Really the issue is that hardware is hard to get right and requires a lot of resources, resources that Apple has and many other companies do not.
More than just that, Apple also has the considerable advantage of owning almost all of their stack. They make their own chips to power their hardware which runs their OS which uses their applications and their infrastructure. Apple has aggressively taken control of the entire top to bottom stack (eg App Store reviews, acquiring PA Semi) like nobody else has been willing and/or able to.
Edit: It does appear that Samsung helped design it, thanks for the correction HN :) I think my overall point still stands though
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_A4
The Samsung Galaxy S has the S5PC110 processor. This processor combines a 45 nm 1 GHz ARM Cortex A8 based CPU core with a PowerVR SGX 540 GPU made by Imagination Technologies which supports OpenGL ES 1.1/2.0[21] and is capable of up to 20 million triangles per second.[3] The CPU core, code-named "Hummingbird", was co-developed by Samsung and Intrinsity.[22]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Galaxy_S#Processor
I guess you also consider added a wing and a skirt to a Civic "original design", with the car merely "manufactured" by Honda.
Sonly also doesn't fab their own processors for mobile devices like Apple now does.
Sony is also 130% the size of Apple in terms of revenue, 180% the size of Apple in terms of assets and 340% the size of Apple in terms of employees headcount.
> Sonly also doesn't fab their own processors for mobile devices like Apple now does.
Apple does not fab their own processors (for mobile devices or otherwise), and — up to the A4 anyway — don't have that much input into them (the A4 is almost of-the-shelf, we'll have to see for the A5 but so far there's been no great works there)
Which suggests that Sony makes ~39% of the revenue per employee that Apple does.
I mean, even Nokia had to capitulate to stay competitive in the smartphone market, ceding control to a not-even-second-place Phone 7 software stack with an app store ecosystem that literally has to bribe hot developers to port over their stuff let alone have a fiercely competitive market like App Store or Android Marketplace.
There's a general lack of focus or apparent belief that their core competencies should only include one (1) of hardware or software among most consumer electronics brands, it seems. And a lot of timidity regarding innovating something new that cannibalizes your sales of some older thing.
Motorola, Samsung, Nokia et al don't have the extensive software culture.
Palm/HP is the only one that does.
[1] Also a weakness with Android phone manufacturers - my phone has a small screen, making the icons just too small to hit accurately - Apple would never let a device like that leave the building, Samsung are quite happy to and Google are OK with having their name slapped on the back of it.
EDIT: forgot about formatting