Samsung Terminates LCD Contract With Apple 377
An anonymous reader writes "Samsung has decided to terminate an ongoing contract with Apple to supply LCD panels for use in its growing range of devices. That means, come next year, there will be no Samsung panels used across the iPad, iPod, iPhone, and Mac range of devices. The reason seems to be two-fold. On the one hand, Apple has been working hard to secure supplies from other manufacturers and therefore decrease its reliance on Samsung. On the other, Apple is well-known for demanding and pushing lower pricing, meaning it just doesn't make business sense anymore for Samsung to keep supplying Apple with displays."
understatement of the year? (Score:5, Informative)
With the ongoing legal action between Samsung and Apple it’s no surprise that the relationship has cooled.
Third Reason: (Score:5, Informative)
On the one hand, Apple has been working hard to secure supplies from other manufacturers and therefore decrease its reliance on Samsung. On the other, Apple is well-known for demanding and pushing lower pricing, meaning it just doesn't make business sense anymore for Samsung to keep supplying Apple with displays."
On my third hand, Apple and Samsung have been suing the piss out of one another, and that is beginning to strain other business relationships.
Re:On the "third hand"... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Retina Displays? (Score:4, Informative)
It was mentioned that LG and Sharp will supply the new displays.
Personally I'm surprised Apple had allowed Samsung to have so much of the component business for so long. I'm not talking about patent disputes. Instead I refer to the lessons learned from basing your desktop computer manufacturing on a single supplier's (Motorola) ability to produce the components needed.
It makes good business sense to have alternate suppliers to keep the pricing competitive.
Re:Retina Displays? (Score:5, Informative)
True story, my mother asked me to set her computer up to use the highest resolution because that is better. So I did. And she complained that everything got small and that every time she clicked something weird would happen (she was clicking about 3 inches to the left of the edge of the monitor, and that was a different row of icons after the resolution changed.
Re:Patent disputes (Score:5, Informative)
In fact, it sounds like you may be exactly correct. Another version of the story I read earlier today had this quote:
“We are unable to supply our flat-screens to Apple with huge price discounts. Samsung has already cut our portion of shipments to Apple and next year we will stop shipping displays,” said a senior Samsung source, asking not to be named, Monday.
And then went on to say:
The report claims that Samsung shipped approximately 15 million LCD panels to Apple in the first half of 2012, with the pace falling to 3 million panels in the third quarter and expected to drop to 1.5 million in the fourth quarter as Apple has shifted to other suppliers.
Long story short, Apple probably made unreasonable demands for price while reducing requested quantities as they shifted to using LG and others, more or less forcing Samsung to terminate the contract. This comes as no real surprise, given the legal battles. Nor is the timing surprising, given that Apple just shifted their chip design (which Samsung had previously collaborated on) to be handled internally, is reportedly moving chip manufacturing from Samsung to TSMC and other companies, and is getting their Flash memory from Toshiba, Micron, and others instead of Samsung, as they used to. If there's something left in the iOS devices that Samsung has a hand in, the smart money would be on it getting moved to a different company as well.
Re:Retina Displays? (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, it does mean something. It has a defined meaning, from Apple, presented at the keynote based on a formula relating distance, human visual acuity and the spacing between pixels on the display.
Actually, the formula has more to do with the distance between the customer's wallet and Apple's bank account.
Re:if it's a scientific term, then should be open (Score:4, Informative)
"Retina display" isn't copyrighted by Apple. In fact it's not even a trademark.
"Retina [uspto.gov]" is the trademark.
Copyright [wikipedia.org] and trademark [wikipedia.org] are not the same thing.
Re:And the real losers are the apple customers... (Score:3, Informative)
Samsung displays were actually the only non-defective displays that shipped with the new retina macbooks. Other screens have had huge ghosting issues (I went through 4 laptops before getting a Sammy screen that actual worked right) pretty much fresh off the lot.
It would be nice if this brought these ridiculous issues out into the light so Apple has to face the fact they completely screwed up the retina launch... of course, we all know that would never happen.
And yet you keep buying their garbage.
Re:Retina Displays? (Score:5, Informative)
People shopping for TVs in Walmart understand resolution and pixel size, especially if they get to stand 1 foot from a 70" 1080p TV and see that it doesn't really look very good up close compared to a 720p 32" TV at the same distance.
It's not that people are stupid, they're just often lazy and *don't care* to think or understand or learn. Apple fucking LOVES people who only want to hear and use buzzwords with no understanding of what they actually mean, people who don't evaluate products beyond their marketing -- that's been their core customer base since, fuck, the iMac? Likely even earlier than that, but that POS is the earliest device they made in my memory that really went whole-hog on "OMG IT LOOKS SO COOL!" and nothing else.
Wishes do come true. (Score:5, Informative)
"Google has also been working with Samsung to launch a 10-inch tablet, confirming leaks which suggested Google had teamed up with the Korean manufacturer for another device. Our source tells us that internally the tablet goes under the name “Codename Manta”, runs Google’s new Android 4.2 operating system (previously referred to as Key Lime Pie, but is set to retain the Jelly Bean branding), and will offer a 2560×1600 pixel (16:10) resolution, which we believe will offer around 300 pixels per inch (PPI) compared to the new iPad’s 264 PPI."
http://thenextweb.com/google/2012/10/21/revealed-everything-that-google-will-announce-at-its-android-event-on-october-29/ [thenextweb.com]
Re:Patent disputes (Score:4, Informative)
Or similar stupid "widescreen" format :-/
You mean unlike Apple's stupid 4:3 "widescreen" format? Yes, they officially advertise their 4:3 screen as widescreen [apple.com].