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Apple in China, a bestselling book by a former Financial Times reporter, argues that Apple helped build China’s electronics industry—and, in doing so, enabled a new challenger to the West. This essay pushes back.
Drawing on more than a decade of reporting across Taiwan and China, the author examines Apple’s supply chain from the factory floor up, challenging the idea that Apple trained Chinese firms or nurtured a complete indigenous ecosystem. Instead, the piece shows how Apple’s deepest investments flowed primarily to Taiwanese suppliers, while many of China’s most formidable tech companies emerged from a different source altogether: the massive smartphone manufacturing ecosystem centered in Shenzhen.
From MacBook production to iPhone component economics, and from Foxconn to Huawei, this is a ground-level reassessment of where China’s real technological momentum comes from—and why Apple’s role may be far more limited than commonly believed.
Great read, thank you. It is interesting to give full credit to Tim Cook but as an insider I know it was his team who did it. The same thing with the Apple/TSMC relationship. Tim was not in Taiwan meeting with Morris Chang, it was Jeff Williams. Tim was not at the TSMC 30th anniversary speaking about the Apple/TSMC relationship, Jeff Williams was. That is one of the things that bothered me most about corporate America. Credit is not always given where credit is due.
The Apple/TSMC relationship was one of the biggest disruptions in the semiconductor industry, absolutely, and we have Jeff Williams to thank.
Great read, thank you. It is interesting to give full credit to Tim Cook but as an insider I know it was his team who did it. The same thing with the Apple/TSMC relationship. Tim was not in Taiwan meeting with Morris Chang, it was Jeff Williams. Tim was not at the TSMC 30th anniversary speaking about the Apple/TSMC relationship, Jeff Williams was. That is one of the things that bothered me most about corporate America. Credit is not always given where credit is due.
The Apple/TSMC relationship was one of the biggest disruptions in the semiconductor industry, absolutely, and we have Jeff Williams to thank.
Was that the real pivot, or was it when Steve Jobs was still around and bought PA Semi? Once Apple went down the path of developing it's own chips - it seems like Apple would have ended up with whomever was the best Foundry in the long run to sustain their update cadence.. and TSMC executed well enough from 28nm down to/past 7nm to win their business for the long haul..
Was that the real pivot, or was it when Steve Jobs was still around and bought PA Semi? Once Apple went down the path of developing it's own chips - it seems like Apple would have ended up with whomever was the best Foundry in the long run to sustain their update cadence.. and TSMC executed well enough from 28nm down to/past 7nm to win their business for the long haul..
Apple started with Samsung Foundry but did the exclusive TSMC partnership at 20nm. This was a big deal for TSMC and changed how they do business. TSMC creates a custom process/PDK for Apple, Apple had most favored nation status so TSMC could not charge less for wafers than what Apple paid etc... It really was a big pivot for TSMC and in my opinion the reason why TSMC caught Intel.
Had Apple worked with Intel (Intel declined) it would be a different foundry landscape, absolutely.
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