It is likely that the dispute resolution identified patents that Apple needed even for their own designs. Some broad (sometimes overly broad unfortunately) patents are very difficult to avoid. Apple is all-in on Metal so I’d guess the IP is related to their API more than the physical GPU.
Another thing, Imagination sold itself and maybe the new company was asking for much more reasonable terms. That would make negotiations easier for Apple with an improved cost/benefit ratio compared to litigation.
Yeh, actually, I wish Apple had done the same with Huawei (licensed their technology) rather than stooping down to crappy, crooked Qualcomm to get a 5G modem.
If you think Apple would license core communications tech from a CCP-run knockoff shop, you don’t know Apple very well.
LOL... I see you bought the right wing propaganda to distract from the country who attacked us and continues to attack us --- Russia! That propaganda was already debunked as simply leverage in Trump's Trade War and now the impetus for a cold war with China -- again to distract from the real enemy Russia.
My guess is Apple has acknowledged that their current products contain technology owned by Imagination. Rather than litigate the thing, they negotiated in good faith to pay royalties on it.
Or they can’t scale the architecture much beyond the A12X for other devices and need a hand.
I really doubt that. Mainly because Apple picked up so many AMD engineers back when AMD was on the ropes. Beyond all of that, Apple most likely has the best SoC design team on the planet right now. They have picked up close to a dozen highly respected design firms over the last few years.
Yeah ... that's not even close to being true. You can't "pick up" engineers and firms here and there and be better than companies that have been making SOCs and CPUs for decades and are under massive competitive pressure to either be better (Intel, Samsung, Qualcomm, Nvidia) or as good but cheaper (AMD, MediaTek) or be out on the street. Just like it is nuts to think that Apple will ever be as good at software and services as Microsoft, Google, Amazon and other companies that have always done it and need to compete with other software/services companies that have outstanding engineers and product teams to survive. You saw what happened when Intel tried to compete with Qualcomm, MediaTek and Samsung in mobile. They were practically PAYING smartphone and tablet manufacturers to use their chips and it still didn't work and now Microsoft - in addition to not lifting a finger to help Intel in mobile - has sold them out by working with Qualcomm to get a practical x86-64 emulator on ARM. Speaking of which ... if Apple had such a good SOC design team they also would have dumped Intel in favor of getting macOS and iPadOS on the same hardware platform years ago.
Apple and Steve Jobs addressed that issue decades ago: It's not a matter of excelling at Either Hardware or Software. Apple passed all competitors by long ago by integrating the two where whole is greater than the sum of the parts. It's why MacBooks bring in premium dollars over equivalent laptops and iPhones bring in premium dollars over most Android phones: The integration of hardware and software make them better products than the competition.
Comments
LOL... I see you bought the right wing propaganda to distract from the country who attacked us and continues to attack us --- Russia!
That propaganda was already debunked as simply leverage in Trump's Trade War and now the impetus for a cold war with China -- again to distract from the real enemy Russia.
Apple and Steve Jobs addressed that issue decades ago: It's not a matter of excelling at Either Hardware or Software. Apple passed all competitors by long ago by integrating the two where whole is greater than the sum of the parts. It's why MacBooks bring in premium dollars over equivalent laptops and iPhones bring in premium dollars over most Android phones: The integration of hardware and software make them better products than the competition.