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Comment by nonane | Hacker News Reader

Wow - talk about conflict of interest. So - Samsung knows the exact cpu specs for Apple's next gen iOS devices WHILE they're trying to compete with Apple on the Android platform with the Galaxy series.

I wonder how the Apple execs feel about this - it should make them a little uncomfortable knowing that their production line depends on a distributor who has a vested interest in a competing platform.

On the other hand, my impression is that Samsung is in the business of selling hardware for a profit. To them, it doesn't matter if they sell more hardware in the form of Galaxies or iPhones - as long as they're pushing out cpus/memory/lcds they don't care where it goes.

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Samsung knows better then to breach a contract with someone like Apple. Especially when they are building $3 billion factory to support it. Also I am sure the division that designs phones is separate, contractually, from the division that designs/manufactures chips.

That makes sense.

It all roses for Samsung - they have their hands in both pots.

Some facts using Samasung's Q42010 earnings release: http://www.samsung.com/us/aboutsamsung/ir/ireventpresentatio...

1) In terms of their revenues, their telecom business is now bigger than their semiconductor business, though from a profit perspective the semiconductor business is about 30% bigger.

2) Year-on-Year growth is slightly higher in the telecom division.

3) Telecom division expects higher than market growth rate mostly fueled by smartphone sets.

4) Telecom has mainly seen very strong growth in their 'strategic' handset models - 40% growth over previous years. Their strategic models are all Android based (5 models in total). Their telecom division is relying on newer revs of these models to drive higher than market returns in 2011.

My (very simplistic) reading of this: Apple needs to diversify away from Samsung and create more options (duh). If the Galaxy series turns out to do better than expected next year, it gives Samsung more leverage to raise prices / cut production quotas on Apple's chips.

Every smartphone company wants to diversify away from Samsung, it's never in your interest to be tied to a single supplier. The big problem with this: Samsung is the best. By far. Until their competitors catch up, they're the only reliable game in town.

As many companies do, those with brand identification and a long history of success tend to ride more than one horse, e.g. Google, Sony, etc

If Samsung is like most multi-national magecorp. conglomorates then there is probably very little connection between the cpu part and the phone part of the company. I'm sure the CPU people look at phone people as just another customer, and the phone people look on the CPU people as just another supplier. As you say the cpu people just care about their profit margins and probably have no incentive to hurt their bottom line to boost the bottom line of the phone division.

I doubt that Apple is overly concerned about the specs thing for all the reasons already stated here, along with the fact that Apple products have (almost) never beaten their competitors on spec sheets, quite the opposite. It's the UX that's their strength; it's very hard to copy and they know it.

along with the fact that Apple products have (almost) never beaten their competitors on spec sheets

This is categorically untrue. The iPhone 3GS was a world above virtually every Android phone at the time. The iPhone 4, when released, didn't have quite as large of a lead, but it still led the competition on virtually every spec.

And those specs didn't go unnoticed. From screen brightness to color range to processor speed to GPU performance, this is one of the reasons it was considered the #1 device. It led the spec sheet.

The iPhone 5 of course has its work cut out for it, because the competition is much more refined now and they're really in the game. But I am pretty certain that Apple is going to try their damndest to lead the spec comparisons again.

Ever since Samsung released the original Galaxy i7500 they have had a terrible reputation from those who have had to live with their purchases. Samsung have shown that they are in the business of selling hardware, and that has been shown through their repeated lack of support. Groups like the GAOSP became extremely popular amongst Galaxy owners, and the same thing happened with the next generation of Galaxy phones.

I'd be shocked if Samsung kept their promise and kept the Galaxy Tab updated once it's not the "hot product" any more. I wouldn't call this a conflict of interest because if anything I would say that Samsung playing such a large part in Android's success only damages peoples perception of Android as a platform, and as an Android fan it saddens me.

I wonder if Samsung is even really that interested in seeing Galaxy succeed or if it's almost more profitable to them just to have it as a bargaining point in dealing with Apple.

Somewhat relevant, I actually got to play with a Galaxy over the weekend and was really impressed with it (I thought the form factor might be weird, but realized it's very close to a Kindle/Paperback book in size).

Samsung knows the exact cpu specs for Apple's next gen iOS devices

Samsung was a co-developer of the A4 chip, which they derived for their Hummingbird platform. You could as easily say that Apple knew what Samsung was up to.

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