Apple Now World's Largest Semiconductor Buyer 92
Lucas123 writes "Apple has leaped two spots to become the world's largest consumer of semiconductor technology, including NAND flash, NOR flash and microprocessors. Apple spent $17.5 billion on semiconductors in 2010, an increase of 79.6% over 2009. Sixty-one percent of Apple's semiconductor budget in 2010 was spent on wireless products such as the iPhone and iPad, while second place HP spent 82% of its semiconductor budget on computer products like desktops, notebooks and servers."
surprising (Score:4, Informative)
it is surprising how hard it is for slashdot posters to click one link further to the real article instead of linking to the one with adds.
http://www.isuppli.com/Semiconductor-Value-Chain/News/Pages/Apple-Becomes-Worlds-Largest-OEM-Semiconductor-Buyer-in-2010.aspx
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Can you link me to the one with subtracts?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
SAMSUNG (Score:4, Interesting)
And Samsung is the world's second largest semiconductor MANUFACTURER, after Intel.. including providing a lot of chips to Apple.
Meanwhile, Apple is in the middle of a giant lawsuit against Samsung for it's mobile phone division, which is starting to seriously make a run for crown of the Android market, and is eating away at Apple's business.
Fun times ahead.
Re:SAMSUNG (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:SAMSUNG (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm guessing Samsumg's VP of mobile considers the VP of manufacturing to be an enemy, as both of them are in competition for the CEO postion. If hitting Apple hurts manufacturing, that's two birds with one stone.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
Wow really ? The guy that presided over a 14% drop in phone sales [electronista.com] is in line to become CEO and is willing to piss of the biggest customer of the profitable part of business to do so ? Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Re: (Score:2)
Let's be honest, first rule of business kill the middle man, unless of course you're the middle man, in which case bullshit remains supreme.
From the consumer standpoint, getting as close as possible to the manufacturer saves a lot of empty pointless profit margins. From the manufacturers standpoint getting as close as possible to the consumer saves a lot of pointless on costs.
Of course Samsung can cripple Apple by attacking it's supply chain and tying it up in court. After all Apple is not Samsung's co
Re: (Score:2)
No matter how many women you have working in parallel, you cannot make a baby in less than 9 months. $60B means nothing when you make one-of-a-kind items which need fab plants operational right now. Apple may have the cash to build what they need, but there's a lot of strategy around planning a 2-3 year fab plant construction and staffing schedule without cmopletely alienating your current vendors.
Re: (Score:1)
Apple really needs to open up its phones like it did from the beginning with iPad. Currently, I think the US is one of the few countries they are unwilling to sell it unlocked for whatever reason.
I know several international (small) business travelers that would love to have an iPhone the past years, but as long as they aren't allowed to swap sims (for a local sim once they get into that country, much cheaper than ATT ass-raping intl rates), it's a no go. And they aren't about to carry two phones and main
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Blame US carriers for lock in, not Apple.
Re: (Score:2)
You could import an unlocked iPhone from Europe, but it would still only work on AT&T, because they are the only US phone company that use the same technology as the rest of the world.
Re: (Score:2)
You could import an unlocked iPhone from Europe, but it would still only work on AT&T, because they are the only US phone company that use the same technology as the rest of the world.
It will work on T-Mobile. Granted it will only connect via EDGE, but ATT's 3G is mostly only as fast as EDGE anyway. :-)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:SAMSUNG (Score:5, Informative)
Apple:
1. Generates more revenue than any other company in the world selling cell phones (yes they generate more revenue than Nokia)
http://news.cnet.com/8301-27076_3-20056289-248.html [cnet.com]
2. Has 50% of the worldwide profit in cell phones compared to 13% for all Android manufacturers combined:
http://www.asymco.com/2011/05/16/iphone-share-of-phone-market-in-q1/ [asymco.com]
3. The iOS app market is more than 17x bigger than Android's by revenue:
http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/21/861-5-percent-growth-android-puny/ [techcrunch.com]
Android from a business perspective isn't really doing that great.....
Re: (Score:2)
Great post. And news flash: closed, proprietary systems generate massive profits for their owners.
So true. Jim Whitehurst from RedHat said this to me last year -- RedHat as an OS is installed in 20% of the enterprise servers in the world (remember his stats as told to me verbally). RedHat makes 2% of the profits of the enterprise server vendors. So the other 80% of the servers' OS's are generating 98% of the profit in the industry. He also said that if you look at all the $100B+ valued companies in the worl
Re: (Score:2)
Well, common "Slashdot Wisdom" was that "open always wins" and that Apple's closed proprietary nature was going to end up making the iPhone/iPad like the Macintosh (which also generates more profit than any other computer maker. ) and relegate it to a niche player.
Re: (Score:2)
Apple may just be the DEC of this decade? But since this decade is just getting started, they may make a whole pile of money before "open wins." and I don't think DEC had to go out of business and Apple will have history to help them guide their future decisions.
Apple has been smart by not being tied down to a particular "layer" in the profits (the "value chain" as I think Geoff Moore calls it). So they've made a pile on their laptops for awhile, and now they're making an even bigger pile on their consumer
Never has consumer savviness sounded so stupid... (Score:3, Funny)
Apple strength in hardware sales lies in its device and media ecosystemâ"every Apple product is connected through iTunes/iOS and is synergetic with all other Apple products.
As a result, committed users of the Apple ecosystem derive more value from each additional Apple device they buy, and users have little interest in leaving the Apple realm.
In other words, through a common ecosystem, Apple leverages each device to sell other devices. Rising device sales to consumers then leads to increased semiconductor purchasing by Apple.
.
.
A buyer that once purchased a Hewlett-Packard PC would just as likely purchase a Dell PC next if the price was better, given that there is little or no value in purchasing another Hewlett-Packard.
Stupid PC buyers... buying according to their needs and monetary abilities. Why can't they learn that it is much better to be "committed".
Also, HP (and Samsung) buys almost as much semiconductors as Apple (even without all those pricey touchscreens) - but it sucks ass.
While Apple rocks.
Re:Never has consumer savviness sounded so stupid. (Score:4, Informative)
Stupid PC buyers... buying according to their needs and monetary abilities. Why can't they learn that it is much better to be "committed".
(...)
While Apple rocks.
Funny that, since Apple is the IBM of cell phones while Android is the Microsoft. If you invest heavily in Android apps, you can switch between any number of clones. If you invest in iApps, you're committed to Apple hardware which comes with a heavy premium.
Don't get me wrong, I have an iPhone myself because it has features ahead of its time - but so did OS/2. But unless they keep moving they'll end up just like IBM did, overrun by cheap clones doing pretty much the same at a much lower cost.
Re: (Score:2)
It suggests to me they need a cheaper version of the iPhone (I think offering 3GS this long was the idea behind that) but also cheaper plans or just offering it unlocked, cheap, so I can have the carrier of my choice.
Who knows, maybe they'll start offering the 3GS for $229 or some such with the pre-paid cell phone plans out there is Apple smartens up.
Re: (Score:2)
It suggests to me they need a cheaper version of the iPhone (I think offering 3GS this long was the idea behind that) but also cheaper plans or just offering it unlocked, cheap, so I can have the carrier of my choice.
The Verizon/ATT duopoly doesn't want you to have any choice.
Re: (Score:1)
Yeah, and IBM is just a hollow shell now...wait, no, it's one of the largest IT consulting firms in the world. Last year, IBM had revenues of nearly $100 Billion (for comparison, Apple "only" pulled in $65 Billion). Loss of one market does not mean that a company will die. I wouldn't have a problem with Apple ending up "just like IBM did". Hopefully, they would adapt and move on to dominate different markets.
Insatiable Bloated Machinations (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
I guess every post with the word Apple in it will be reduced to a IOS vs Android cock fight in the comments. I'll bite anyway, since TFA is boring and inaccurate. I mean... the word semiconductor refers to basically every IC and component based on a transistor. TFA seems to refer to only flash memory and microprocessors... Apple was, at several times (perhaps mostly due to Apple's irregular and controversial purchasing patterns) the largest buyer of Flash memory. Besides... these numbers seems to be based o
Re: (Score:3)
If you invest in iApps, you're committed to Apple hardware which comes with a heavy premium.
Huh? Apple's phones at worst are marginally more expensive than Android phones from the same carriers (especially discounting the two-for-one giveaway deals that are now cropping up on Android phones because otherwise the carriers couldn't move the things). We're talking $200-$300 over 2-3 years. For most people who can afford a smartphone at all, that doesn't even approach a "heavy" premium.
And in exchange for th
Re: (Score:1)
And in exchange for the extra couple hundred dollars, you get world-class support - everything from prompt OS updates to a wide range of peripherals to the best in-store experience in the industry. I had an out-of-warranty iPhone die on me, and Apple swapped it out free of charge.
Lucky you, I had a broken home button (just that and yet the phone was completely useless), no warranty and it cost me 100 euros to get it fixed (a refurbished phone btw).
And? (Score:3)
You have to understand that apple might as well be the biggest gadget manufacturer in the world. They do desktop computers, notebooks, netbooks and phones (Not to mention iPod lines with touchscreens, for example).
And unlike android or windows, they do manufacture everything themselves, so the load is not spread between every company that decides to produce a windows laptop or android phone.
Re:And? (Score:4, Informative)
Apple manufacturers very little themselves, they contract out to folks like Foxconn for the actual manufacturing. Not that there's anything inherently wrong with contracting out the actual manufacturing, I just think that it's important to keep in mind that the contractors hardly work just for Apple.
Re: (Score:2)
I think he meant design. From motherboards to the exterior.
Re: (Score:2)
Apple manufacturers very little themselves, they contract out to folks like Foxconn for the actual manufacturing.
While HP, Dell etc. have everything build by Foxconn - big difference.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
While HP, Dell etc. have everything build by Foxconn - big difference.
Don't be an idiot.
HP & Dell have their own design people just like Apple do, else Foxconn would just be churning out identical black boxes that would just be re-badged by Dell and HP.
Foxconn CEO: Apple products “very difficult” to make [9to5mac.com] - you can spare us the "that's because Apple engineers are idiots and make them overly complicated to build when they could just make the not-quite-the-same PCs everyone else does".
Re: (Score:2)
Obviously. It's my non-english upbringing :P. Obviously they don't assemble the thing, they just design it and make someone else do it. Still, they have to buy/own all the parts that are used, so the argument stands :)
Re:And? (Score:4, Informative)
You're comparing wrong.
Apple is larger than HP, Dell, Acer, Asus, HTC, RIM, etc. And not by just a little bit either.
Think how many laptops/desktops/servers/soon-to-be-tablets HP sells worldwide. Apple is bigger than that, by a lot.
Think how many phone models/tablet models HTC sells. Apple is bigger than that, by a lot.
Re: (Score:1)
Think how many laptops/desktops/servers/soon-to-be-tablets HP sells worldwide. Apple is bigger than that, by a lot.
Do these statistics exist somewhere?
The HP Revenue is twice that of Apple. (Profits might not) So I'm guessing your're just pulling these from your backside.
You're entirely correct about HTC however.
And why didn't you compare Apple to Samsung? Samsung also makes Laptops, mobile phones and tablets.
Re:And? (Score:4, Interesting)
Your numbers are out of date. For the quarter ending in February (HP) and April (Apple) of 2011, HP's revenue was about $32.2 billion, and Apple's was about $24.67 billion, and almost all of that difference comes from HP's printer division. In fact, if you subtract out printers, the HP services group (IT support, etc.), and the HP financial services group, HP would have brought in only $16.42 billion net in that same quarter.
Re: (Score:2)
So what you're saying is, HP did indeed bring in far more revenue than Apple, but if you just start subtracting arbitrary line items from HP's revenue, Apple "wins"? Stop being so stupid.
So counting the revenue HP makes as a bank, fixing their broken products and selling printer ink isn't stupid in a discussion about semiconductors?
Re: (Score:2)
So what you're saying is, HP did indeed bring in far more revenue than Apple, but if you just start subtracting arbitrary line items from HP's revenue, Apple "wins"?
Stop being so stupid.
So counting the revenue HP makes as a bank, fixing their broken products and selling printer ink isn't stupid in a discussion about semiconductors?
It doesn't make sense backing out those divisions when you're still including the revenues Apple makes from their iTunes and App stores.
Re: (Score:2)
So what you're saying is, HP did indeed bring in far more revenue than Apple, but if you just start subtracting arbitrary line items from HP's revenue, Apple "wins"?
Stop being so stupid.
So counting the revenue HP makes as a bank, fixing their broken products and selling printer ink isn't stupid in a discussion about semiconductors?
It doesn't make sense backing out those divisions when you're still including the revenues Apple makes from their iTunes and App stores.
If you subtract them, Apple is still ahead.
Re: (Score:2)
He was clear in that he was talking about the computing devices HP was selling, printers not included.
Re-read his original post and take your own advice.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Talk to him. I am pointing out that he isn't moving the goalposts.
Re: (Score:2)
You might want to go look at the actual numbers. And by the way, most ipods are computing devices - they run the same OS as the iPhone/iPad.
Apple - PCs,iPods, iPads, iPhones - $20Billion
HP - Servers&Network, PCs - $15Billion
http://images.apple.com/pr/pdf/q211data_sum.pdf [apple.com]
http://h30261.www3.hp.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=71087&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1564466&highlight= [hp.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
From a user's perspective, no, they really aren't. Yes, they have a CPU, but no, it isn't under the user's control in any useful fashion. I can't download applications and run them on my printer. I can't write notes to myself with my printer. And so on. A printer is a dumb device from a user's perspective, regardless of how much actual computing power is under the hood.
That's not at all like an iPod (Touch), iPhone, or iPad, all of which are basically general-purpose computers.
Re: (Score:2)
If you had read the links, you'd see that HP combines the printer financial statement line as printers, paper, ink, etc. So no idea how much they actually make on printers (ie semiconductors) vs other things.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It has nothing to do with how many components the manufacturer buys. However, I never said that it did.
Re: (Score:2)
Compare last quarter's hardware sales of Apple vs HP:
Apple - PCs,iPods, iPads, iPhones - $20Billion
HP - Servers&Network, PCs, Printers - $21Billion
But really, the printer part includes software, paper, etc.
HP's hardware revenues are going down, Apple's are going up. Guess where it will be next quarter?
Re: (Score:2)
How long before Apple gets back into the printer business? The margins there are still insane, and the products are universally shit. Every HP printer I've ever owned, used or helped a friend try to work has been a festering pile of crap. Don't even get me started on ink that "expires" a week after you've put it in the printer.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I didn't say revenue.
Count the number of iPhones/iPads/laptops/desktops that Apple sells - about 35M units.
http://images.apple.com/pr/pdf/q211data_sum.pdf [apple.com]
Count the number of tablets/laptops/desktops/servers that HP sells - about 25M units.
Re: (Score:1)
Er, no. Apple do not ship more desktops, laptops and servers than HP. Walk into large data centre and it'll probably be HP. Google? HP. Amazon? HP. Microsoft (E.g. Bing)? HP. Apples new data centre in NC? Not Xserves.
For the corporate desktop and laptop market, there are three players: IBM, Dell and HP. Dell and HP are far bigger than IBM in that market, too.
Re: (Score:2)
Go look at the actual numbers. I've posted them above.
BTW, there are a LOT more consumers buying computers than there are data centers buying computers.
Re: (Score:1)
Apple isn't bigger than HP. Compare the revenues here:
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=HPQ+Income+Statement&annual [yahoo.com]
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=AAPL+Income+Statement&annual [yahoo.com]
Apple makes more income for every dollar of revenue, but HP has a lot more revenues.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That was fast... (Score:4, Insightful)
About ten years ago, before the iPod and OS X, I suspect very few of us suspected anything like this from Apple. As much as I don't agree with their walled garden approach to software, it's hard not to be impressed with what they have accomplished.
And yet, we're very much in a transformative age in computing. Desktops are increasingly rare for mainstream computing, tablets are on the rise, and there are billions of people who are getting their first taste of the Internet not through a traditional computer, but instead a smartphone. Everyone is searching for the holy grail, the next big thing.
It's gonna be an interesting next ten years. I for one is staying idealistic and hoping for open standards and interoperability across devices, platforms, and operating systems. Sorry, Apple.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You're right: desktops are dying. Smartphones and iPads are the choice of younger people now, and using those they can stay in touch via social networking wherever they are, rather than being tied to a desktop and a power cord. That's why this line from TFS was telling:
> iPhone and iPad, while second place HP spent 82% of its semiconductor budget on computer products like desktops, notebooks and servers.
Apple's share is in devices with explosive growth - they're positioned well for the post-PC world (a
The iPads are to small for real work and smal caps (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
Apple devices don't scale well for "work" in general. It doesn't matter if it's a higher degree of interactivity or just handling more "use".
They are also intentionally limited in terms of "play".
The new input devices certainly hold a lot of promise but the current devices that tend to employ them are overhyped. It's the inputs that are interesting not so much the devices they happen to be attached to today.
Re: (Score:1)
> The iPads are to small for real work like cad, excel, call centers,... codeing,
Right. Because those things matter to almost everybody.
See, Slashdot have this weird thing where they think the 0.2% of the market they are in matters in some way. It doesn't. Normal people don't use CAD programs or code. They watch videos, they use social networking, they IM. That's the vast majority of the market. And guess what? Increasingly, people are finding they prefer iPads and smartphones rather than desktops
Re: (Score:2)
Desktop hardware will go the way of the dinosaur. Tablets and smartphones will soon be more than capable of driving multiple monitors when docked (possibly even wirelessly). Their operating systems and UI's will evolve to work with keyboards and mice when available.
For the handful of people who require workstation-class performance - maybe 0.5% of the overall market - those systems may remain, or much of that work may migrate to the cloud, with tablets and other devices simply functioning as clients.
Re: (Score:2)
I really think this talk about docking a tablet is backwards. I don't think anyone will want to dock their tablet.
My vision of the future is basically everything doing wireless syncing, and a lot of one-off devices that don't meaningfully connect in any manner other than being sync clients. The syncing could be more significant than just file sharing. In many ways it is kind of like docking without any actual docking occurring.
Convergence makes sense when you want to stuff more and more functionality int
Re: (Score:2)
Devices already need (and have) interfaces which allow them to charge and communicate with other devices. Docking isn't going anywhere. It's a really convenient way for new devices - like tablets and smartphones - to connect to and utilize legacy peripherals, everything from monitors to printers to hard drives.
Longterm that may all go wireless, but at the moment things like wireless HDMI are expensive and an enormous power suck. That isn't likely to change in the next decade. Your portable gadget needs
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
There has been a slew of changes in Android 3.1 - such as full support for mice (on app level - the ability to handle mouse hover and drag events, trackpad scroll etc) - that clearly hint at Android being geared towards netbooks and above.
Meanwhile, Apple is rapidly updating OS X to be more and more like iOS - app store, fullscreen apps etc.
Will tablets kill laptops/desktops? No. But I'm pretty certain that the latter two will run software which looks much more like what we see on tablets today in 4-5 years
Future is just like startrek/stargate (Score:1)
Loads of servers everywhere, with terminals to login, or access to the server 'cloud/internet' via portable devices such as mini tablets/phones, or larger 10"+ tablets.
Phone/tablets will grow closer to desktop cousins, as in more storage/local apps. And desktops converted to more home servers, so pretty much later there will be ONLY laptops / tablets to buy, and big box 'Home Servers' that handle shit loads of backups/media servers/PVRs/VMs.
Re:That was fast... (Score:5, Insightful)
There has to be closed-garden companies like Apple to make new paradigms. They control the OS, they can make it do what they want. They're also not afraid to do away with tradition that has no use anymore.
Unlike PC manufacturers, who with Microsoft, can only design computers with what Microsoft had in mind. Tweaking can be done, but nowhere near the level needed that went from OS X -> iOS. They had PC tablets from 2001, and guess what, they were just junk. Just like the Windows phones, which had the same start button on bottom left mentality - give me a break!
Even after 15 years of Linux, I haven't seen the open approach yield much in productive innovation on the desktop front. Design by committee is the worst. Or a 100 comittees in this case. And Microsoft has that same problem. And PCs have design by tradition. It took Apple to get rid of the floppy and some legacy ports that 99% of people don't use.
And even after Apple is gobbling up the notebook market, I don't see many of the PC manufacturer so much as even copy them. Same plasticky, gimmicky shit notebooks as ever. Sure, Dell make copy MacBook Air with Adamo or whatever it's called (as useless as either were), and they may also make the shiny screens, or chicklet keyboards - but the bodies, the very first impression of a notebook on PCs has remains the same plasticky, unwiedly, fugly crap that they've been pushing out in 1998. No clean lines or anything like the Power Mac or moreso MacBook Pro. Boggles my mind.
And I say this as someone that would like to see nice computers on the PC front as I work on a PC desktop. I recently got a hand me down desktop and it was fucking gaudy - LED lights and gauges everywhere, like a poor man's F1 racer in computer case form. Tried to find something minimalistic, and the nicest thing I could find was a black case version of das keyboard.
*(I do love open source and open standards, but keep them the hell away from the GUI :D)
Re: (Score:3)
There has to be closed-garden companies like Apple to make new paradigms. They control the OS, they can make it do what they want. They're also not afraid to do away with tradition that has no use anymore.
While you're right that controlling the whole stack does make it easier do throw away tradition, I have to disagree with the "has to" part. You're also right that a lot of the design work that goes on in the open source world is rather abysmal. But to assume that the open source approach in incapable of moving away from tradition or can never produce a decent GUI is just ignorant.
For the most part I do agree that Apple does produce much nicer hardware than the average PC. But even in this case the exeptions
Re: (Score:1)
Perhaps not incapable, but at the very least _currently_ unwilling. FOSS is still gaining traction and staying with the status quo makes the transition easier for people. There are pros and cons to that: easier transition, yet innovative stagnation. Perhaps what's really needed is a radical paradigm-shift, something new and amazing that will draw people to it. If you build it, they will come ; )
Re: (Score:3)
And even after Apple is gobbling up the notebook market, I don't see many of the PC manufacturer so much as even copy them. Same plasticky, gimmicky shit notebooks as ever. Sure, Dell make copy MacBook Air with Adamo or whatever it's called (as useless as either were), and they may also make the shiny screens, or chicklet keyboards - but the bodies, the very first impression of a notebook on PCs has remains the same plasticky, unwiedly, fugly crap that they've been pushing out in 1998. No clean lines or anything like the Power Mac or moreso MacBook Pro. Boggles my mind.
And I say this as someone that would like to see nice computers on the PC front as I work on a PC desktop. I recently got a hand me down desktop and it was fucking gaudy - LED lights and gauges everywhere, like a poor man's F1 racer in computer case form. Tried to find something minimalistic, and the nicest thing I could find was a black case version of das keyboard.
*(I do love open source and open standards, but keep them the hell away from the GUI :D)
Apple seems to be the only esthetic [wikipedia.org] company in IT today. The thought that making a computer or device look and feel good could help people feel more comfortable and so help them to better use those devices seems wholly foreign to the rest of the industry. Other companies can copy some aspects of the designs but they can't seem to grasp the philosophy behind it that makes it work.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Why chose something that looks like a piece of shit when something beautiful costs $50 more? That's barely the cost of a meal out in San Francisco or Manhattan for a device you're going to be stuck using every day.
You can also bet if the manufacturer was too idiotic to make their gadget even look halfway decent, they forgot a bunch of other stuff as well. I mean, if you can't even design a case that's not an eyesore, what about the really difficult engineering and design?
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Thank you.
Exactly what I have been saying for years, nice to hear it from the mouth of a fanboi.
"Apple makes fashion accessories."
And for those of us with our sanity still intact:
"Who gives a shit if a tool matches the colour of my man-bag."
First off, grow up and cut that "fanboi" shit out. It makes you sound like a twelve year old.
Second, you missed my point which was that good design can add to a product (follow that link in my previous post to the wikipedia entry for applied esthetics.) Since you talk about fashion let's make a fashion analogy. Pants are pants but you can buy pants with a fashionable cut that are nicer to look at and feel more comfortable. The fashion has added to both the utility (comfort) and the enjoyment (looks nice.) A
No, Actually the Chinese Factory (Score:2)