They should make memory in house like they've done with many other things.
I thought about this too, but it's not that easy (and not like designing chips and just giving it to TSMC to make). I definitely don't foresee these prices going down significantly in the future, but this is a KEY core ingredient to all of their products. And Apple really likes to 'own the whole stack.'
There's a couple of paths forward and I think Apple's been pursuing them strategically, even if they're not obvious to most.
1. Lock up capacity with long-term contracts. They've been trying this and it's worked well in the past, but now with AI players in the game, it's gotten harder, and more expensive.
2. Fund dedicated Apple capacity. Apple could look to someone like Micron or SK Hynix and say 'hey, we'll invest in building out a fab expansion or dedicated LPDDR line... in return, that output is ours.' This might be the next best thing for them to start exploring.
3. Think more strategically about how memory works within Apple Silicon. They've definitely been doing this with their unified memory approach and other optimizations. Basically it's "make 8GB behave like someone else's 16GB." But that's harder for some folks to really grasp.
Building a memory company from scratch is harder than chips. There's patent issues to work around, specialized know-how and such that just takes time to build/grow. (Even Elon is running into that with his goal of Tesla making their own chips, but starting with Intel helping.)
I wondered if they could just acquire one of the existing main sources (like Samsung or SK Hynix or Micron) but that would be wildly expensive (though they could do it, and should consider it because it's not like their products aren't going to need memory at some point... it's literally been an integral core since the very beginning). The only one that would likely be feasible would be Micron since it's US based (and not Korean), but Micron does A LOT more than just just the types of memory Apple uses, so what becomes of that? (assuming they are able to get it passed regulators) You'd almost think the current administration would make that easier from a monopoly standpoint, but when you look at all other big tech companies vying for the same things, well, the political side gets very nasty very quick.
I haven't seen them do option 2 yet, but my guess is that would be next. It's still risky because memory can be a volatile business, but I think it would be a good investment given how critical/integral it is to their product experience.
