Apple Reportedly Relying More Heavily on Samsung for iPhone 6 and Apple Watch Components

[johnnyturbouk]

If Samsung stopped supplying Apple, their largest component vendor, Samsung would go down too.

I doubt it, see below.

Now that Samsung's own phone market is tanking, they might be relying more than ever on Apple to help pay the bills.

I would firstly like to attest by no means am i a samsung fan - several years ago i used to like their LED TVs, but am less than impressed with their recent ethos. However, the company is a gargantuan conglomerate, with a huge variety of products, the company comprises of around 80 companies, with annual revenues of over $250 billion!

In addition to the thousands of electrical items they sell to cosumers, they are involved in: shipping, heavy industry, manufacturing machinery, mechano-electronics, insurance, medical, other types of house hold goods steel, roads, etc etc

 

[TMay]

I doubt it, see below.



I would firstly like to attest by no means am i a samsung fan - several years ago i used to like their LED TVs, but am less than impressed with their recent ethos. However, the company is a gargantuan conglomerate, with a huge variety of products, the company comprises of around 80 companies, with annual revenues of over $250 billion!

In addition to the thousands of electrical items they sell to cosumers, they are involved in: shipping, heavy industry, manufacturing machinery, mechano-electronics, insurance, medical, other types of house hold goods steel, roads, etc etc

Samsung is South Korea's largest conglomerate. At the same time, Samsung and the South Korean government are quite intertwined to continue a fairly high standard of living for workers. This would not be allowed in the U.S. or Europe under most circumstances as it would be regulated to increase competition.

I'm actually sympathetic to South Korea's dilemma. You see, the county that I live in is the same size geographically as South Korea, yet has one thousandth the population. Imagine the pressure that South Korea faces from the other Asian nations competing for the same technological lead, as that is the only model that produces enough profits to fuel a sustainable economy.

But that doesn't change the fact that South Korea, while being a fast follower in many consumer products, and even a leader in some, and with a vast manufacturing base, may ultimately meet the same fate as Japan and other first world nations; vast wealth, but an aging population supported by a decreasing proportion of the its population.

 

[dagamer34]

Man, you truly have no clue? Bizarre for someone with Tech it their name...

- First the SOC is not just the processor, basically APPLE has integrated a ton of different system functions on it (1/2 the die is neither CPU nor GPU). The Apple SOC is basically a motherboard that tightly couples all functionalities. From a power, speed, costs and reliability perspective there are huge advantage to doing this.

- Secondly, the CPU part of the A8 (and A7) is so far away from the ARM reference design (which Apple is licensed to modify, unlike most others) that 64 bit chip that closely derive from the reference design from the like of Qualcom are just coming out 2 years after Apple heavily modified it. And, those chip are still not beating the A7 from last year.

- Thirdly, by putting the GPU and CPU on the same die, they can more tightly integrate them together (think APU). That's again what NOBODY is doing right now.

Basically, Apple has a big hardware advantage on all others, even Samsung. Samsung is the fab, they design the process that translate the design to silicon. They're good at that, but they are losing ground on actually designing their own chip.

The fact that Apple can customize their hardware so much and adapt their software to it makes it very hard for others to compete with it.

The reason they must use Samsung is simple. VOLUME. Apple needs so many components these days that there are very few manufacturers that can produce them in the quantity they want at the quality level they need.

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AMOLED still age quite a bit with time (color shift and other issues). That still a big obstacle to adoption of OLED in TV's (that and pricing). In phones its less of an issue since most people don't keep their phones beyond 2-3 years. But, the best AMOLED phone screens probably only really beat the best Apple LCD screen by a hair for the first year (looking at reviews); after that LCD durability wins.

Most of the issue you talk about of have little effect on the best modern LCD phones screens. Were not 2007 after all ;-).

Everyone does this. I am hard pressed to think of a phone that has separate CPU and GPU dies in the last few years.

Apple doesn't have a hardware advantage, they have a cost advantage vs. everyone else. Since Apple is only concerned with the final cost of the product (i.e. the phone), they can spend relatively way more on a part than Samsung or any other OEM could because that OEM must eek out profit on a per part basis. It changes cost dynamics quite a bit.

 

[Keirasplace]

Everyone does this. I am hard pressed to think of a phone that has separate CPU and GPU dies in the last few years.

Apple doesn't have a hardware advantage, they have a cost advantage vs. everyone else. Since Apple is only concerned with the final cost of the product (i.e. the phone), they can spend relatively way more on a part than Samsung or any other OEM could because that OEM must eek out profit on a per part basis. It changes cost dynamics quite a bit.

You do realize that Apple actually integrated the GPU of someone else in a custom way and very early (at a clock speed that suited them) and customized how that GPU interacted with whatever CPU setup-up (2 core or 1 core) and external DSP arrangements they created in the same SOC. There are certainly even bus differences to account for the increased bandwidth necessary to integrate the extra cores in the GPU and CPU.

Basically, everyone else is getting their ass kicked (even Qualcom or Mediatek, Exynos (Samsung) and even NVDIA (clocked way higher)) and your telling me Apple has no HW advantage. ARE YOU EVEN SERIOUS!

BTW, you didn't answer ANYTHING else I said, so basically I'm disregarding all further posts from you since you like talking to yourself. So, good day on that.

 

[iososx]

One minute Apple is threatening and suing Samsung, the next they're asking Samsung for help. Tried and True Apple Hypocrisy at its finest...

 

[leroypants]

Wrong, if Samsung was not in the picture at all, other companies would race to the opportunity to provide Apple the parts they need.

why aren't those companies racing to provide Apple the parts they need right now?

 

[NT1440]

why aren't those companies racing to provide Apple the parts they need right now?

I honestly don't think there is enough capacity from other companies to meet the absolutely insane demand that Apple has. Hell, the DRAM market still can't keep up with demand, how many SoC Fabs even exist on the planet to meet the quality and staggering quantity demands besides Samsung and potentially 2 or 3 others?