Apple to produce one million face shields for health workers per week

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) wishes to contribute further to the global battle against the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic. In a video statement on Sunday, the iPhone maker’s CEO, Time Cook, announced that the company plans on taking the responsibility of producing face shields for the healthcare workers in the United States. Cook also highlighted that the company has an initial target of producing 1 million face shields every week. According to Apple’s announcement: “We’ve launched a company-wide effort, bringing together product designers, engineering, operations, and packaging teams, and our suppliers to design, produce, and ship face shields for health workers. Our shipment was delivered to Kaiser hospital facilities in the Santa Clara Valley this past week and the feedback from doctors was very positive.”

Apple’s Face Shields Will Take 2 Minutes To Assemble

Cook also highlighted in the video that the U.S tech giant is designing the face shields in consideration of efficiency. Assembly of Apple’s shield will reportedly take two minutes and 100 of them will be able to be packaged in a single box. Healthcare professionals in the U.S have expressed concerns on numerous occasions that serving the community that is under the grasp of the flu-like virus without an adequate supply of personal protective equipment puts them at an exponentially higher risk of contracting the virus. As per Cook’s statement, Apple had previously donated 20 million N95 filtering masks to the healthcare organizations in need of such respirators. With its pledge to design 1 million face shields per week for the healthcare workers, it intends to further enhance the safety of the frontline soldiers against the Coronavirus pandemic. In a statement last week, Apple announced an extension on the shutdown of its retail stores except for the ones in mainland China for an indefinite period. The corporate employees of the technology company at its California headquarters, on the other hand, are currently relying on the work from home arrangements to sustain the essential operations. Apple had also highlighted that all of its regional locations will resume business based on the latest guidance from the public health professionals and the local governments at large.

Apple Acquires Voysis To Improve Digital Assistance

In separate news, Apple Inc. recently acquired Ireland-based artificial intelligence startup, Voysis, that aims to improve digital voice assistants and enhance the AI’s capacity to comprehend the natural language of the people. Apple is expected to integrate the platform with Siri targeted at upgrading the overall user experience. Apple Inc. also acquired the popular weather app, Dark Sky, in the past week.