I just want to frame the discussion a bit by differentiating “purchasing” from “subcontracting.” If a company uses a part from a supplier, there’s a continuum from “We picked this part form the supplier’s existing catalog” through “We designed this part in partnership with the supplier, but they sell it to anyone” to “We designed this part and our supplier makes it exclusively for us and no-one else.”
Apple obviously subcontracts a lot of its manufacturing, and that is very similar to what most automobile companies do with parts: The parts are manufactured for them, but they are specific to that car and not sold to other manufacturers. OTOH, a tyre is a tyre is a trye in most cases, just as most of Intel’s chips are sold to anybody who is prepared to place an order.
I’m not making any specific point, just suggesting we be clear about what we mean when drawing comparisons between designing CPUs and outsourcing part or all of the manufacture of an automobile.
Apple used to have some parts that were standard, but with the direction they've taken the Macbook Air, I don't think it's got a single one left. Both the 2.5" hard drive and the optical drive are gone.
It's still made of standard components like the webcam and processor, but beyond some electronics it's all designed in-house. And the electronics may not stay standard on the low end, though I don't see them competing with Intel's chips in the Pro lineup.
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I just want to frame the discussion a bit by differentiating “purchasing” from “subcontracting.” If a company uses a part from a supplier, there’s a continuum from “We picked this part form the supplier’s existing catalog” through “We designed this part in partnership with the supplier, but they sell it to anyone” to “We designed this part and our supplier makes it exclusively for us and no-one else.”
Apple obviously subcontracts a lot of its manufacturing, and that is very similar to what most automobile companies do with parts: The parts are manufactured for them, but they are specific to that car and not sold to other manufacturers. OTOH, a tyre is a tyre is a trye in most cases, just as most of Intel’s chips are sold to anybody who is prepared to place an order.
I’m not making any specific point, just suggesting we be clear about what we mean when drawing comparisons between designing CPUs and outsourcing part or all of the manufacture of an automobile.
Apple used to have some parts that were standard, but with the direction they've taken the Macbook Air, I don't think it's got a single one left. Both the 2.5" hard drive and the optical drive are gone.
It's still made of standard components like the webcam and processor, but beyond some electronics it's all designed in-house. And the electronics may not stay standard on the low end, though I don't see them competing with Intel's chips in the Pro lineup.
And the RAM is soldered onto the motherboard now, without replaceable standard modules