A Apple it’s at Samsung live a relationship typical of globalization and networked production. Despite being great rivals in terms of intellectual property and products, Apple depends on the factories of the South Korean company to produce essential components for devices, such as the iPhone — notably the displays.
Apple, of course, has long tried to wean itself off this dependency. While it continues to need Samsung’s production capacity, however, several uncomfortable episodes have occurred and which only encourage the Cupertino giant to develop its own effective display production.
According to The Informationin 2017, the South Korean simply barred Apple engineers from entering in factories to oversee the production process due to concerns about industrial espionage. There are also difficulties in exchanging production verification information for the same reason.
In addition, unlike other Apple suppliers — which are smaller companies and unable to handle the risk involved in the operation — Samsung has high capabilities. With that, the South Korean already caused Apple to accept higher than expected submissions of MacBook displays years ago, even as it sought to scale back production.
On two other occasions, problems related to the component quality. Apple has reported imperfections in displays on an unidentified model of the iPad mini, as well as lower-than-expected display quality on MacBooks. Samsung, however, maintained an uncooperative stance, so Apple had no choice but to use the panels.
Interestingly, Apple hoped to be able to use displays Micro-LEDas OLED technologyOrganic light-emitting diodesor organic light-emitting diode.”>1, which ended up being used, raised concerns about viewing in the sun. Attempts involving the Micro-LED, however, continue to happen.
In 2014, Apple bought LuxVue, in addition to visiting factories in Taiwan in 2018. These two actions were part of efforts aimed at developing an iPhone with a Micro-LED screen. As much as several highly qualified professionals are involved in the project, given the difficulty and costs involved, it will still take some time to achieve the objective.
There have even been attempts to diversify the supply of OLED screens, currently used in iPhones, with requests to LG and to BOE. Specifically regarding the first, the manufacturer tried to produce at least part of the screens for the iPhones 12 and 13, but Apple understood that the brand’s components did not meet its standards.
After decades of interdependence in the production of manufactured products, countries and large companies are now seeking to gain independence in the manufacture of their products. This trend is not restricted to Apple — but, through the situation, we can see how strategic it is to control as many stages of the production process as possible, something that Apple has always valued.
via 9to5Mac