As strange as it may sound, Apple, Samsung, Intel, and other companies are bitter rivals, but sell each other components all the time. This is particularly true of Apple, who buys screens and other parts from Samsung and chips from Intel, even as they try to eat into Apple’s market share. But apparently Apple has decided it can do without Intel’s chips.
Reuters is reporting that Apple hopes to have Intel’s chips out of the iPhone by 2020, with an interesting goal:
The initiative, code-named Kalamata, is still in early developmental stages but is part of a bigger strategy to make Apple’s family of devices work more similarly and seamlessly together… The Mac plays a small part in Apple’s overall financial picture, with sales of 19.2 million units last year and accounting for 11 percent of Apple’s $229.2 billion in revenue for fiscal 2017.
It’s the idea that the Macs will work better with Apple’s other devices that draws some raised eyebrows. Apple is already rolling the dice on building its own chips, which can be a risky business. But the payoff would seem to be a completely seamless experience between all its products, so an app coded for your iPhone would work on your MacBook, and vice versa.
Apple has been pushing towards this for a while, and its competitors have been doing the same. It’ll both make people more productive and tie together computers, phones, and tablets more closely. If Apple does, indeed, win the race to put the same chips into everything, that would be a major feather in its cap. We’ll see if they pull it off in 2020.
(via Reuters)