One way Apple has done this is to provide some of the initial capital needed for new plants/technologies. For example, if retooling a plant for new LCD production costs $1 billion, Apple might front 1/2 the money in exchange for 6-18month exclusivity on those panels.
Also, Apple has scale in its favor. They can negotiate better terms and ensure that their quota gets filled first.
Your argument would carry more weight if Apple had a much larger chunk of the market than all others.
If a manufacturer could out do the iPhone 4, iPad or MBP screen, they would have. Especially since they are traditionally spec driven.
Does this change your point?
http://www.macmyth.com/2012/06/touch-screens-5-440-dpi-at-lg...
But as others noted there are some with comparable displays, I was just unfamiliar with them.
I think a major reason other manufacturers haven't done this may be that they ship Windows boxes. My logic for that is as follows:
- There are manufacturers that ship numbers of their high-end laptops that are in the same order as the number of MacBook Pro's that Apple ships.
- Apple, by supplying only one form factor, reaps economies of scale.
- That form factor may be suboptimal for some, but it is what they will have to buy if they want to run Mac OS.
- If other manufacturers tried the same, they would lose sales to other parties that do provide machines with different feature sets that also run Windows.
On the other hand, I do not know whether it is that more expensive to have a single high-DPI line crank out multiple sizes of display. If it is not, it all boils down to balls. Other manufacturers may be spec driven, but they do that by buying the best the market has to offer. Apple, on the other hand, is willing (and able) to tell the market what it wants, and put money on the table up-front for it.
For "Retina"-class displays, they absolutely do.
It was easy to see this coming years ago, and it was indeed inexcusable for everyone else to be caught flat-footed. Any fool should have been able to see exactly what was going to happen the minute they laid eyes on a non-Retina iPad.
For example, a Mass-Market brand, like Casio, may produce some nice Premium products [1], and those products may sell decently. But it's hard for them to target and sell products to people who want "the best", for the simple fact that subconsciously (and sadly) price and quality are mixed, and marketing exploits that fact. It doesn't have to be "the best" technically, but subjectively (perceived value, coolness, status brand and so on).
And of course, one of the main reasons that a product is considered Premium is its exclusivity. That's the problem that Armani faces right now, with its multiple brands targeted at different segments and markets, making their brand equity dilute[2]. Now imagine what would happen if Rolex made a cheaper watch, to compete with Casio.
Before you think I'm comparing in the same terms the competence between Apple/Samsung to Rolex/Casio (that hardly compete each other), I know it's not the best analogy. At least in the smartphone and tablet market, their products overlap. But what I'm saying is that their products are targeted to different segments. Apple is clearly a Premium brand. Samsung is a Mass-Market brand. Apple takes advantage of their brand value perception, and uses products like that screen to preserve and push that brand value forward. Samsung and the others instead, are focusing in the bigger market, people that will not spend half the household's monthly income (or even 2 or 3 full household's monthly income in some countries in Europe, Americas and Asia) in a computer. [3] So, they focus in building products with the best features possible while at the same time, having the lowest possible price. When they make a premium product, they do it to position their brand against other Mass-market Brands (DELL vs ASUS, Samsung vs HTC vs Motorola). Not to compete with a Premium Brand.
If those screens are still expensive to produce in large quantities, Samsung (or any other producing them) has not the need to create a product yet to use them, simply because they sell those screens anyway. And Apple is surely paying a nice premium to keep it that way. When they can start producing those screens at larger quantities, sure, there will be others using them.
But by keeping this strategy, Samsung is able to make money from both markets (premium and mass-market), while Apple is able to keep it's brand equity, in this case, by maintaining the exclusivity of the display. It's a very profitable win-win strategy.
And unless someone has VERY deep pockets to pay the same and more than Apple to cut the deal... (and Apple has lots of cash to avoid this from happening) I doubt that someone can offer those displays right now. Hopefully in a year, it will be easier and we can have more and more displays like this.
Until then... "I doubt it would be that difficult for others to source an equivalent display" Yes, it's that difficult. :)
[1] http://www.watchshop.com/Premium-G-Shock-Watches.html [2] http://www.venturerepublic.com/resources/giorgio_armani_-_th... [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World_Wide_Smartphone_Sale...