A Little Chip Designed by Apple Itself
SAN FRANCISCO — Sure, the screen is nice. But the iPad's most important component, at least for Apple's future, may be the A4, the fingernail-size chip at the tablet's heart. — With the A4, Apple has taken another step toward challenging the norms of the mobile device industry.
Context & Ripple Effects
Apple’s iPad unveiling had drawn both anticipation and public criticism, but the A4 makes the launch more than a new-screen-format bet: Apple is bringing control of a core component inside its device strategy. Coverage days earlier had already raised the prospect of using the A4 in iPhones, making the chip relevant beyond a single tablet.
First-order effects
- Apple gains direct control over the processor at the iPad’s center, turning silicon design into part of how it differentiates the device rather than a component choice left entirely to outside chip vendors.
Second-order effects
- A shared A4 across the iPad and iPhone, if Apple adopts the path raised in earlier coverage, would let Apple spread one internal chip-design effort across multiple mobile products and tighten its control of their underlying architecture.
Third-order effects
- Apple’s move challenges the mobile-device norm of treating processors chiefly as supplier-provided parts; if other handset and tablet makers follow, custom silicon becomes a durable source of systems-level differentiation rather than a niche engineering exercise.
The trend: Mobile-device competition is expanding from industrial design and software into vertically integrated control of the silicon that runs both.