Apple to drop chip-baking partnership with Samsung? Apple is planning to shift production of its ARM-based microprocessors from Samsung to the Taiwanese chip-baking giant TSMC as early as next year, according to a report by the China Economic News Service (CENS). The report, spotted by MacRumors, cites CitiGroup Global Markets analyst J.T. Hsu as saying that TSMC will be Apple' …
Note that Apple have reportedly already dumped Samsung as a supplier of batteries and displays. Combined with their dumping of Google Maps for a far-inferior alternative, it really looks to me like they are getting rid of suppliers whom they've fallen out with even when the consequences are negative for their own users. This is not a good choice. Is this what Jobs meant by his "thermonuclear" reaction to Android?
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>That and they can get it cheaper elsewhere.
Don't think it's anything to do with 'that'. It's simply about profit - labour and production costs are considerably cheaper in Taiwan - Samsung knock out the A5/A6s in their Texas plant....
Apple will save money, it's not their nose or Samsung's either - their lossy US manufacturing is about appeasing the protectionist tendancy through investment in US workers and jobs.
The fastest phone in the world, the issue with Maps isn't stopping or holding back their sales is it?
Maps can be sorted out, it'll take time though, but if Maps had not been a disaster.......
I'd be more worried about getting that Promised Android update, next year perhaps unless you have to buy a new phone for it.
Still gives people something to moan about, but strangely, most of the moaning doesn't come from iPhone users. Now that's telling.
Go hit that downvotes button show me your jealousy baby show me your jealousy!
@AC 19:13
Down voted, not because of jealousy, but because aside from what you said about "Maps can be sorted out" the rest of your post is rubbish. You want updates without carrier interference, you get a Nexus. Fastest phone in the world? That'd be the S3.
As for maps, that just demonstrates everything that is wrong with the iPhone and it has nothing to do with the specs/capability of the device itself. It has everything to do with Apple having complete control over it while having no problem with shafting it's customers to spite it's competitors.
You are a jealous Anonymous Coward and you deserve a down vote even mentioning S3 which fails to navigate properly and watching the level people go to shut down services running to prevent gratuitous advertisements being constantly displayed across their Galaxy is a joke and a half in itself. Did you buy a phone or did you buy a lifetime subscription to endless ads?
Your post is entirely nonsense, but I was particularly confused about the claim about ads - sorry, no such thing.
OTOH, when I watch TV, I do see an Apple logo in virtually every US TV programme, due to the ridiculous amounts of money they are spending on product placement, in an attempt to appear popular. Then there's the constant "get this on your iphone/ipad" (that most of us don't have), or the free advertising for Apple in the media.
If you hate ads, then Apple are the number one worst culprit. It's sad the way they've infected a large amount of American TV.
OTOH, when I watch TV, I do see an Apple logo in virtually every US TV programme, due to the ridiculous amounts of money they are spending on product placement, in an attempt to appear popular.
Not to mention that when you finally get a break from the product placement, the adverts start, and Oh look, there they are again!
In fairness though, the other phone companies are getting particularly annoying with their ads too.
I find it particularly rich an Apple fan talking about Ads and privacy when Apple have defaulted iOS 6 users into targeted advertising, and then not had the decency to put the Off (Oh, sorry, semantics, On) switch under Privacy - http://www.businessinsider.com/ifa-apples-iphone-tracking-in-ios-6-2012-10.
Doesn't mean Google's any better, but get off your high horse for fuck sake. You spent a fortune on a shiny i-device that has been released with quite a number of faults, and with very little incremental benefit over the previous release. You then come onto a forum to launch a broad Ad Hominem against fandroids. Personally, if anything, I'd say you were pretty indicative of the person you were describing.
I got an S3 (i am replying on it right now) and the maps on it are the best i ever used. I got a Tomtom for my bike and its crap compared to this phone. It gets a really fast lock, it can put up with a lot of city obstructions and it plotted me around some roadworks about 2 seconds after missing the closed turn.
Fastest phone is the one with the most optimal software, OS and compiler software.
er, not quite. Hardware is still very important and Apple has very good hardware. The CPUs in the I-Phone 5 are pretty much on a par with other phones but it has 3 GPUs which puts it head and shoulders above the rest in graphics benchmarks.
But it also matters what you're testing for: web page rendering needs good single-thread performance which is why Apple again but also x86-based systems come out top.
The compiler is important but to pretend that Apple only use GCC when they have contributed heavily to LLVM, CLANG and OpenCL is worse than disingenuous. In fact being able to shift workloads so effectively onto the GPU is one of the things which makes Apple devices so impressive in the power/battery life comparisons. Microsoft is late to this particular party and Intel doesn't do GPUs that come anywhere close to PowerVR, Mali, nVidia, etc. in power/battery life.
The OS is important but also the amount of native versus managed code that apps are allowed to run. IIRC WinRT is all managed, presumably apart from MS only apps, so like pure Dalvik apps there will be a performance hit due to the VM, though mileage may vary depending on how good the JIT is. Apple does not allow other the browsers that use the Webkit engine to access hardware acceleration (GPU) for scrolling and stuff but javascript benchmarks should be comparable.
I don't own, and don't intend to own, an Apple phone or tablet but I'm prepared to recognise classy hardware for what it is. As it stands the I-Phone 5 is possibly 1 generation ahead of the competition (better GPU performance and power/weight ratio). I don't expect that advantage to last more than six months but that has never really matter to Apple's customers.
I find it odd that sales are an argument against criticisms - the sales of Windows never stopped Apple fans criticising it for years.
But yes, maybe that's why Apple remain a 3rd place company.
And not this nonsense about Android updates - I'd have thought that the Apple maps fiasco would finally show that it's better that companies take the time to test new updates for each device, rather than rushing it out just for a marketing headline. But I severely misunderestimated the ability for Apple fans to continue to twist everything to praise Apple.
I couldn't care less whether I have the very latest revision of an OS, because what I have works fine. I mean, I don't see people here saying we should all run out and get Windows 8 the moment it's released, when 7 works fine. The bottom line is we get features years before Apple users anyway.
I mean sure, maybe if we had to wait years to get basic feature-phone level functionality like apps or copy/paste, we'd be desperate to upgrade to the latest OS version ASAP too. But when the OOTB functionality is damn good anyway, who cares?
And sorry, most of the moaning about Android updates comes from Apple fans like you, who think it's a valid argument.
Who are these Apple Hating Trolls? Have you considered this? Ever?
Simple, they are predominantly male, aged between 13 and 29, own a middle of the road Android device. Their computing skills, if you can call them skills are virtually limited to switch it off switch it on, reinstall. They have poor people skills, most still live at home and spend hours online with 'friends' on Facebook. They have limited literacy and numeracy skills and low self esteem, they have low paid or commission only jobs. A few are lower skilled junior managers, probably by default. They drive round in small 8 year old hatchbacks. They obsess about other people's success and how unfair it is. They put £20 a week on the lottery in the hope of a better life.
They are emotionally backward, lacking empathy having spent too many hours playing computer games alone. Their parents tell them and anyone else, how clever they are, spending all that time working on the computer in their room, ' he was up all night, ' they crow ' he's inventing a new computer thing'. He was but he was watching porn. The parents are happy that he doesn't get up till 4pm. Their only concern is that he hasn't got a girlfriend, they worry he is gay. He'll be a millionaire next year he will they say to console themselves.
To boost his self esteem, he logs on to this site and spouts puerile comments, bigs himself up claiming to be a high earner and knows all about technology.
Sad isn't it.
Bob, mate, your last 17+ posts on Apple articles have been uncomplimentary and predictably puerile and without content save for the off YouTube links you put in.
The article appears to describe you and you walked right into it didn't you.
You say nothing of consequence, except 'apple has peaked', 'And long may this piss taking continue', 'And long may this piss taking continue' 'The iPhone5 can just get lost'
Etc etc etc.
AC@ Here a Troll has described you to the letter!
http://koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/tech/2012/10/133_122098.html
Seems Apple will get NONE of that $1.05 billion, and may have to forfeit the bond money to Samsung's lawyers and other contingencies.
As these bans are reversed, domestically and abroad, Apple will enjoy hollowed, not hallowed, victory. Dumping Samsung and related chaebol or non-chaebol Samsung partners is the apple way of depriving Samsung of revenue stream.
Is this business Karma, again?
This post has been deleted by a moderator
Ach, did I miss out on some light entertainment? I'm assuming it was a post full of vitriol and perhaps some self-entitlement?
El Reg, before you delete those posts, could you email me a copy? A lot of them make me laugh (and not always bitterly)
Apple are becoming an irrelevance:
Their iOS is a poor copy of Android (and they know it). Just wait for the Google legal onslaught.....
OSX is a bug-ridden mess and has so many bad decisions built into it that it's unrecognisable from the stable, secure BSD that it's built on. Foot, meet bullet.....
Microsoft almost have a viable product again. Windows 8 is nearly very good - certainly good enough to bury the Apple offering.
The current crop of Linux distros make OSX look positively old-fashioned....
Now that it's trivial to run OSX on utility hardware (the Hackintosh route), there's no reason to buy any Apple product.
The Samsung tablets and mobile phones make the Apple offerings look very average....
Goodbye Apple. Game Over.
Right, I know you're trying to troll, but get it right! You claim "OSX is a bug-ridden mess and has so many bad decisions built into it that it's unrecognisable from the stable, secure BSD that it's built on." This is clearly wrong!
OSX was built atop the Mach kernel, not BSD's. It merely has a BSD-compatible POSIX layer and BSD subsytem on on top.
Now, write it out a hundred times. If it's not done by sunrise, I'll cut your balls off.
OSX was built atop the Mach kernel, not BSD's. It merely has a BSD-compatible POSIX layer and BSD subsytem on on top.
Not this inaccurate nonsense again. Mach was developed from the BSD kernel - it simply applied some micro kernel principles to it by moving some subsystems out of kernel space. The VM subssytem developed for Mach even went back into several of the BSD kernels - that's how little the core of both Mach and the original BSD kernels differed.
The userland of NeXTSTEP was BSD, and was then made POSIX compatible, not the other way around. The initial version was based on 4.3BSD, wasn't updated for years. It was brought into a post 4.4BSD world with code from NetBSD and more recently FreeBSD, after NeXT was bought by Apple.
i'd say iOS is a slightly glitzy copy of PocketPC. In 2004 i had a PocketPC device that could connect to the work Exchange server, watch movies, have rounded corners, make phonecalls and multitask. Apple just rebadged it badly with big icons for stupid rich hipster wannabees.
Rubbish. PocketPC was using all manner of bad design decisions that made finger control near impossible.
Perhaps you aren't aware of the Apple Newton? it was released in 1993 which is about 3 years prior to the PocketPC.
PSION were some of the first PDAs but the Newton was one of the more advanced ones.
There was also the Atari Portfolio in 1989. All way before PocketPC.
Their iOS is a poor copy of Android (and they know it). Just wait for the Google legal onslaught.....
-----------
Except the main difference is when you buy the latest iDevice you know you will be able to run the latest iOS. With Android most phones are a version behind before they've even hit the stores. Even now we've got people announcing phones with Ice Cream Sandwich.... but Jellybean is coming right! They've just gotta get your money first....
>Except the main difference is when you buy the latest iDevice you know you will be able to run the latest iOS.
Don't you mean, 'know you HAVE TO run the latest iOS' - Apple support forumes are full of loyal fanbois screaming for downgrade support which is incoming, but there will no such option for iPhone5ers
Except the main difference is when you buy the latest iDevice you know you will be able to run the latest iOS
If you want bleeding edge, you buy a Nexus, if you're not worried you go for something else. Either way, you have a choice, with Apple you don't get that luxury.
I won't even go into flashing ROMs on the basis that Joe Public wouldn't bother, but then most of them also couldn't give a fuck whether they're running iOS 3 or iOS9000. That is, unless they actually used and liked Google Maps and have upgraded to iOS6.
If iOS is a copy of Android because it has lifted some good ideas (the notification area being the most obvious) then Android is a copy of iOS for the same reason (eg, pinch to zoom). Neither is inherently in the wrong, and I think it's really only ever cited as an issue because Apple insists on being so litigious.
OS X isn't built on BSD. It also isn't bug ridden.
History says Windows 8 won't bury Apple. Windows 95 and 98 were lightyears ahead of System 7 in a lot of important areas — preemptive multitasking and memory protection sound like tedious tech wedge issues but substantially improve the user experience. Regardless, Apple survived.
The Linux distros don't make OS X old fashioned any more than the Apple Magic Track Pad or whatever it's called makes mice look old fashioned. Simply being different isn't the test.
Hackintoshes are a solution for, what, the most technical 5% of people?
Samsung and Apple phones and tablets are basically indistinguishable. The fact that developing software for them is common now and that tech types like yourself therefore ascribe greater significance to brands hasn't much changed how people pick their devices; nobody outside Internet forum types thinks of either as a great satan. Ironically it's the people that most complain about Apple users slavishly following the company that most strongly define themselves by a brand — it just happens that they're defining themselves in opposition. In any case they're a tiny subset of society. Based on the value proposition Apple probably deserves some segment of the market — say 10% or maybe even 15% — and will probably end up profitably maintaining that segment.
Apple has almost $100bn in cash reserves. That's the biggest cash hoard in corporate America, and more than twice that of Microsoft. Even if nobody buys another Apple product or service ever again, they're going nowhere for a very long time.
OS X isn't built on BSD.
Yes it is built on BSD. NeXT wrote their own graphical interface and wrapped a lot of stuff in an Objective-C framework, but the kernel and userland were derived from 4.3BSD and Mach (which was itself derived from 4.3BSD). Apple have updated the NeXT codebase with newer code from NetBSD and FreeBSD, and it's often easier to port software to OS-X that was written for a BSD than for Linux.
What could possible go wrong? The recent ongoing comedy of them ditching an essential component in their toys because they could do better wasn't anything to worry about, no siree.
And as their customers all chant each day: "Nanny knows best."
"Siri - modern cities such as London are often described as a concrete jungle for good reason. Do you know a secret place there where I can escape to and enjoy nature's greenery at its best?"
http://theamazingios6maps.tumblr.com/post/33227357714/some-parts-of-clapham-london-appear-to-be
the question to ask is, "are Samsung bothered if apple take the chip production to another chip fabrication plant?"
First of all, the fabrication plant is in Texas that makes apples chips will have additional capacity to make other chips. I doubt they will loose any profit. They may even chose to pull the plug on the plant and switch fabrication to wherever is cheaper...
The next question to ask is "will apple pass on the cheaper production costs of producing the chips in china to the customer or will they just throw it on the top of the enormous pile of cash they already have?"
Samsung's attitude is probably similar to IBM's indifference when Apple dropped the PowerPC processor. Jobs was demanding IBM develop smaller processors that ran cooler and were suitable for laptops rather than servers. Since Apple only bought a tiny fraction of the chips that IBM were producing it didn't make sense to divert development resources into making the chips suitable for laptops.
A few months back Samsung plunked down a few Billions for either New or Expanded facilities in Texas. We were told that this was to build Apple chips. Are we now saying that they did this without guarantees from Apply and that Apply will just pull the plug and move elsewhere.
Someone enlighten me please. One plus One is not giving me two on this one.
Apple just hates Samsung and wants to kill it (it's the same as when Bill Gates hated Philippe Kahn personally and wanted to squeeze Borland from market). Apple methodically tries to destroy its main competitor by cutting as much of its profits as possible (remember the Punic Wars -- never pay money to your enemy).
>A few months back Samsung plunked down a few Billions for either New or Expanded facilities in Texas. We were told that this was to build Apple chips
They put in another $4 billion in August, tripling investment to-date - journo's made the leap to Apple, but it's memory they're focussed on.
At least here in Germany the I-Phone 5 seems to be getting a lukewarm reception. In my local shopping centre the Telekom shop was empty while the S3-LTE toting Vodafone was quite busy; in Media Markt interest was reasonably well divided across all kinds of phones with the most important question I picked up - "do you have any other colours?" - this about an HTC One S. Previous releases, including the hardly spectacular 4S, have lead to much brisker business around the Apple products. Time will tell, and I suspect Apple is pushing direct, online sales over channel, but it wouldn't surprise me if I-Phone 5 sales outside America are down on expectations, though they may be up year-on-year as I-Phone 3 owners trade up.
However, QA is obviously a problem. The fanboi in my local fish shop complained about regular crashes on in 4S since the IOS 6 update and that he will be downgraded. He also confirmed that the maps app was much worse than Google maps. If Apple's extraordinarily good customer service acts promptly probably none of this will matter - solving Antennagate by giving people yet another way to customise their phones was a masterstroke that might be hard to repeat - but if they lasting damage may be done to Apple's image, at least in the eyes of their early adopters, the tech-savvy. Again, that might not matter as the vast majority of Apple's current customers are buying a lifestyle or fashion accessory. Expect more colours if that is the case.
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