It’s pretty evident that Apple isn’t wed to individual suppliers. Not only are they back to creating their own chips, but they are also one of the only 'compute' companies to have used each of the top 3 processor architectures over time—ARM, x86, and Power PC. Apple's DNA in this area is untouchable, helping it to innovate at the confluence of software and hardware. There’s a reason why pinching and zooming on the iPad is snappier than anything people have ever seen, and it’s not entirely clear whether the software or hardware plays the larger part. When a company decides to vertically integrate, as Apple has done with the iPad, it becomes subject to incredible pressure from outside. For example, how can Apple possibly stay ahead of the entire semiconductor universe, which will sell many more times volume than the iPhone and iPad. Apple’s commitment to vertically integrate comes with a pressure to accommodate change—they simply can’t commit to one architecture for the long-haul. But changing puts strain on developers, since code must be recompiled and cross-compilers rarely maintain performance. This week Apple confined developers to a specific set of tools (XCode). A lot of people think this is to kill Adobe Flash. Sure, that is a tactical reason, but there are much broader strategic reasons. By telling developers to move to XCode tools, Apple is setting the stage to potentially switch architectures. History often repeats itself: In 2003, Apple advised developers to switch to XCode tools. This was not a coincidental move—2 years later Apple moved to Intel across its entire Mac line. Developers who complied could simply press a button and applications would run natively (full performance) on new Intel Macs. Read more: steve’s blog
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