Cachet?

Surely everyone else would be scared of being sued because Apple are bound to claim they've patented using TSMC manufactured chips. Maybe ones with rounded corners.

besides the point that...

... I loathe all Apple and would condemn it and all apple-ites to the lowest pits of hell imaginable...

The point still stands..

There are a limited number of large chip fabs in the world, and each of them will have watched the way Apple has treated Samsung, and I suspect will either look very carefully at any deal with Apple or tell them to f*ck right off in short order. What are Apple going to do if they manage to either offend TSMC or do something as stupid as go after them the way they have Samsung?

Its very like the agrochemicals business my father used to work in... if you had a reputation you had everything, you'd get first pick of the products, if something was short people would think "hmm Richard needs 500 litres of this, better keep it back". But screw things up once, or lie, or attack people the way Apple has and you were on the short road to the bankrupcy court (or a restructuring with a purple emblem...).

Apple have two halo products right now, the iPhone and the iPad. While it is my personal firm belief that these two things are overpriced tat, that were at the leading edge of technology about 6 years ago... people are buying them. But what happens if all the fabs jack the prices up or turn their backs on apple and say get lost? Apple are forced back to their laptops/desktops which now are nothing more than wintel boxes running a different OS. Whether you like it or not, that is all they are, at twice the price of everyone elses to boot.

Apple has no distinguishing features in this market - other than the dubious claim... we were here first *pout*. Playbook using QNX has rock solid security and business functionality, which makes it stand out and gives it a niche. Android is cheaper and just as insecure as iOS. So where does iPAD stand? Insecure, and expensive.. *lehmans mode:on*. Ironically, it might end up that Symbian, with its signed applications and built in security does a last minute lazarus... but thats assuming that an ex microsoft drone has a brain in there...

The same with the iPhone,only its worse. Once it was a halo product, now its more like something you'd give to those angel things from Dr Who... its locked down, its lacking functions (and always has been), its a tarnished brand (antennagate etc), and cheaper devices can do most things better... hell, lets ride the metaphor till it falls apart... it could well be that the iPhone is Apple's Titanic when all is said and done. When Steve Jobs retires (or ascends) who is going to take his place? the whole company will be like headless chickens very probably... and its iceberg time. White Star Line survived its Titanic, for a while, but I doubt that Apple will be so lucky.

Apple have placed all their eggs now in a single basket - iPad & iPhone - theyve made much more of an investment in these than I think anyone realizes, and pared everything else back to make way for the 'saviours of apple' - but like the Unternehmen Wacht am Rhein this could be a last gasp offensive, that leaves the company, in the fullness of time, critically weakened with nowhere to go but down.

This lawsuit garbage and all the rest of it smacks of a fighter on the ropes - that has no plans other than to swing wildly at whatever shape rears its head, in the hope of connecting by nothing more than luck.

Re: besides the point that...

"... I loathe all Apple and would condemn it and all apple-ites to the lowest pits of hell imaginable..."

You really COULD have left it t that and had substantially the same amount of useful information in your post.

Frankly, the rest of it is full of plain foolishness and/or bile from paragraph 3 --

"What are Apple going to do if they manage to either offend TSMC or do something as stupid as go after them the way they have Samsung?"

...You mean when they go after TSMC for making an identical-looking consumer product...? Not likely, since, from http://www.tsmc.com/english/aboutTSMC/company_profile.htm:

"Established in 1987, TSMC is the world's first dedicated semiconductor foundry.";

...All the way to paragraph 9 --

"This lawsuit garbage and all the rest of it smacks of a fighter on the ropes - that has no plans other than to swing wildly at whatever shape rears its head, in the hope of connecting by nothing more than luck."

...Which, I presume, is your opinion of ANY company that sues a direct competitor for introducing a, visually, almost identical competing product (and I say this as an user whose Samsung Android phone looks, at a quick glance, VERY much like his iPod Touch) -- otherwise one might think that you... well... your post probably says it best : "(had) no plans other than to swing wildly at whatever shape rears its head, in the hope of connecting by nothing more than luck."

Seriously, dude... You may want to consider going back on the Lithium.