[masklinn]

> and developed their own chip.

Apple did not "develop their own chip" in any meaningful sense, especially not in back in 2007 when Nvidia acquired PortalPlayer. The iPhone used an off-the-shelf Samsung part (the S5L8900), and PortalPlayer was in the business of audio SoCs for PMPs. The first generation Tegra was more than two years away at the release of the original iPhone.

Even if Apple had wanted to contract PortalPlayer for iPhone, they could not have.

Since then, they've mostly kept to off-the-shelf blocks, even the A4 only has minor restructuring of the blocks at the SoC level, the GPU is a standard SGX block.

[Steko]

If Nvidia is extracting a premium over other ARM vendors it's unlikely any kind of mobile deal with Apple would happen. Not sure they'd be crazy about rebranding their mobile flagship with an Apple logo either.

[masklinn]

> If Nvidia is extracting a premium over other ARM vendors it's unlikely any kind of mobile deal with Apple would happen.

Not really.

> Not sure they'd be crazy about rebranding their mobile flagship with an Apple logo either.

Why would they have to rebrand anything? The iPhone and 3G SoCs were not branded, and the 3GS only had minor branding (an Apple logo on the top 20%). The A4 was the first iPhone SoC with truly significant rebranding.

[code_duck]

That's the problem for nVidia as a supplier for Apple: iOS hardware is Apple branded, and most people do not know what is inside. nVidia wants to build their own brand, but Apple has no interest in that.