“A little over a year ago, Apple had a problem: The iPad Pro was behind schedule. Elements of the hardware, software, and accompanying stylus weren’t going to be ready for a release in the spring. Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook and his top lieutenants had to delay the unveiling until the fall,” Brad Stone, Adam Satariano, and Gwen Ackerman report for Bloomberg Businessweek. “That gave most of Apple’s engineers more time. It gave a little-known executive named Johny Srouji much less.”
“Srouji is the senior vice president for hardware technologies at Apple. He runs the division that makes processor chips,” Stone, Satariano, and Ackerman report. “The original plan was to introduce the iPad Pro with Apple’s tablet chip, the A8X, the same processor that powered the iPad Air 2, introduced in 2014. But delaying until fall meant that the Pro would make its debut alongside the iPhone 6s, which was going to use a newer, faster phone chip called the A9… The iPad Pro was important: It was Apple’s attempt to sell tablets to business customers. And it would look feeble next to the iPhone 6s.”
“When the original iPhone came out in 2007, Steve Jobs was well aware of its flaws. It had no front camera, measly battery life, and a slow 2G connection from AT&T. It was also underpowered. A former Apple engineer who worked on the device said that while the handset was a breakthrough technology, it was limited because it pieced together components from different vendors, including elements from a Samsung chip used in DVD players,” Stone, Satariano, and Ackerman report. “‘Steve came to the conclusion that the only way for Apple to really differentiate and deliver something truly unique and truly great, you have to own your own silicon,’ Srouji says. ‘You have to control and own it.'”
Tons more in the full article – recommended – here.
MacDailyNews Take: As usual, Steve Jobs was right.
SEE ALSO:
Newly-minted Apple SVP Johny Srouji nets $9.6 million in Apple stock – December 29, 2015
Apple’s executive changes hint at an even greater level of vertical integration to come – December 19, 2015
CEO Cook shakes up Apple’s management – December 17, 2015