3 ms·
Comparing Apple to Qualcomm, Facebook, and Google is a mistake. Apple is a consumer electronics company. Typically consumer electronics companies don't R&D the
by rhino369 11y ago
Comparing Apple to Qualcomm, Facebook, and Google is a mistake.
Apple is a consumer electronics company. Typically consumer electronics companies don't R&D their components. iPhones use Qualcomm baseband chips. Apple does design some of their components, but that's actually atypical for a consumer electronics company. Even then, Apple needs someone like TSMC to fabricate them.
So a lot of Apple's revenue goes to buying components of companies that are spending a lot on R&D. Qualcomm is making the components. They are doing the R&D because they have to. TSMC is R&Ding building 14 nm chips. Hynix is creating bigger NAND flash drives.
Google and Facebook are different because they sitting on monopolies that print money. They also do much more in house because it's easier to.
Apple has some ability to use their size and existing products to capitalize on new technologies. But it's probably better to just return their profits to their stockholders and let the market fund new R&D.
Then again a lot of cool tech came from monopolies playing around excess profits (Bell Labs, Xerox, etc.).
- stcredzero 11y agoThen again a lot of cool tech came from monopolies playing around excess profits (Bell Labs, Xerox, etc.). But notoriously, a lot of cool tech that was developed at Bell Labs, Xerox, and Kodak ended up being so severely misunderstood by upper management there that outside companies were the ones to develop and sell products based on the new technology, while efforts to do so in house were practically or actually discouraged. These include such game changers as Object Oriented Programming, WYSIWYG word processing, Graphical User Interfaces, and Digital Cameras. However it happens, Apple is good at taking R&D, no matter where it originally happened, and creates game changing products out of it. One could argue that this is baked into the very DNA of the company. (Two of the oldest examples: Microprocessors ==> Personal Computing, and Graphical User Interfaces.) If you like, think of Apple as the anti-Xerox. It's not the company that spends tons of cash on internal R&D, misunderstands it, then winds up being unable to capitalize on it. It's the company that can take anyone's R&D or idea, understand the essentials of it, then executes great products. Why be the company that invents something, when you can instead be the company that profits from it?
- robszumski 11y agoApple designs its own microprocessors, numerous sophisticated connectors, extremely small speakers, clicking hardware, touch sensors, metal plating processes, etc. While they partner with folks like Samsung, I don't think its fair to say that they only design "some" components. They are industry leading in many areas, including batteries.
- rhino369 11y agoWhile Apple does do a lot more engineering than the average phone maker, it still couldn't even make the A9 processor themselves.
- quesera 11y agoWhat part of the A9 does Apple not make? It's an ARM core manufactured by TSMC or Samsung, but neither of those caveats remove "maker" from Apple's role. Note that Apple is part-owner of ARM Holdings, and that no one except IBM, Intel, and the government have their own fabs these days. Samsung has their own fab, but Samsung also makes tractors -- they're in hugely disparate businesses.
- rhino369 11y agoAll of it. Semiconductor processing is a supremely complicated endeavor.
- quesera 11y agoOf course it is. That's kind of the point. Just like everyone else, Apple does not fab their own chips. But unlike most others, they do design their own chips. If Apple saw a competitive advantage in running their own fab, they would do so. I'm not sure what definition of "make" you're using here, but if it's just the production part you're talking about, then ok.. Correct but not strategic, in the scheme of things.