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Apple blames Intel for its recent decline in Mac revenue, with Tim Cook and his co-founder.
As Forbes noted, in notes about Apple's latest financial results (for the second fiscal quarter, until the end of March), Luca Maestri, Chief Financial Officer, said, "Then I would like talk about the Mac. The turnover amounted to 5.5 billion against 5.8 billion a year ago. This decrease is mainly due to the CPU constraints imposed by some popular models. "
Tim Cook, CEO, added, "For all of our Mac business, we faced processor processing challenges in March, resulting in a 5% drop in revenue from the year ahead. 39, last year. But we believe that our Mac revenues would have been higher than last year without these constraints, and we do not believe this challenge will have a significant impact on our third quarter results. "
The implication is that these chip supply issues have something to do with the fact that we have not yet heard of MacBook updates for this year, and that potential delays for hardware could be related to that.
This certainly makes sense, especially because at Daring Fireball, John Gruber has also taken over this case, noting that he had already asked an internal source at Apple why the company had taken so long to release his new MacBook Air last year, and the answer in a nutshell was simply "Intel".
Impact of Intel
It is clear that Intel's manufacturing difficulties and stockouts of its current processors have had a considerable impact on the entire IT industry, even for larger players from the point of view of the suppliers of PC (and small farms had even more difficulties, sometimes having to use older Intel processors on their machines – or even switch to AMD).
Intel has focused on manufacturing high-end processors with the production capacity it has. Because they generate the largest profit margins, it makes financial sense, but the middle and budget processors are thinner on the ground. And unfortunately, Intel's latest is that these challenges will not go away quickly and will probably persist until the third quarter.
However, Cook stated earlier that he did not believe that these processor supply constraints would impact the current quarter for Apple. As we approach the third quarter of 2019, the situation should improve, if Intel is correct and that it actually solves these problems. production problems with its processors.
All this could indicate what MacBook has updated. Apple plans by 2019, perhaps to arrive later in the year, when Intel's silicon will be available more abundantly than earlier. Hopefully we'll have at least some decent technical changes to existing machines, even if we do not see the all-new 16-inch MacBook Pro, which would have been delayed until 2020 (or maybe even the next year) .
Aside from what is going on behind the scenes, what all this clearly points out is Apple's reliance on Intel in the supply chain for the Mac.
And while Intel has recently said it will do everything it can to prevent this type of processor outage from happening again, this is clearly another good reason why Apple could switch to ARM with its Macs. The rumor is already circulating, with discussions from developers and Intel insiders insisting that Apple will change to use ARM-based custom chips in 2020.
Making its own ARM processors will be a big change – and of course it will not be an easy task – but it will give Apple a number of advantages, including taking control of the supply chain, but also increasing profits made on Macs by removing Intel from the equation.
There is no doubt that all of its devices, whether Mac, iPhone or iPad, will also benefit from similar ARM processors, which will make it easier to develop applications on all these elements. materials.
So it seems that the divorce between Apple and Intel is only a matter of time, which could certainly explain why Apple is happy enough to take very public photos of Intel on its current difficulties in supply.
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