Slashdot Mirror
Apple Might Start Making Its Own Batteries For iPhones, Macs (bloomberg.com)
Apple has hired an executive from the battery-making division of Samsung to help lead its own battery work. The new hire suggests that the company might start making its own batteries for iPhones and Macs. Bloomberg reports: Soonho Ahn joined Apple in December as global head of battery developments, after working as a senior vice president at Samsung SDI since 2015, according to his LinkedIn profile. At Samsung SDI, Ahn led development of lithium battery packs and worked on "next-generation" battery technology, the profile says. Apple has used batteries from Samsung SDI to power its own products in the past. The iPhone maker has been trying to reduce reliance on third-party components, and the notable battery technology hire suggests it may be doing the same for batteries. Apple has been working on its own MicroLED display technology for future devices, which would help wean itself off Samsung in other areas. It's also increasingly building its own processors and is investigating the development of its own cellular modems.
I wonder if Apple will develop its own battery format (iBattery ?!?). If they do, I guess that it will be patented and not freely available on the market as a single piece. And so we can say bye-bye to the "right to repair"....
So how can he just jump ship from one company to another, and start doing the same thing there? What happened to non-compete agreements?
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
All the slashes removed. Some weird leading 'c' character. Editors?
For all we know, this battery guy was totally opposed to a bunch of engineering decisions in the Note 7 and told the product managers it would be a problem. And then he got overruled because someone else wanted them to reach a specific thickness/power target that resulted in the battery being compromised.
Apple cannot seem to figure out what business it's in. Making their own CPUs makes sense given their history and that they're using an ARM base design. But let's see:
1. Making original TV/movie content.
2. Flirting with building cars.
3. Making components that Samsung does better.
4. Letting the Mac languish because i* is all that matters now.
One of these days, they're going to finally try to get into the game market and notice that Microsoft and Nintendo have them outflanked now. When I saw the Switch, I said "Apple's done, they waited too long because that's the gaming tablet people will want."
So Foxcon are going to start making batteries now. Good for them! Apple doesn't actually make anything- they design things and hire out other companies to make them for them.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
The savings will be passed on to the customer. So cheaper iPhones. Right? Right!? Guys? Am I right?
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Apple has always relied on differentiating its products with unique hardware.
You mean unique software. Apple is at its core a software company. This seems counter-intuitive until you think about it for a minute. The hardware in most Apple devices is at best superficially different from the competition and Apple doesn't even manufacture it. Oh they make a big stink about their design as a marketing ploy but it isn't what really makes their products distinct. You can (and I have) put Windows on a Macintosh and the experience is not meaningfully different than on a Dell or HP. Apple differentiates their products primarily through their software. If a Macintosh was sold with Windows they would be unable to command the profit margins they currently do because their hardware is nice but it's not that different or better than their best competition. This is not my opinion either. Steve Jobs understood this thoroughly. I think the current management seems a bit confused about this point.
Increasingly their competitors are getting ahead now, with things like foldable screens looking like they will be huge and Apple mostly reduced to just removing stuff like the headphone jack.
Folding screens as they currently stand are a fad that is not ready for prime time. It's a solution looking for a problem. Have you actually seen any of these products? If they are big hits I'll be truly astonished. The idea of a folding device is a good one but the form factors they are throwing out there currently are crap. And if you think Apple isn't taking a hard look at this stuff you are crazy.
By developing their own screens, batteries, modems and other hardware they can differentiate themselves like they do with CPUs now.
Certainly they could do this but they'll have to take it a LOT further. And unless they can actually create an improved component (cost and/or features) then there is no reason for them to do it in house. I think carefully curated vertical integration is actually probably a very good idea for Apple like you suggest. Tesla and SpaceX have done this too good effect. Plus one of the problems Apple has is that they do such huge volumes that supply becomes a problem. It's easy to do a folding screen when you only sell a few tens of thousands of devices. Apple sells tens of millions of iPhones which means that simply getting enough of any given component is a huge problem. Vertical integration can be a very good way to handle this issue and I think Apple has outsourced perhaps a bit too much of their hardware manufacturing.
The fact that you two are confused about the kind of company Apple is means they're quite successful at it. Apple are a marketing company
I'm sure that bit of nonsense sounded better in your head. You have classic conspiracy theory thinking. For whatever reason you don't like the company. You want to believe that Apple is some master manipulator because you can't quite wrap your head around the idea that they are simply providing good products that people actually want to buy. You don't have to like Apple or their products but spare us your notions that they are some sort of devious marketing company because you sound stupid saying it.
they license or buy other companies hardware and leach of the open source community for software.
"Leach the open source community"? The VAST majority of Apple's software is not open source and never will be and they've never pretended otherwise. The do utilize some open source software when it is reasonable to do so and under the terms requested by those who wrote that open source software. They even contribute back to some projects and have some of their own. If they are following the license terms of the software then it's not clear to me what your problem is. If the writers of the software had a problem with it they could have offered a different license.
As for buying and licensing other companies hardware, please find me a large tech company that doesn't do that and a lot of it. And there is nothing wrong with licensing or buying other company's technology. Not sure why you think this is a problem.
Then convince you that it's "unique" and "special" with advertisements.
You seem to be suffering from the delusion that marketing give companies some kind of superpower of influence. In actual fact Apple spends less as a percent of revenue on marketing than most of their peer tech companies including Microsoft, Intel, Google and even Oracle. If they were a "marketing company" as you claim then they would be spending far more on marketing than they actually are. In actual fact they make good products that people demonstrably want and they have one of the strongest brands out there as a result.