Apple did not have to be in this situation. Begging for capacity lost to startups. Everyone else can complain, but not Apple. They had a 250B warchest, exactly for such situations.

Now somehow openAI has capacity and Apple does not. And think about it Apple is not in a better position than Valve for example. A teeny tiny company in comparison.

It is an unprecedented managerial failure.

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kshacker 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Begging? Component price goes up, they increase their prices. Where's the begging?

Just like US had oil but as the world prices went up, US oil prices went up. No one will sell it cheap inside the country for patriotism. Same thing here.

Of course they likely had / likely have some issues, but we should explain it as market forces rather than any struggle they are facing.

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whatever1 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Is your thesis that Apple is planning for the same number of sales as the previous price?

If not, they ordered less chips. Hence lost capacity.

	▲	kshacker 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		No I don't have a thesis. About pricing, Netflix is constantly raising its prices and making more and more money (their stock is broken for last few months only) because they learned how to maximize profit by serving less customers but more profitable customers. Thats just one example. All I am saying is that price stability is not guaranteed and is not a corporate goal so whether they failed here, whether they regret something, it is not possible to judge that just from price increase. Maybe they did, maybe they did much better than we know today and will find out next year (or quarter).

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goldenarm 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Are you suggesting Apple should have invested in internal DRAM production?

	▲	whatever1 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		In the past they regularly have co-funded construction of fabs / nodes and getting exclusive access as a return.

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calf 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

This is not Apple's fault and it is just the beginning of AI. Unlike every other software/algorithm/program known to mankind, AI based on neural networks threatens to extract exponentially the entire humanity's supply of computational capacity. Moore's Law hit a fundamental snag in the last decade (e.g. Dennard scaling) and cannot and likely will not keep up. This then would be the worst case scenario with serious long term consequences far beyond the price of consumer goods.

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martinald 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Micron said that they tried to tell 2 of their largest customers (one almost certainly Apple) that the prices they were demanding would result in the cancellation of a lot new construction in 2023, which wasn't in the industries best interests.

It is sort of Apple's fault. They are probably the biggest single buyer of DRAM and NAND globally and they pride themselves on their supply chain management under Cook.

It seems they over optimised this too far.

	▲	cm2012 43 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Apple is the most spendthrift of the rich tech companies.