After years of manufacturing its popular products abroad, plans to bring production for one if its Mac computer lines to the United States next year, company CEO Tim Cook revealed in an interview with NBC News.
In the midst of a withering political debate in the United States about the toll that outsourcing is taking on domestic workers, Cook told NBC's "Rock Center" news magazine that his company has been "working for years on doing more and more in the United States."
As a result, the tech giant plans to relocate production of one of its Mac lines to the United States in 2013. However, Cook remained vague which of the company's five different versions of its Mac hardware would ultimately make the leap across the globe.
Cook's comments effectively confirmed a report from earlier this week. The iFixit website disassembled a new Apple iMac, discovering a prominently displayed stamp that said "Designed by Apple in California. Assembled in the USA." Those fixtures normally say computers are assembled in China. (Read more: Apple Assembling iMacs in US?)
Apple's manufacturing process has come under increasing scrutiny amid unflattering headlines about Foxconn, the Taiwan-based contract manufacturer that makes products for Apple. Foxconn's have been undermined by reports of worker unrest and poor working conditions.
Separately, Cook told Bloomberg Businessweek that Apple will spend $100 million to move production of the iMac line to the U.S. from China.