megacorps” and hence reap
what they sow.

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threeseed
Link to the tweet from Tim Cook:

[https://twitter.com/tim_cook/status/1204212048139182080](https://twitter.com/tim_cook/status/1204212048139182080)

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drfuchs
As a consumer-products company, color is something Apple has long been
obsessed about. The highlight of Steve Jobs' intro of the multi-color iMac G3
in 1999 was his comment about their colors: "Don't you just wanna lick 'em?"
(IIRC). See also, from 6 years ago: [https://www.cultofmac.com/243579/how-
apples-design-team-choo...](https://www.cultofmac.com/243579/how-apples-
design-team-chooses-colors/)

~~~
paggle
Sometimes it baffles me, the amount of sound and fury regarding the rose gold
iPhone etc. For me it’s a utilitarian device but I know it’s not that for
everyone.

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mc32
Although the article itself refers to the substance as ink, it’s usually
called coating(s).

~~~
radeklew
Could it be called an ink coating? My understanding is that the distinction
between ink and pigment is that ink is a solution while pigment is a
suspension, can there be both kinds of coatings? or is it a meaningless
distinction to draw in this context?

Sorry to barrage you with these questions if you don't know, but you brought
up a pretty fine point so you seem knowledgeable about this :)

~~~
mc32
I'm no expert but in industry (and it may differ from company to company)
coatings is mostly paints and inks are separate. Inks usually permeate (and
add coloration to) a medium while coatings/paints bind and coat (to) a medium.

~~~
jbay808
Anodized aluminum forms a porous surface that is dyed with ink to colour it,
if I recall correctly.

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Animats
Is that olive drab, like the military uses?

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johnzim
It's actually a really nice greyish-green colour. Not as drab as you'd think
thanks to the way light diffuses through the glass

With the dark green case, it has a VERY strong Newton MessagePad vibe which I
love (having been a very happy Newton user during its twilight years.)

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paganel
So I guess bike-shedding has now become mainstream, seeing that the CEO of the
second-largest company on the planet has mentioned the color of one of his
company's products as a thing to be amazed about.

~~~
paggle
Bike-shedding is effort wasted on things that are irrelevant, like if an
electronics startup paid this much attention to color. In Apple’s position as
a fashion company as much as a tech company, and at Apple’s scale, they can
and do invest hundreds of people’s time in making sure that the paint jobs are
as good as they can get them.

~~~
paganel
I was still looking at Apple as mainly a tech company, the “style” thing I
reguarded as a distraction. We’ll see if they’re be able to keep their current
valuation by ignoring their tech roots. And yes, I am bitter because just the
other day an iPhone of our family experienced the infamous “white screen of
death” for not having sufficient storage space left (it happened on a
restart), the phone is one-year old. I hadn’t seen such low quality in a mass-
produced OS since the days of Windows Me and Windows 2000.

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DaiPlusPlus
> Windows 2000

I urge you to reconsider.

~~~
paganel
That was the last OS I used for which the acceptable troubleshooting solution
was to “format the disk”. 20 years later and I came to the same point with
this iPhone 7, thought that we had left that behind us. And I can’t even do it
myself, I have to wait for the local Apple service store to open, which it
won’t until January 6th (the phone broke down on December 27th). But hurray!
for the new color, I guess.

