“Apple has bought the company that many analysts say helped make the brain in the iPad tablet, people familiar with the deal said Tuesday,” Ashlee Vance and Brad Stone report for The New York Times.
“Apple has finalized a deal to acquire a small chip company called Intrinsity, Apple confirmed,” Vance and Stone report. “Intrinsity, of Austin, Tex., made a name for itself by creating a fast chip for mobile devices in cooperation with Samsung, both a partner and competitor to Apple. Many experts in the chip industry have speculated that Apple relied on Intrinsity’s chip as the basis for the main engine behind its new iPad… Intrinsity’s Hummingbird product is thought to be the main computational engine behind the A4.”
“‘Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we do not comment on our purpose or plans,’ said Steve Dowling, a spokesman at Apple,” Vance and Stone report. “Tom R. Halfhill, an analyst with Microprocessor Report, said he believed the acquisition price was $121 million.”
Full article here.
Where are those who said this would never happen in a million years?
Wow, MDN has sunk to a new low with these ads.
Targeted, quality acquisitions with direct application to Apple’s current and future product lines. Apple has achieved a whole lot in recent years with only ~$500M. Now that’s smart management!
@ Wealthy Industrialite
Lower than Evony?!?
As a shareholder, I am quite pleased with Apple’s approach to acquisitions.
I don’t know if designing and/or building chips in house offers real long advantages because development is usually proportional to the user base. For example the Power PC RISC processor was once considered the future of computing, its development however was slow and Intel managed to close the gap and surpass it, so that Apple eventually had to change architecture. Steve Jobs certainly knows about all that but I don’t think he is going to share his strategy with us.
What Ads – I use ClickToFlash
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Have to agree… most blatant use of sexual advertising for what has to be the worst multi-player game on the net today….
@money well spent…
ditto.
This acquisition ensures Apple’s exclusivity to Hummingbird tech and the folks at PA Semi will become fast friends with the folks at Intrinsity. Barbecue, anyone?
Ads? what ads!
iPhone keeps it nice and clean
@G4Dualie
I’m fessing up. I thought the story was hogwash. But I suspect the motivation was more defensive than Apple’s desire to make chips. They may have decided that the company’s acquisition by another company could put Apple’s planned product roadmap in jeopardy.
Use ad blocking software. Makes viewing the MDN much more fun. I used to choke on all the craptastic ads here until I found a way to block them all.
The audio ads are an affront!
I’m about to unbookmark MDN.
Whatever were you thinking?
I want Steve Dowling’s job. Never have to say much.
Yes, I have been the one posting numerous times now, saying that Apple would be putting its own chips into all its products. Naysayers here disagreed. But the handwriting was on the wall, and now, the train is on the tracks.
@ HG Wells–
Does the rubber meet the road?
And what about that cookie… Is it crumbling?
We could talk in cliches ’til the cows come home…
Your confused, Confuzed1. No rubber on train wheels. But the train is clearly movin’ on. And that really is how the [chips] cookie crumbles. But don’t rack your brain about it because, as Hercule noticed, the cows are about back and you’ll have to be smart enough to help them come in out of the rain.
I don’t know if designing and/or building chips in house offers real long advantages because development is usually proportional to the user base. For example the Power PC RISC processor was once considered the future of computing, its development however was slow and Intel managed to close the gap and surpass it, so that Apple eventually had to change architecture. —nipa
This is exactly why making chips in-house does offer real advantages for Apple. Chip development would then follow Apple’s product roadmap, not the whims of the marketplace.
Imagine a MacBook or MacBook Pro with this chip technology.
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Good for Apple.
More [chip] power to ’em…
Hopefully, this will mean MS will be left even further in the dust… (fingers crossed)
You can check out some of Intrinsity’s history through the Wayback Machine.
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.intrinsity.com
So, will apple wet its beak with every hummingbird sold?
Apple no longer fears Intrinsity selling this chip to anyone else. Well done Apple. Protect my stock, well, better that Greece and Portugal can.
“They may have decided that the company’s acquisition by another company could put Apple’s planned product roadmap in jeopardy.”
Spark
You are probably correct.