Forget Acquisitions: Apple control the Supply Lines (opens in new tab)

You can see it as that, or as a very savvy business decision to keep margins high and build a moat by giving them an advantage over their competitors.

Either way, it's a smart move.

I'm not sure I agree,

Apple has done a very good job of taking the technology others have created and building them into a product and marketing that product so people want it, but are they pushing for new tech?

They used touchscreens that others had developed. If the touchscreen wasn't available, would Apple have created it?

What is the 'cutting edge' technology in Apple products? I think it is mostly commodity components engineered into their products.

The difference with respect to choking the production lines is that when a manufacturer comes to Apple or Apple sources a product from them, they take almost all the stock meaning others can't get that product.

For example, the 10" screen on the ipad, from what I've heard, other manufacturers had a difficult time getting that size screen for a year. but is that really Apple pushing the progress in tech?

Someone more knowledgeable than I could shed some light on this possibly choking technology progress.

For instance, CES 2010 showed lots of tablets before Apple announced the iPad. It took a year for many of those products to get to market, and I believe part of that was due to the limited availability of the screens.

Is that Apple pushing innovation or slowing innovation as others are unable to develop products?

I don't think this forgets Samsung, as in certain occasions Apple is buying so much product from Samsung that they are essentially buying up all the product from the factory.

I don't think the key is necessarily that Apple has invested in this factory or that one, but more that they have locked up the market so competitors can't get the same components.

If Samsung doesn't catch wind of the new component or can't study it until it's released to the public then Apple is still ahead until Samsung can duplicate the manufacturing process. They are good at copying but some things just take time, how long I'm not sure (but am curious if anyone here does know).

It depends which country you're from. In North America we tend to refer to companies as singular, but this is not so common in the UK for example, where they're usually referred to as plural.

Sony and many other LCD projector makers have been making high pixel density LCDs since the 90s (think 1024x768 on an square inch). And there has been a smartphone out shortly before the iPhone 4's release date that had a 300+ dpi by some major manufacturer. LCD's major cost isn't pixel density, it's the size of the glass. The reason why they weren't released is because nobody was willing to buck the PC status quo of not having resolution independence (or doubling, like apple did it) since it would miniaturize everything to be irrelevant, making it not sell well. People who needed to see a lot of detail got specialized displays.

Plasma displays it's more the pixels, which is why large 720p plasmas are cheaper.

Samsung is also a huge company with south korean government backing, they can raise the capital to make whatever improvements apple contracts them out to do and make a shadow factory at the same time.

In countries other than the US, it is standard to treat corporation names as plural.

Note: Mostly differences between American and British English.

Pretty much every company is perpetually suing every other company. If a company didn't exert all the legal advantages they can get, the other companies still will and you will end up at a disadvantage when you otherwise wouldn't be.

Apple is considered to be the most valuable company in the entire world right now. Not exactly a company that is an underdog.

Source: http://www.cnbc.com/id/41473211/Apple_Is_Most_Valuable_Compa...

May as well just go to the source and listen to Horace Dediu's podcast.

(slightly ranting tangent)

The "pros" can't make a working link nor can they link to the appropriate page. First link to 5by5 is broken and why link "5by5 networks" to 5by5.com/live? No good reason if you're at all familiar with the web. These people must be incompetent and I'm not using the word lightly. The writers who publish these articles should be able to link things properly. It's CNN, they just hire a dedicated link checker if nobody else is able to do it. Millions of ordinary people links things properly on their blogs every day but the people who do it for a living can't get it right.

Supposed professionals who blunder trivial and ordinary tasks ... sounds like material for TheDailyWTF.

Or the user experience is superior as in you bought a car that just works and you don't have to service. As opposed to, say, a kit-car that you can build yourself if you like cars that much, and you have much better control over.