“Previously in the ‘which manufacturer will Apple spend a lot of money with to supply chips for the new iPhone’ saga, Tim Cook decided to turn to TSMC for the fabrication of the A10 system-on-chip which is expected to lie at the heart of the iPhone 7 family,” Ewan Spence writes for Forbes. “Samsung and TSMC shared production duties on the A9 and while the two versions of the A9 had the same broad performance, it did lead to some in the geekerati focus on ‘good and bad‘ variants of the iPhone.”
“Apple has pre-emptively neutered these complaints being attached to the iPhone 7 family by going all-in with TSMC for the A10 chip. Every iPhone 7 is going to come with the same chipset,” Spence writes. “The loss of the A10 business will have a noticeable impact on Samsung’s revenue and profits.”
“It is now being reported that Apple has went [sic] one generation further, and TSMC will be the supplier of the A11,” Spence writes. “If Apple has locked Samsung out of the next iteration chips for the iPhone 8 (expected to launch in 2017 and stay in the portfolio for the regulation three years), that’s a big slice of revenue and profit that is being denied to the South Korean company.”
Here’s hoping Apple CEO Tim Cook plans to kick some Samsung ass someday, for a change, and is working very hard to alleviate, not maintain, or Jobs forbid, increase, Apple’s dependence on Samsung going forward. If not, perhaps Tim Cook, not to mention Apple shareholders, should “wake up.”
Here’s a question for Apple Inc. shareholders to ask their employee, Mr. Cook (tcook@apple.com):On which planet do companies get paid billions to stamp out parts for competitors’ products and then, once they’re assembled, turn around and repeatedly piss all over them while churning out an unending stream of knockoffs of the very products that they publicly denigrate?
(Obviously, and unfortunately, Mr. Cook thinks that planet is named “Earth.”)
Here’s a shorter question for Apple Inc. shareholders to ask their employee, Mr. Cook:WTF are you doing any business at all with Samsung?
Did Mr. Cook, operations genius, really get Apple so dependent on one company that Apple cannot live without them?
Samsung has been ripping off Apple for nearly half a decade now. How long, exactly, does it take to stop doing business with them? – MacDailyNews Take, April 26, 2012
—
You want to know what’s really unbelievable? That, after half a decade, at least, of Samsung’s slavish copying, Apple continues to do billions of dollars of business with Samsung. Apple, which has enough money to build or bankroll anything they want, like a chip fab, or a touch screen display factory, or anything they could ever need.
“Oh, you copied our iPhone, our iPod touch, our iOS home screen, our icons, and our Mac mini? Here’s another three endless German lawsuits and, oh yeah, by the way, a $10 billion contract for touch screens.”
Something just does not compute here. If you get mugged, do you buy the leather for a new wallet from your mugger while pressing charges? If you’re Tim Cook, you do.
Apple could have – and should have – dropped Samsung like a bad habit years ago. Not one red cent should be going from Apple to Samsung today. It’s a travesty. It’s poor planning. And it’s bad business. The only conclusion we can draw is that Tim Cook, operations genius, boxed Apple in and is now stuck; beholden to a den of thieves. That sort of “decision making” doesn’t bode well for Apple’s future. It really doesn’t.
Here’s the question Walt Mossberg should have asked Cook onstage at D10: “Excuse me, Tim, but WTF are you still doing any business at all with Samsung?”
Wouldn’t you love to hear the answer to that one? Walt could use Keynote to flash all of Samsung’s knockoffs of Apple’s designs on the big screen behind Tim while he sputtered and stammered.
Next shareholders’ meeting or conference call, somebody might want to ask Mr. Cook that one. – MacDailyNews Take, June 1, 2012
—
Better late than never! Go, Tim, go! – July 22, 2016
Meh, not really. Samsung isn’t going to feel this. If the leaks of the purported iPhone 7 are even close to reality, Apple won’t sell many of them, so it won’t hurt Samsung that much. I’m beginning to believe all the naysayers about the end of Apple. The company has been selling us repackaged, stagnant products for too long. The iPad Pro is absolutely outstanding hardware with absolutely lackluster software. No Pro specific enhancement in iOS 10? Where are all the accessories for the Smart Connector? A couple keyboards and exactly one dock from Logitech. I’m just not feeling it anymore, Apple. Releasing an iPhone 6sS just won’t do it. They won’t get my money this year. Maybe next.
“The company has been selling us repackaged, stagnant products for too long..”
OMG. You have been writing repackaged, stagnant comments for too long. Leave already and take your non Apple phone – don’t forget to pick up your malware on the way out.
Meh, yes really. Preferably you’ll move on and full-in on the clueless Fandroid doofus buyer camp and the John Dvorak school of hapless prognostication ability that explodes in your face. You’ve already made a great first step on that journey. Don’t let superior Apple quality hit you on the ass on the way out.
There was a time not so long ago when TSMC were unable to match Samsung, but they have continued to improve and are now able to beat Samsung at their own game.
For many years I have argued that taking away orders from Samsung does a relatively small amount of harm to Samsung, but the real damage to Samsung happens when Apple supports Samsung’s rivals to such an extent that they are able to eclipse Samsung. I’m delighted to see that we have seen that happen with TSMC.
Losing orders is one thing, but having a rival come from nowhere and overtake you is a significantly more serious threat.
Let’s be very clear about this. Until Apple could absolutely guarantee that TMSC would be able to manufacture enough chips to satisfy Apple needs for the iPhone, Samsung would always do some of the work.
Sure it is nice to get revenge on a competitor. But it is criminal to allow this to get in the way of doing business. If Apple had component supply issues with an iPhone launch you bet investors would be screaming for Cook’s head.
In manufacturing, having alternate suppliers is almost mandatory. Having TMSC being the only supplier for the most critical component is a big risk and Apple must be very confident of their capacity and capabilities.
This myth that you can just change chip an component suppliers with a flick of the wrist is so naive and ignorant (kind of sounds Trumpian, not to get political.) timelines, capital investment, technology investment and innovation are long, expensive and hard to achieve. Samsung happens to be be very good at chips and components. In the industry they are considered somewhere near the top or the topin several areas of technology. In some cases it’s not even close or there’s even no real competition. Yeah, right, Apple is going to cut off their nose to spite their customers experience. I don’t so…. It takes time to divest yourself from a bad business partnership and it’s clear apple is doing that slowly, carefully, strategically.
Re: MDN take from 2012. Like the shortsighted who to this day still say Apple should’ve dropped Samsung right away…
It took four years for Apple to feel confident that a competitor could finally take 100% of their AX processor business away from Samsung. FOUR YEARS.
Would you honestly have wanted Apple’s iDevices held back these last 4 years by slower chips, poorer yields and/or poorer QA by dropping Samsung right away on principle alone?
Correction: It took Tim Cook’s Apple FOUR YEARS. Tim’s Apple isn’t exactly known for speed. Steve Jobs made things happen. People of limited imagination like you only offer apologies for ineptitude.
Uhh, you should read the realtime version of Steve Jobs Apple and not the abridged. It took Steve YEARS to be able to do the things he wanted waiting for the technology to catch up to his liking. Same for Tim. No one’s sitting on their hands for nothing if they don’t have to. Speed is relative. You can’t conjure advanced components out of thin air.
Yeah, I’m sure Steve Jobs had a magic wand that would’ve made a competing foundry be able to punch out the same volume, quality, and speed of A-processors that Samsung was already doing a half decade ago. Yeah, it’s all Tim Cook’s fault that magic wand was lost when Steve Jobs left us.
People of limited intelligence like you only offer unrealistic fantasies because they have no understanding how The Real World works.
I think Apple reverse engineered a Samsung product and found Ax chip set cells in their silicon. This is much cheaper than a lawsuit and much more effective. AMD pulled the same thing on Intel. The anti-trust frenzy in PC business was so fervent that Intel had no choice but to slowly ween AMD out of their supply chain. Expect one full out Samsung Ax chipset clone before all is said and done.
I always understood that TSMC was setting up a brand new plant to manufacturer next generation higher tech A10 and A11 chips. It has taken a long time to come to fruition, as one would expect. And TSMC wouldn’t have done so, I reckon, unless they had an iron clad promise from Apple to buy from them if they could demonstrate delivery on time.
Hey MDN you forgot that nuclear mushroom cloud pic. This may have more of an impact than all the lawsuits. Way to go Apple and Tim!
Meh, not really. Samsung isn’t going to feel this. If the leaks of the purported iPhone 7 are even close to reality, Apple won’t sell many of them, so it won’t hurt Samsung that much. I’m beginning to believe all the naysayers about the end of Apple. The company has been selling us repackaged, stagnant products for too long. The iPad Pro is absolutely outstanding hardware with absolutely lackluster software. No Pro specific enhancement in iOS 10? Where are all the accessories for the Smart Connector? A couple keyboards and exactly one dock from Logitech. I’m just not feeling it anymore, Apple. Releasing an iPhone 6sS just won’t do it. They won’t get my money this year. Maybe next.
Lots of other computers and phones to choose from. So you’ll be fine.
Nice try.
“The company has been selling us repackaged, stagnant products for too long..”
OMG. You have been writing repackaged, stagnant comments for too long. Leave already and take your non Apple phone – don’t forget to pick up your malware on the way out.
Apple’s SoC production was one of the few cell phone related business that Samsung made good money on. They will most definitely “feel this”!
Meh, yes really. Preferably you’ll move on and full-in on the clueless Fandroid doofus buyer camp and the John Dvorak school of hapless prognostication ability that explodes in your face. You’ve already made a great first step on that journey. Don’t let superior Apple quality hit you on the ass on the way out.
“Apple won’t sell many of them” — ROTFLOL.
Those haters are always funny when they ‘speculate’
There was a time not so long ago when TSMC were unable to match Samsung, but they have continued to improve and are now able to beat Samsung at their own game.
For many years I have argued that taking away orders from Samsung does a relatively small amount of harm to Samsung, but the real damage to Samsung happens when Apple supports Samsung’s rivals to such an extent that they are able to eclipse Samsung. I’m delighted to see that we have seen that happen with TSMC.
Losing orders is one thing, but having a rival come from nowhere and overtake you is a significantly more serious threat.
I think it helps to be more competitive when your competitor isn’t looking over your ARM, or any other advanced Apple designed component.
Every time Apple used Samsung, they a look in before most of the other competition. Apple should be cutting them out.
Let’s be very clear about this. Until Apple could absolutely guarantee that TMSC would be able to manufacture enough chips to satisfy Apple needs for the iPhone, Samsung would always do some of the work.
Sure it is nice to get revenge on a competitor. But it is criminal to allow this to get in the way of doing business. If Apple had component supply issues with an iPhone launch you bet investors would be screaming for Cook’s head.
In manufacturing, having alternate suppliers is almost mandatory. Having TMSC being the only supplier for the most critical component is a big risk and Apple must be very confident of their capacity and capabilities.
This myth that you can just change chip an component suppliers with a flick of the wrist is so naive and ignorant (kind of sounds Trumpian, not to get political.) timelines, capital investment, technology investment and innovation are long, expensive and hard to achieve. Samsung happens to be be very good at chips and components. In the industry they are considered somewhere near the top or the topin several areas of technology. In some cases it’s not even close or there’s even no real competition. Yeah, right, Apple is going to cut off their nose to spite their customers experience. I don’t so…. It takes time to divest yourself from a bad business partnership and it’s clear apple is doing that slowly, carefully, strategically.
“Apple has went “???!!!
Yeah, journalism certainly ” has went” to shit .
Re: MDN take from 2012. Like the shortsighted who to this day still say Apple should’ve dropped Samsung right away…
It took four years for Apple to feel confident that a competitor could finally take 100% of their AX processor business away from Samsung. FOUR YEARS.
Would you honestly have wanted Apple’s iDevices held back these last 4 years by slower chips, poorer yields and/or poorer QA by dropping Samsung right away on principle alone?
Correction: It took Tim Cook’s Apple FOUR YEARS. Tim’s Apple isn’t exactly known for speed. Steve Jobs made things happen. People of limited imagination like you only offer apologies for ineptitude.
Uhh, you should read the realtime version of Steve Jobs Apple and not the abridged. It took Steve YEARS to be able to do the things he wanted waiting for the technology to catch up to his liking. Same for Tim. No one’s sitting on their hands for nothing if they don’t have to. Speed is relative. You can’t conjure advanced components out of thin air.
Yeah, I’m sure Steve Jobs had a magic wand that would’ve made a competing foundry be able to punch out the same volume, quality, and speed of A-processors that Samsung was already doing a half decade ago. Yeah, it’s all Tim Cook’s fault that magic wand was lost when Steve Jobs left us.
People of limited intelligence like you only offer unrealistic fantasies because they have no understanding how The Real World works.
I think Apple reverse engineered a Samsung product and found Ax chip set cells in their silicon. This is much cheaper than a lawsuit and much more effective. AMD pulled the same thing on Intel. The anti-trust frenzy in PC business was so fervent that Intel had no choice but to slowly ween AMD out of their supply chain. Expect one full out Samsung Ax chipset clone before all is said and done.
In light of current events and feelings this headline is poor.
Headline was obviously written before Angela Merkle’s latest import went off today in Munich.
I always understood that TSMC was setting up a brand new plant to manufacturer next generation higher tech A10 and A11 chips. It has taken a long time to come to fruition, as one would expect. And TSMC wouldn’t have done so, I reckon, unless they had an iron clad promise from Apple to buy from them if they could demonstrate delivery on time.
All good and deseved.
But as i have skways said…
The real crook is Google/Alphabet…
I’d like to see some major pain inflicted on them.
Too bad the only thing inflicted in them is billions and billions of your hard earned cash and online data.
I have assumed that Samsung is REALLY GOOD at producing those chips in large quantities – way better that the competition.