back to article Apple mulls new chip boffinry HQ in Israel

Apple is planning to set up a research and development centre in Israel, the first ever outside of its Cupertino HQ. Loose-lipped sources told Israeli business daily Globes that the fruity firm had lined up Aharon Aharon, a 30-year veteran of the technology sector who has worked for companies like IBM and Siemens, to head up …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Mushroom

    Hmmm...

    With all the recent political changes in the area, I'd consider Israel a very dangerous place for any long-tem investment.

    1. Mage Silver badge

      Danger in Israel?

      It's no worse and possibly better than any time since 1948. Plenty of International companies invest there. Possibly no Iranian or Syrian ones though.

      Syria claims the entire region including Lebanon and Jordan is Syria.

      Iran just isn't too fond of Arabs. But hates Israel more.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Rotten apple

    It's time to boycott Israel. It has occupied Palestinian territories since 1967 and discriminates on the basis of race both within Israel and Palestine. No self-respecting company should be aligning itself with racial discrimination (though, sadly, many do).

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Occupied Palestinain Territory?

      Borders were agreed in 1948 by UN and not accepted by Arabs. Jordan got 4/5ths of Palestine.

      So Arabs invaded in 1948.

      Egypt annexed Gaza and Jordan Annexed "West bank". Never recognised by UN or ANY Arab country (UK and Pakistan only recognised Jordanian annexation),

      Then in 1967 the Arabs attacked again. Israel told Jordan they could stay neutral and would not be attacked. Jordan joined. The Arabs despite attacking first lost.

      Since 1948 only Jordan and Egypt have ended the hostilities and made peace. All the other attackers are still "At war" Since 1948.

      France, UK and the Arabs created Israel's borders. Not Israel.

      1. Throatwobbler Mangrove
        Facepalm

        oversight

        "Borders were agreed in 1948 by UN and not accepted by Arabs. Jordan got 4/5ths of Palestine.

        So Arabs invaded in 1948...France, UK and the Arabs created Israel's borders. Not Israel."

        Between whom were those borders agreed in 1948 (by which I actually think you mean 1947, given that that's when the UN Partition Plan was agreed by the UN GA)?

        And wouldn't the Haganah, Lehi, Irgun and the forces of the Yishuv generally be rather disappointed to discover it was in fact France, UK and the Arabs that achieved the creation of the modern state of Israel rather than them?

      2. Mage Silver badge
        Happy

        Terry Pratchet is correct

        The Truth will make you Fret

      3. TimNevins

        What?

        Israel has never defined its borders.

        How would you expect neighbouring countries to recognise a country that does not specify where it ends and others begin?

        Arabs 'invaded' in 1948.Seriously?

        Arabs set the borders?

        What about the 3/4 million refugees(1947) still living in open air prison camps like Gaza and the West Bank? Their land was taken. Their home and villages were erased from the map.

        When Jews were being persecuted during the Inquisition most fled to the ME for protection.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Since 1948

      The only ME country with real democracy and full human rights for Arabs is:

      The only ME country to resettle over 150,000 refugees from Iraq alone in a couple of years is:

      cf Syrian, Gadaffi, Murbarak, Algerian, Sudanese, Saudi, Yemen treatment of Arabs and non-Moslems ...

      Turkish, Syrian, Iraqi treatment of Kurds.

      The Palestinians are a symptom of Arab aggression, lack of freedom. lack of democracy and intransigence since 1948.

      Anonymous because Hamas, Hezbullah. PLO, Syria, Iran and North Sudan know how to deal with dissent.

  3. Kristian Walsh Silver badge

    "First Ever"?

    Apple have had offshore R&D operations before, it's just that Steve Jobs shut them down and moved them back to Cupertino.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    One thing I've always wanted to know, why is Israel such a hotbed of hardcore tech talent?

    1. Mage Silver badge

      No oil

      Also since 1948 all the Arab countries kicked out most of their Jewish Populations. Many trades blocked (like Medieval Europe), so many professional (lots of subsistence peasants too). After 1933 Lots of European Jewish people tried to go to the Palestine Mandate (4/5ths is now Jordan). Even when the Muslim Turkish Ottomans ruled a lot of people got Turkish permission prior to 1914 (a lot at end of Victorian Era) escaping Czarist and East European Pogroms.

      Then the ones surviving the Hitler/Nazi extermination of 6M (many educated people) in Europe, many went to USA or Palestine Mandate/ Israel after WWII. Then in 1980s to 1990s many left Russia.

      Jewish people, especially the secular ones always have believed in Literacy and Education. There was once a Golden age of Moslem scholarship (women not invited though), but by the latter days of Ottoman Empire the average Arab (Christian, Druze or Moslem) had no opportunity or interest in Education. The Ottomans at one stage controlled almost all the Middle East, Turkey, parts of Europe and North Africa. They were lazy and corrupt rulers and not much liked by their Arab subjects. It wasn't hard for Lawrence of Arabia to make promises. However the French and British broke most of the promises made 1914 to 1936 to Arabs in the middle East and THEY, not Arabs decided most of the borders and Countries. "Modern", Lebanon, Jordan, Kuwait, Iraq, Syria, Israel and other places exist in present form due to French and UK decisions.

      The Arabs didn't know about this till too late. Not that they could have changed a thing.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sykes%E2%80%93Picot_Agreement

      The Iranians are and have been very well educated. But don't call them Arabs. Moderate ones will just tell you politely that you might as well accuse Australians of being Chinese.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Thumb Up

      Yes

      Russian Jews were nearly 100% university-educated and most of them have now migrated to Israel, Europe or the US. European Jews were also quite well-educated and mostly worked in trade and finance, which requires good education.

      Israel has a considerable weapons industry which exports to basically everybody except their Arab and Iranian enemies. You can get tanks, drones, missiles, machine guns, modified/upgraded Russian aircraft and many other high-tech defense items from Israel. Many countries buy from them. They have built nukes and delivery systems. Also an own anti-missile system called Arrows.

      They also have notable civil high-tech sector with companies such as Checkpoint (market leader in expensive enterprise firewalls). Then they have R&D labs of Intel, IBM and many other multi-nationals and contribute significantly, as the article stated.

      Their basic research is also very strong in sectors such as mathematics and physics.

    3. itboom

      this may be of some help-

      this is an article from the financial times, explaining a few things about why israel is so big in technology.

      http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d45b0c5c-1a83-11e1-ae4e-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1gh6eBGU7

  5. Mage Silver badge

    R&D

    About time Apple did more than design boxes and GUI. I don't think they have done much R&D since the original power PC macs that replaced the 68000 based Macs. There is certainly no "developed by Apple" HW in an iPhone or iPod or iPad. Or UltraMac.

    I welcome their decision to do R&D.

    How many years has Intel been doing R&D in Israel?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Megaphone

      Meeep. Wrong !

      Apple switched to PowerPC before they developed MacOS X. Which is light-years ahead of simpleton MacOS 9. A single buggy application could crash the whole system by something as bad as a non-initialized pointer. Which happens often during development and sometimes after release.

      MacOS X is a full-fledged Unix operating system with all its benefits, from process isolation to multi-user-capability, proper networking and so on.

      So the innovation was to put a polished GUI on top of Unix, something HP, SUN and the Linux folks had not managed up to that point. And which Ubuntu still cannot completely match (at least the "polished" part).

      There was certainly also innovation in the iPhone, namely transforming the phone into a mobile computer which is always connected, has lots of third-party apps and can also act as a phone.

      I am not a fanboy and do not like their extremely restrictive App Store and "mind the children/censor sex" thing, but they did indeed produce quite a bit of innovation in terms of technology. Let's be fair and acknowledge this.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    In other words

    Quote

    Although Apple is notorious for wanting total control over all components that go into its hardware, the firm is usually quite happy to have other manufacturers making those bits and pieces to their very specific specifications.

    Translation

    Apple is very careful about the design and manufacture of its products in order to make sure that it 'just works' when it gets into the hands of their customers.

    Conclusion

    A company that does not do this (viz US Auto Makers) does not get the customer satifaction reviews enjoyed by the companies who do care...

    Disclaimer

    I'm a Mechanical Engineer who works in the Aircraft Industry. If we didn't care about the design and quality of the bits that go into planes then a lot more would fall out of the sky. Nuff Said?

  7. montyburns56

    Quite ironic for a company that was founded by someone who was half Syrian.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      and

      there is a wonderful example of why the Middle East is in the unhappy state in which it finds itself today. Anyway, he was American and probably prejudiced than you.

      Aside from all that, it seems he had little time for his father and got on with his life in his own culture and country.

  8. bazza Silver badge

    Another start up Appleised?

    Apple don't seem to have a good record of getting value for money out of the start ups they acquire. PA-Semi got bought for its chip designing expertise. But according to past El Reg articles the staff left, formed another startup which then got bought by Google. Then Apple bought another ARM specialist startup. Don't know how that worked out, but if it went well why are Apple considering buying another?

    I suspect that Apple are still dependent on Samsung for designing their chips, never mind just building them, which is why they're looking at getting in more external expertise. But how many startups do Apple have to chew through before they realise that being part of Apple seems not to suit chip designers? And why might that be one wonders?

    1. AdamChew

      How do you know things are not working after Apple purchased it.

      The folks at P.A.Semi left but not the technology they left behind and some key staff.

      Intricity developed the A4 probably the A5 chps which powered the iOS devices.

      This Israeli firm which they are buying is all about managing the SSDs which are used in macs and iOS devices and has nothing to do with chips.

      Funny that you think Apple is not as clever as others in the tech industry and btw those firms which have bought smaller firms to beef up their technology didn't do better and apparently once snapped up by them they lost the need to innovate.

  9. Arctic fox
    Headmaster

    Law of unintended consequences. In the same fashion that suing Samsung.........

    .............all over known space has contributed to raising Samsung's brand profile it is possible that this acquisition might also have unintended consequences.

    "Apple might like its very own chips and flash at some point, thereby removing all Samsung stuff from its products."

    This will likely result in Samsung investing even harder in mob/tab production and sales in order to shift their own "stuff" in addition to selling it to other OEMs.

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