They did had the expertise building it after all. What would happen, if TSMC now would build a M1 clone? I doubt this is a way anyone wants to go, but it seems a implied threat to me that is calculated in.
> "I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple’s $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong. I’m going to destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product. I’m willing to go thermonuclear war on this."
The falling out with Samsung was related, but more about the physical look of the phone
This is funny coming from Jobs.
- steve jobs
So, Schmidt had inside knowledge of before following Apple into the smartphone category? That makes the vengeful fury less unhinged.
Sounds like those $40b did not end up running out.
That's the theory/assumption. Android started as an OS for blackberry-style phones with physical keyboard, non touch screens.
Almost as soon as the iPhone launch, Schmidt left the board, and Android pivoted to a multi-touch interface almost immediately, and a year later the HTC Dream came out.
I don't think anyone has any real proof of wrongdoing but the timing is certainly suspicious
Samsung still makes the displays and the cameras for most iPhones. They continued to do business even while engaged in legal action. That they are still competitors wont stop them doing business when it suits them. Business doesn’t care about pride or loyalty; only money.
TSMC already makes them in their labs. They could tweak a few things, claim it is novel and just sell to the competition. (Apple would fight back of course with all they have and TSMC reputation would take damage)
China already has plenty of engineers who can make a chip, and experience with making CPUs. ARM licenses a lot of useful things for making a CPU (I don't know what). They would be better off in the long run making the chips they all ready understand better. Which is something they are doing. It takes longer and costs more, but because they understand they can also customize the next chip for something they think is good - if they are right they can be ahead of everyone else.
What China is lacking is the fabs to make a CPU. They have made good progress in building them, but there is a lot of technology that isn't in the chip that is needed to make a chip.
What do you mean by cloning? An exact copy of Apple SOC? What would that be useful for?
There are already other ARM SOCs that are as performant as Apple's, according to benchmarks.