Hon Hai Precision Industry, a recruiting firm for tech professionals in China, is reportedly hiring more than 100,000 new employees to work on the iPhone 6.
It's being called the "largest single hiring spree in China" for Hon Hai and its clients, Foxconn and Pegatron. Other firms may be involved in recruitment efforts as well.
According to Reuters, longtime Apple manufacturing partner Foxconn is expected to produce 70 percent of the new iPhones, while Pegatron will make the rest. It's unknown how many new hires Foxconn is adding, but Pegatron is expanding its workforce by 30 percent.
Apple pundits and fans have been watching for this development and know all too well what it means. Hiring sprees of this magnitude can mean only one thing: Apple is getting ready to place orders for production of its next iPhone. Foxconn and Pegatron will have employees working around the clock to meet the demand and assemble the precision components that will make up the device that's expected to be called iPhone 6.
Leaked images and professionally made renders based on the device's presumed specs indicate the next iPhone will come in two screen sizes -- a 4.7-inch phone and a 5.5-inch model, Apple's first-ever oversized phone -- will be impossibly thin, and will have a special focus on health-related features. Some reports claim the two models will not release at the same time, but as with all things Apple, no one outside Cupertino really knows for sure. Rumors have also suggested Apple plans to launch the iPhone 6 this fall, which puts it just in time for holiday shopping. This hiring news would appear to confirm that timeframe.
Apple, as ever, has refused to comment on Reuters' Hon Hai report, which originated with the Economic Daily News out of Taiwan.
In related news, a new set of photos of a purportedly legitimate iPhone 6 mockup has been leaked on image-sharing site Imgur. While it's impossible to verify their authenticity, they appear to show the 4.7-inch iPhone 6 with an ultrathin chassis and both black and white frames.
In May 2014, Apple introduced iOS 8, the next version of the mobile operating system that powers iPhone, iPad, and iPod devices. Most of the technology world is watching for Apple's forthcoming debut in the wearables industry, the wristband device known as iWatch. The latest reports suggest that the iWatch will debut ahead of the new iPhones and iPads, possibly at a separate event in September.
