Why is developing your own hardware important to Apple?

Since we published an overview of the Apple A4 a few days ago, its disclosure has been a subject as highlighted by the main technology sites as the product itself based on it is the iPad. After its launch, many people were apprehensive that the internal development of semiconductors could provide Apple in the future, and with reason it is one of the few companies that, little by little, is taking its own path to create hardware strictly adapted to its software itself.

But why is this so important to Apple?

The reason for this is part of the same reasons why the Mac is successful in the industry: it's about finding the right way to develop hardware that works perfectly with the software written for it. The A4 is just one of Apple's creations that show its concern in this area, but it has only shown itself to be aimed at mobile devices until the moment that maybe it will include iPhones and iPods touch in the future.

Since the launch of the first iPhone, who supplies the processors of Apple gadgets to Samsung, but it is believed that this will change in the future. The smartphone manufacturer acquired a considerable level of experience in semiconductor manufacturing when it brought its hardware team PA Semi in 2008. At the time of this acquisition, many people mistakenly believed that Ma would end its relationship with Intel, but This disappeared from the scene months later, when she hired a former IBM to form a hardware engineering team for mobile devices. In addition, some of the engineers at the former PA Semi who worked on computers have already left Apple.

Like some analysts, I believe that the group created by Apple to deal with custom silicon working exclusively on hardware for mobile devices, the A4 being his first major creation. Unlike the solutions used on iPods and iPhones, it combines all the primary functions of a computer on a single chip including processing, graphics and memory control, allowing the achievement of a level of performance that, as one company executive stated in the introduction of the iPad cannot be reached by any other means.

Seeing Apple itself creating hardware and software for a device with the iPad means that it is able to guarantee its perfect functioning without depending on intermediaries, in addition to being able to guarantee its good battery life which could be even better, if your screen was not so demanding of energy. Such concern in this area and the priority of announcing the A4 publicly are indicative that the company has a chance to create much better mobile devices in this way than relying on third-party hardware, as is still the case with iPhones and iPods touch.

However, this concern should not be extended to the Mac, at least with respect to the A4 or semiconductor team that Apple has internally. It is important to emphasize, once again, that she has a good relationship with Intel: in the past five years, no PC manufacturer should have praised her work in public as much as Apple, through its presentations. Anyone who has followed the transition of Macs from the PowerPC architecture knows that both worked together to prepare hardware and software that would work as well as possible in Ma's new generation of computers.

In addition, 2010 will be the third consecutive year that Apple is expected to announce Macs Pro with new Xeon processors ahead of schedule for appearance on other similar machines in the industry. This kind of temporary exclusivity proves that nothing needs to change in this direction so soon after all, Mac OS X just became Intel-only last year, unfortunately leaving behind quite powerful PowerPC machines. Seeing Apple and Intel working this way should be just as productive as if Macs were created by a single company, something that apparently did not happen on the part of iPhones and iPods touch.

For this, a more advanced hardware division was created for them and for the iPad. With it, who knows, we may see mobile devices that are much more powerful for running applications from the App Store, in addition to having longer battery life, you thought, an A4 inside an iPhone? Over time, we will see that these initiatives will deliver greater integration of hardware and software around all Apple products, covering both Macs and mobile devices in general.