For a while now, Apple has been under fire over the working conditions at its Chinese suppliers, particularly Foxconn. For the sake of transparency, Apple and Foxconn recently allowed a reporter to take a sneak peek into one of Foxconn's factories and see how the iPad gets built.

Public radio journalist Rob Schmitz, who exposed Mike Daisey's theatrical fabrications and exaggerations regarding working conditions at Apple's Chinese suppliers, has visited one of Foxconn's factories and even produced a video to give everyone an inside look at how the iPad is built in China. Schmitz is the Bureau Chief of Marketplace Shanghai.

According to American Public Media's Marketplace, Schmitz is only the second reporter to be granted access to Apple's outsourced manufacturing facilities. Back in February, NBC also gained access for an NBC Nightline report. In addition to the video footage, Marketplace also broadcast an audio report on the Foxconn factory, as well as a transcript of the report.

Detailed Reports

Since exposing Daisey's theatrical portrayal of working conditions last month, Schmitz has interviewed both workers and their supervisors and detailed his own findings of factory conditions in China, and published a series of reports on the matter.

"The first misconception I had about Foxconn's Longhua facility in the city of Shenzhen was that I've always called it a 'factory' -technically, it is," wrote Schmitz. "But after you enter the gates and walk around, you quickly realize that it's also a city - 240,000 people work there. Nearly 50,000 of them live on campus in shared dorm rooms."

Sensationalized Fiction

Schmitz acknowledged that working conditions in the factory involve long hours and tedious work, but he deems reports of inhuman sweatshop conditions as sensationalized fiction. "There's a main drag lined on both sides with fast-food restaurants, banks, cafes, tennis courts, a gym, two enormous swimming pools, and a bright green Astroturf soccer stadium smack-dab in the middle of campus," he adds. "There's a radio station - Voice of Foxconn - and a television news station. Longhua even has its own fire department, located right on main street."

In a video tour posted on Wednesday, April 11, Schmitz revealed an exclusive look into Foxconn's factory, picturing how iPads are built and tested. The video tour features everything from the construction of the iPad's motherboard to the installation of its touchscreen and testing of each device's gyroscope. A job at the factory pays $14 a day, still the video shows people lined up outside the factory, hoping to be hired.

'The Truth is Much More Complicated'

"There have been poisoned workers, and Apple's own audits have caught underage workers at factories making Apple products, but here's another fact that also might be missing from this whole conversation: from what we know these are rare occurrences in Apple's supply chain," Schmitz explains. "Life at factories that make Apple products is not all hunky-dory, but the truth is much more complicated than how Daisey's portrayed the situation."

Check out the video below:

(reported by Alexandra Burlacu, edited by Surojit Chatterjee)