What hardware does Apple make themselves?

[darkcurse]

Lets take the cake analogy. Everyone can use the same ingredients, flour, eggs, sugar, water, etc. But not everyone's cake tastes the same. And certainly not everyone can bake a good cake. In this case Apple are using the different parts, CPU/Chipset/GPU/etc and designing the complete system around those parts. Seeing which part works with which and making sure that they have the "proper" drivers for the parts which they do use. They design their logic board which is very important. The length of the pathways and the layout of it does contribute to the performance of the system. So yeah in a way they do bake a good cake

 

[kasakka]

But if you don't like clunky programs, how come you still want third party software to give you the extra features. I think Apple has a huge grip on what users actually do with their programs, and make them accordingly.

Like Garage Band, I think thats the most perfect sound application ever. I think it is better than Qbasic and Logic just because it's adapted to what I do. Not what professionals do. This is where Apple shines, giving users what they want, getting rid of what they don't want.

I've never liked that Microsoft or Apple decide what we should do with each program. When you need something more and it's not there, you always have to resort to 3rd party software that has the options or features you need. In many cases the 3rd party software developers have also figured out a faster, easier way to do things even with a more complex feature set.

 

[nick9191]

So you say... if they design everything, that means they've designed their GPU by Nvidia? The CPU by Intel? These companies have just made them according to Apples designs?

No some components will be standard across the board, the CPU, the HDD. The logic board will be custom (as with any OEM), Apple will also overclock and underclock certain components (CPU, GPU) to meet the thermal environment of a product. The 9400 in a MBA is not as fast as the 9400 in a Macbook because Apple underclocked it to avoid overheating/power consumption. The 8800GS in an iMac is underclocked, and likely the 9600 is underclocked as well. The CPU in the top end iMac is overclocked.