

Why Apple's Products Come from the Future - antonioe
http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-supply-chain-2011-7

======
pedalpete
Wasn't Samsung making the original displays for the iPhone, and the iPad?

I agree that in some instances Apple is able to leverage it's large bank
account to get exclusives and lock others out of the hardware. If memory
serves me correctly, they purchased an enormous amount of flash memory before
the release of the iPhone, and though flash memory was available to other
manufacturers, there was a significant jump in the price of flash memory.

I think a larger factor has to do with Apple's ability to design hardware and
software in parallel.

Other manufacturers wait until the software is nearly complete before getting
developer builds which they build hardware around.

I suspect that the time from going from developer release to public
availability is 8-15 months at the moment.

If these times could somehow be brought down, we'd see more competitive
products to market earlier.

Let's not forget that everybody was showing tablets at CES before Apple
announced the iPad (even though we all suspected it was going to happen), and
yet competing devices didn't show up for nearly 10 months after the iPad was
released.

------
veyron
The article is basically a reprint of [http://www.quora.com/What-would-make-
sense-for-Apple-to-use-...](http://www.quora.com/What-would-make-sense-for-
Apple-to-use-its-51-billion-in-cash-for-a-strategic-
acquisition/answers/612608)

