Doug S (foo.delete@this.bar.bar) on April 11, 2017 3:31 pm wrote:
> anon (spam.delete.delete@this.this.spam.com) on April 10, 2017 2:11 am wrote:
> > Yes they are.
> > Intel modems? Samsung and TSMC for the A9?
> > We're talking about clearly inferior technology.
> > Why did they do it anyway?
> > Because getting your suppliers to drop the prices by a penny
> > makes a huge difference when you're shipping 9 figures.

Apple knows how to really cut costs, not silly half pennies.

Just look at the Apple floppy controller, Apple made $250 extra off of each one they sold, as that's how much cheaper it was to make compared to the competition.

Apple knows how to really turn the screws on suppliers, when they decided on using the 68000 in the Macintosh Motorola was selling those chips for $300, which was a fair price.
Instead of arguing down to $299.99.5 Apple offered $24 and a contract for one million units.
A million units filled the fab at a break even of $24, Motorola said yes and charged other companies $50, making ridiculous amounts of money and shutting out competitors CPU designs.

That is WOW for CPU performance at a price Apple can sell.

Then instead of saving half a penny on the serial chip like all the DOS boxes, Apple used and expensive (several dollars more) not really serial compatible chip (0 to +5v, not -12v to +12v) that was 10 times faster, which enabled a cheaper alternative to Ethernet, (AppleTalk) adding more WOW to the design.

The 3.5 inch floppy was just practical, higher density was needed, but users went WOW over it.

Slicing half a f*cking penny off of a design is for amateurs, Apple will do it, but that is not where the breakthroughs are in delivering WOW to the consumer, years before others can.

Apple has done this over and over in each market Apple invades and immediately dominates, iPod, iPhone, iPad.

Apple is the mondern Sony, which was the modern Westinghouse.

> It may be (slightly) inferior today, but doesn't have to be. Switching to Intel would be
> an advantage for Apple as they may have the option to license the IP and include it on their
> SoC as processes continue to shrink and there's room. They could also gain control of the
> baseband programming, avoiding the security issues Qualcomm has with their baseband.
>
> Using Intel for a portion of their phones provides funding for them to continue
> to improve it. They aren't likely to make that level of investment on the hope of
> "maybe after we spend money on it for a few years, the customers will come".
>
> As for Samsung/TSMC for the A9, that had nothing to do with money but to do with satisfying their
> demand. They had never used TSMC before and didn't want to risk putting all their eggs in one basket
> with a new fab. If they were doing it to save money, why didn't they do it with the A10?

I agree with the above.