[Brave Ulysses]

Originally Posted by kscherer Oh, I'm not saying they can't buy the tech/experience, just that they don't actually "make" anything. They design stuff; they do not "make" it. This is why none of Apple's products say "Made by Apple in California", but they all say "Designed by Apple in California". Apple is not a manufacturing company, and I believe this is one of the key reasons why they are so successful. They do not carry the overhead of vast manufacturing centers and all of their included employee-relations nightmares (unions and staffing and training and such). Rather, they leave that headache to companies who are very good at it. Apple simply (ha!) draws up a set of plans, submits those plans to contractors, and then hawks over them for quality control purposes. Their corporate buyouts are all related to design experience, not manufacturing experience (although there is some of that, but not for make things; rather, it is so they understand the processes for quality control and efficiency's sake).

This is all true but chip fabrication is very different than iPhone manufacturing (sweat shops).