[Dylan16807]

> Vertical integration is what allows Apple to be ahead on both price and performance.

I don't know about that. The processor is the main thing they have vertically integrated, right? And if I go look at a flagship like a Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G I see a BOM of $57 for the processor. (It does have a hideously expensive modem for 5G but it didn't need to have that.)

[acdha]

They control the entire system on a chip — remember how long it was before Android devices started to have the security features which Apple introduced in the iPhone 3GS? That took Google getting phone vendors to get the CPU vendors to all work together, whereas at Apple that's a couple of teams all working on the same product with the same incentives to make it succeed.

[lern_too_spel]

With Apple, it was security theater. With multiple vendors working together, it has to actually work to get everybody on board with putting in the resources.

https://www.wired.com/2009/07/iphone-encryption/

[cmsj]

Consider the knock-on effects though - that processor isn't necessarily optimising the things Samsung might want, nor is Android, which costs them more in other ways (I'm particularly thinking of the fact that Android phones seem to have to include a lot more RAM than iPhones, so that's another chunk of BOM).