[bigyabai]

> Apple doesn’t see factories purely as stores

At Apple's scale, you basically can't operate like this. Placing an order for 50 million iPhone screens is not a consumer-grade request, you have to customize and coordinate your orders to get all 50 million delivered. It's hard to see the genius in this, the advantages you've listed are all courtesy of scale and liquidity.

[geodel]

Huh, courtesy of scale is because of 50 million customers were convinced that iPhone has quality enough to pay premium over 100s of other phone models. No one is stopping Dell, Acer, Asus, Samsung etc of the world to put order of 50 million widgets and get best quality at cut throat price.

[Someone]

> No one is stopping Dell, Acer, Asus, Samsung etc of the world to put order of 50 million widgets and get best quality at cut throat price.

That’s why I argue that’s something Apple does different. Dell, Acer, Asus, Samsung go to a manufacturer and ask them to make what they know they can make, preferably at cut throat price, while Apple goes there and says “we think you can make this, too; let’s discuss how we can get there, and how much money you’ll need for it”.

Of course, reality is more nuanced. Samsung, for instance, experiments a lot with folding displays (I expect Apple does, too, but is not satisfied with them yet), but I think it is correct in the large picture. Other manufacturers would say “we need a laptop body; let’s see who can build them, and what quality they have, Apple says “we want a laptop body made of one piece of aluminum; let’s see who we can work with to make that possible”.

And yes, having loads of money and high-margin products helps in that regard, but as I said and the post I reply to seems to acknowledge, that’s not sufficient.

[bigyabai]

Indeed, and if we pay that courtesy to it's original owner then Steve Jobs was the "genius" behind that. Tim Cook inherited the empire, and steered the resources Jobs left for him.

> No one is stopping Dell, Acer, Asus, Samsung etc of the world to put order of 50 million widgets and get best quality at cut throat price.

I don't think you are familiar with Samsung's ball game, including them in a list like this.

[altmanaltman]

Samsung literally makes and sells a lot of those displays to Apple. What are you talking about