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TSMC, Global Foundries ....

Apple is rumoured to be shifting production to TMSC to take advantage of their upcoming 20nm process for their quad-core chips.

http://cens.com/cens/html/en/news/news_inner_41728.html

Display, Processor, Chips, Battery, ...But hey, It has an Apple logo!

Actually, Apple has been desperately (and it look like, successfully) trying to become non-dependent upon the technology-thieves at Samsung for a couple of years now. The latest iPad is actually stands as a testament as to the lengths that Apple has gone to cut Samsung completely out of their supply chain.

Display: Designed by Apple. iFixit said it was "probably Samsung". No surprises there. Apple has used Samsung "glass" for years. However, leaked information makes it seem more likely that Apple has turned to Sharp for the iPad 3 Retina display.

SoC (what you quaintly and incorrectly called the "Processor") : Designed by Apple, manufactured in Texas by Apple-owned Fab house, Intrinsity. In fact, Apple's Intrinsity is already the second-largest mobile SoC manufacturer, and ison track to pass Intel as the world's largest mobile chip fab.

Chips: Some are Apple-designed. Most are commodity. I think the iFixit teardown (See steps #15, 17 and 19) identified a number of manufacturers; Apple, TI, Broadcom, Fairchild, Qualcomm, Avago,Toshiba, Triquint, Skyworks... Hmmm. Let's see. What manufacturer's name is MISSING...?

Battery: Apple designed. No one else's battery comes close to size/capacity combination. Manufactured by Simplo Technology, with Dynapak International Technology as Apple's up-and-coming "preferred" source.

But don't let facts disturb your delusions...

It sure seems nothing much usually comes of these injection requests so I hardly expect it to go anywhere. Perhaps Apple is looking for some kind of reciprocation behind the scenes for something else...

HTC just bought S3 graphics (and its patent portfolio) from VIA. My guess is Apple is trying to get HTC banned from the US before HTC starts asserting their newly acquired patents against Apple.

You claim that smartphones need to be more functional like netbooks before they're widely accepted? Like NETBOOKS?? Worldwide, 302 million smartphones were shipped in 2010. In comparison, Gartner's high estimate of Netbook sales in 2010 was only about 42 million, although I think when all was said and done the total was even lower, blunted by the iPad. Heck, total PC shipments of all types in 2010 were only about 376 million, with smartphones sure to surpass that total either this year or next. Regardless, smartphones are certainly closer to "dominating" the American phone market than netbooks are to dominating the PC market.

That's not to say that netbooks are not useful; I agree they are. But it's simply wrong to categorize smartphones as mere toys. True, they can't easily do spreadsheets, but OTOH how many netbooks serve as a primary phone, a primary camera, a primary music device, a gps device, and are carried around every single day by their owners? And factor in competiton from the tablet form factor and devices like the Motorola Atrix and HP's Pre3 with the so-called "touch-to-share" feature, it can be argued that in fact it's the netbook which needs to learn to be more useful.

You're right, in a sense, about the price though. Dumbphones dominate because they're cheaper and the battery lasts MUCH longer. That's basically it. But do smartphones need to "dominate" the phone market in the first place, and is their lack of doing so a failure? Does the Volvo S80 need to dominate the global car market, maybe become more Honda Civic-y?

Netblock owner: Chinese Economic News Services

Careful who you're listening to!

The Taiwan-based China Economic News Service (CENS), an affiliate of the United Daily News Group, one of Taiwan's largest newspaper conglomerates, was founded on June 1, 1974, and dedicates itself to the promotion of international trade with Taiwan.