According to Digitimes, Apple is continuing to diversify its suppliers and moving away from its dependance on Samsung:
Apple has increased its purchases of DRAM and NAND flash from Japan, according to industry sources, adding that Toshiba and Elpida Memory are being pinpointed as beneficiaries of the increased procurement.
Apple and Samsung have been in increasingly escalating legal battles over patent claims concerning Apple's iOS devices and Samsung's Galaxy line These lawsuits are said to be the reason for Apple's shifting of suppliers. Apple had previously been reported to have moved from Samsung to TSMC for production of the A6 processor in 2012. Meanwhile, Samsung has even threatened to sue Apple over the iPhone 5 once it is released.
Apple had quickly become Samsung's biggest customer with contracts for over $7.8 billion in parts in 2011. Apple seems to be doing its best to shift those contracts to Samsung's competitors over the next year.
Update: Reuters reports that Samsung has announced a $10 billion investment in a new flash memory production line, hoping to increase its share of the market and lower its own costs. Samsung will take approximately nine months to get the new line fully up and running.
Thursday February 5, 2026 12:54 pm PST by Joe Rossignol
Apple turns 50 this year, and its CEO Tim Cook has promised to celebrate the milestone. The big day falls on April 1, 2026.
"I've been unusually reflective lately about Apple because we have been working on what do we do to mark this moment," Cook told employees today, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. "When you really stop and pause and think about the last 50 years, it makes your heart ...
Thursday February 5, 2026 12:22 pm PST by Joe Rossignol
Apple plans to announce the iPhone 17e on Thursday, February 19, according to Macwelt, the German equivalent of Macworld.
The report, citing industry sources, is available in English on Macworld.
Apple announced the iPhone 16e on Wednesday, February 19 last year, so the iPhone 17e would be unveiled exactly one year later if this rumor is accurate. It is quite uncommon for Apple to unveil...
Friday February 6, 2026 3:06 pm PST by Juli Clover
In the iOS 26.4 update that's coming this spring, Apple will introduce a new version of Siri that's going to overhaul how we interact with the personal assistant and what it's able to do.
The iOS 26.4 version of Siri won't work like ChatGPT or Claude, but it will rely on large language models (LLMs) and has been updated from the ground up.
Upgraded Architecture
The next-generation...
Tuesday February 3, 2026 7:47 am PST by Joe Rossignol
While the iOS 26.3 Release Candidate is now available ahead of a public release, the first iOS 26.4 beta is likely still at least a week away. Following beta testing, iOS 26.4 will likely be released to the general public in March or April.
Below, we have recapped known or rumored iOS 26.3 and iOS 26.4 features so far.
iOS 26.3
iPhone to Android Transfer Tool
iOS 26.3 makes it easier...
The iPhone 18 Pro Max will feature a bigger battery for continued best-in-class battery life, according to a known Weibo leaker.
Citing supply chain information, the Weibo user known as "Digital Chat Station" said that the iPhone 18 Pro Max will have a battery capacity of 5,100 to 5,200 mAh. Combined with the efficiency improvements of the A20 Pro chip, made with TSMC's 2nm process, the...
Why doesn't Apple just make a factory, and make it? Not like they are poor or anything....
i live in asia and sell tshirts for a living, tshirts i mean about 30.000 pcs every month.
i can build my own factory and have 200 asian workers if i want to, but i prefer to design the tshirts in my company and give the designs to the factory that managed by other people so i don't have to deal with the workers.
it's a pain in the ass to deal with the workers and it will give me stress.
so i better let other company handle the production, give them a profit too and that means less profit for me but the stress life is non existence.
Or, more likely, that Apple screws itself by divorcing itself from one of the largest and most innovative suppliers.
I just hope Samsung becomes MORE innovative, bringing consumers NEW designs (like Motorola and Microsoft have lately done) and copying less from Apple. They’re not copying Apple’s designs because they have to, and not because that somehow means more “choice.” They’re doing it because it’s more cost-effective to copy than to innovate, so they innovate less and copy more. As a consumer, I surely don’t benefit from that. So I hope Apple succeeds in shifting Samsung to a more innovative approach, whether through buyer pressure, defending patents on things Apple actually did invent, or just making it not worth the bother to copy them any further.
Good thing Apple fans aren't waiting for the iPhone 5.
It will be interesting to measure the time between the next iPhone’s very first announcement and users having it in their hands, vs. the time between Microsoft’s very first Windows 8 announcement and users having that in their hands :D Windows 8 was announced before the next iPhone. Will it ship before the next iPhone, or after?
But none of those can hold a candle to Windows in the marketplace.
They can all hold a candle to Windows 8, since they’re out there now, whereas Windows 8 won’t ship for ages—like a year or longer). And Windows has been “in the marketplace” on tablets for years upon years, yet still lags far behind iOS after Apple re-invented the tablet.
