Apple now makes everything but the memory and Mac processors themselves

With Apple taking over much of Intel’s smartphone modems business, the manufacturer is making virtually all the parts for its devices itself. Only the memory chips for the iPhone and iPad and the processors for the Macs are still designed and made by third parties.

Apple acquired Intel’s smartphone modems division in July for a billion dollars. This gave the company 2,200 Intel employees, the intellectual property, equipment and leases of the chip manufacturer. Today, Apple holds 17,000 patents for wireless technology. These include protocols for cellular standards, modem architecture and modem operations.

(Almost) everything in own hands

The acquisition also meant that Apple now has even more control over its own devices and their components, notes ZDNet. Now that it can make its own modems, it becomes less dependent on Qualcomm, with which Apple fought for years over the use of patents. In doing so, Apple is continuing the trend of attracting the development of its components to itself. In the end, only the memory chips remain as a component that is designed and made by third parties.

Those CPUs – which are used in Apple’s Mac line – are now made by Intel. However, there has been speculation for years that there will be a shift from Intel to Arm, even though this has never happened.

From MacBook to iPad

Nevertheless, a clear strategy is visible. Apple is increasingly making iPad a replacement for Mac and MacBook, until it reaches a point where only professionals can buy a Mac. The iPad contains chips from Apple itself, so it is not dependent on a third party. It seems that Apple ultimately wants the Mac to become a platform for the powerful edges of the market. The iPad should become the mainstream product, containing only Apple-owned components. The iPhone and iPad use an ARM chip designed by Apple, the production of the chips is done by third parties, but the design is exclusive of Apple. With the new iPadOS, the company from Cupertino is responding to the criticism of some professional users of the iPad that it is too closed. This new operating system is more open and allows you to work with files more easily. Which, for example, is much more convenient for copying photo and video material.