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My guess would be that they can apply much more pressure to the Bluetooth chip vendor. The buying power that Apple has for designing in a particular chip is muc

My guess would be that they can apply much more pressure to the Bluetooth chip vendor. The buying power that Apple has for designing in a particular chip is much bigger than any individual Android manufacturer (even Samsung). That gets them the leverage to get the chip vendor to do what they want.

nicoburns 6y ago
I wouldn't be surprised if Apple write their own firmware for things like bluetooth chips.
- mondoshawan 6y ago
  There's quite a bit of evidence that they do. Apple's strength has always been at the point at which hardware is built and interfaces to the software, including firmware.
- Cu3PO42 6y ago
  I would be surprised if they didn't. They advertise their own Bluetooth chips H1 and W1 in AirPods and some Beats products. These chips definitely have their own firmware and it would be rather ridiculous not to also have their own firmware on the host side, maybe even re-using code.
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    Most of them run RTKit, I believe.
est31 6y ago
> The buying power that Apple has for designing in a particular chip is much bigger than any individual Android manufacturer (even Samsung) Why does Samsung have smaller buying power than Apple? Doesn't Samsung sell more phones than them? Or is it because while Samsung sells more phones in total, Apple still has the most successful single models?
- cogman10 6y ago
  I'd imagine lots of reasons. Apple has the hardware guys to design whatever chip they need. They also have a mountain of reserve capital (Something like $1 trillion I believe?). Further, Apple's closed ecosystem means that if you want them to sell them your hardware you have to conform to their standards. With Samsung and android, it's a different story. There are many android vendors and the people producing the Bluetooth chips are selling to many of them (broadcom). Samsung has the ability to make their own chips, but to get everything working flawlessly they not only have to make their chips awesome but also improve the android driver stack to work with their new awesome chips. That stack has to also be compatible with the other bluetooth manufactures on the market making it a harder change to make. In other words, with apple and a vendor, there are pretty much just the 2 parties involved which control everything. With Samsung and vendor it's not just them but also the likes of google and other bluetooth vendors that can get in the way of really fixing things.
  - signal11 6y ago
    I get what you're saying, but Samsung is also huge and Bluetooth is used in lots of electronics that Samsung sells -- including laptops, tablets, smart watches, TVs... or conceivably could sell, like future IoT products. If someone senior at Samsung said to their vendor "good Bluetooth or you lose the Samsung account", that would provoke some, um, intense conversations at the vendor between sales and engineering. Incidentally Apple sometimes has more than one vendor too, so it's not just two parties. I know cases where they've had two suppliers. Displays and modems come to mind, although I've not Googled to verify.
    - mschuster91 6y ago
      > If someone senior at Samsung said to their vendor "good Bluetooth or you lose the Samsung account", that would provoke some, um, intense conversations at the vendor between sales and engineering. The problem: There aren't that many suppliers left in the field, and Broadcom knows that their customers are pretty much locked in. The notable exception is once again Apple, they have proven that they can and will go and implement the technology on their own if their suppliers fail to meet their expectations.

nicoburns 6y ago

I wouldn't be surprised if Apple write their own firmware for things like bluetooth chips.

mondoshawan 6y ago
There's quite a bit of evidence that they do. Apple's strength has always been at the point at which hardware is built and interfaces to the software, including firmware.
Cu3PO42 6y ago
I would be surprised if they didn't. They advertise their own Bluetooth chips H1 and W1 in AirPods and some Beats products. These chips definitely have their own firmware and it would be rather ridiculous not to also have their own firmware on the host side, maybe even re-using code.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  Most of them run RTKit, I believe.

est31 6y ago

> The buying power that Apple has for designing in a particular chip is much bigger than any individual Android manufacturer (even Samsung) Why does Samsung have smaller buying power than Apple? Doesn't Samsung sell more phones than them? Or is it because while Samsung sells more phones in total, Apple still has the most successful single models?

cogman10 6y ago
I'd imagine lots of reasons. Apple has the hardware guys to design whatever chip they need. They also have a mountain of reserve capital (Something like $1 trillion I believe?). Further, Apple's closed ecosystem means that if you want them to sell them your hardware you have to conform to their standards. With Samsung and android, it's a different story. There are many android vendors and the people producing the Bluetooth chips are selling to many of them (broadcom). Samsung has the ability to make their own chips, but to get everything working flawlessly they not only have to make their chips awesome but also improve the android driver stack to work with their new awesome chips. That stack has to also be compatible with the other bluetooth manufactures on the market making it a harder change to make. In other words, with apple and a vendor, there are pretty much just the 2 parties involved which control everything. With Samsung and vendor it's not just them but also the likes of google and other bluetooth vendors that can get in the way of really fixing things.
- signal11 6y ago
  I get what you're saying, but Samsung is also huge and Bluetooth is used in lots of electronics that Samsung sells -- including laptops, tablets, smart watches, TVs... or conceivably could sell, like future IoT products. If someone senior at Samsung said to their vendor "good Bluetooth or you lose the Samsung account", that would provoke some, um, intense conversations at the vendor between sales and engineering. Incidentally Apple sometimes has more than one vendor too, so it's not just two parties. I know cases where they've had two suppliers. Displays and modems come to mind, although I've not Googled to verify.
  - mschuster91 6y ago
    > If someone senior at Samsung said to their vendor "good Bluetooth or you lose the Samsung account", that would provoke some, um, intense conversations at the vendor between sales and engineering. The problem: There aren't that many suppliers left in the field, and Broadcom knows that their customers are pretty much locked in. The notable exception is once again Apple, they have proven that they can and will go and implement the technology on their own if their suppliers fail to meet their expectations.