Slashdot Mirror
Why Apple and Samsung Still Get Along, Behind the Courtroom Battles
After suing each other for the last few years in various courts around the world, you'd think that if Apple and Samsung were human beings they would have walked away from their rocky relationship a while back. The Wall Street Journal explains (beside the larger fact that they're both huge companies with complex links, rather than a squabbling couple) why it's so hard for Apple to take up with another supplier. Things are starting to look different, though: "Apple's deal this month to start buying chips from TSMC is a milestone. Apple long wanted to build its own processors, and it bought a chip company in 2008 to begin designing the chips itself. But it continued to rely on Samsung to make them. ... TSMC plans to start mass-producing the chips early next year using advanced '20-nanometer' technology, which makes the chips potentially smaller and more energy-efficient."
Now they are just riding it out, both laughing all the way to the bank.
Now they are just riding it out, both laughing all the way to the bank.
Wow. Ironically Apple could have manufactured themselves under Steve Jobs regime but instead chose through cost saving go elsewhere(Samsung). They famously laughed at the president at the suggestion of bringing Apple Manufacturing to the states, and now are having the unpleasant sunrise of of their top (and only) phone looking mid range and 12-18 months out of date at launch. While Samsung refresh a product range every three months. Now thousands of patents are on various hardware components by various Korean and Chinese companies....with Apple having relatively few design & interface patents, admittedly with a friendly court system looking favourably at them.
Thankfully Jobs does not have to live with the consequences of this...as he died, but in context of going to the bank article...Apple is going to the bank with less profits (less market share, less market cap, less brand value, less cutting edge, less interesting products, less news, less innovation). At least Dell finally got to say I told you so.
A simple sure-fire plan:
1. Outsource all of your core competencies - parts, production, everything. Keep nothing in house.
2. Profit!!!
Quietly, suppliers start selling direct to customers to make more money.
3. Find cheaper suppliers - more Profits!!!
Discover your original suppliers now sell a better product.
4. Liquidation sale! More Profits!!!
Last Step:
1. Write a business school textbook, preaching the virtues of the first 3 steps.
Midrange and out of date. Last I checked it still blew anything else out there out of the water in pretty much any benchmark. How's the iPhone mid-range in anything other than fanboy nonsense?
2007 was a great year, the film 300 game out, The last episode of the price is right, and Anna Nicole Smith's untimely death.
I can't think of a flagship phone from competing company that is not newer, higher DPI, More RAM, Faster processor, With features like waterproof and IR running a later OS.
Apple fell behind a long time ago, This is just getting more and more marked as time goes on.
Samsung's phones might be more cutting edge at launch. But in 1+ year, the iPhone will still be supported by (decent) software updates, and the Samsung phone will be long forgotten for the latest and greatest.
Interesting I have seen a launch of what is dubbed "Google Play edition phones"(including samsung) from a few manufacturers that come with stock android. In response to this very issue. They now come with Vanilla Android and will be easier to update. Apple conversely is expanding their product line instead of using older models as a product line so expect support lengths to drop dramatically.
'Or are you too dumb not to question why a company that makes the CPUs and retina displays for Apple can't use them in their own product line.
Apples CPU's are measurably slower tham the Samsung Galaxy SIII Samsung last generation product and retina Display has become synonymous with Low DPI as 1080P becomes the new normal for Android.
Apple can't just order 100 million cpu's from someone. You need the infrastructure and supply chain to be able to meet the orders. And you don't dare drop existing customers
It's taking apple five years to diversify its suppliers which is about average for a company their size
Apple's capital expenses have been huge lately which most likely means they are buying the machinery for their suppliers to make their stuff for them
>"Potentially" makes them smaller and more power efficient. Or rather "does" but the reporter isn't knowledgeable enough to know one way or another.
No. The reporter is spot on. While in the past doing a simple shrink without redesign or significant relayout would always give power and area savings, the same is no longer true, since energy density and leakage may go up faster than dynamic power goes down. So you may need to re-layout to dilute the heat concentrations and you may find yourself consuming more power.
These days, adding advanced power features to chips is a necessary step to yield the full power and area benefits of denser transistors. Witness the power and area improvements in Haswell over Ivy Bridge, while the process (22nm) stayed fairly constant.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
Sometimes the perception of conflict really works well because it draws media attention to those involved: almost like some free advertising. For the longest time, Coca Cola and Pepsi played up on the public's perception of bitter competition and conflict. In reality, the competition is a good bit friendlier with the executives at each company respecting their counterparts; If you recall, a few years ago someone tried to steal a recipe from Coke and hand it to Pepsi. Pepsi Co ended up reporting this to authorities.
Samsung and LG own all the patents on the LCDs used in the retina screens. Keep in mind they are pretty low end screens, not even 720p HD, where as those guys are both using 1080p as standard on their own high end models.
Apple doesn't really invent much tech. They are mostly a design company. They take technology from other companies and integrate it, then patent the overall design. That's why they are having problems with FRAND patents - they don't have any to license in return so have to pay cash.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC