Apple has kept its foot ahead of the competition wrt to the technologies used in its products. Be it the gyroscope or the accelerometer since the original iPhone. Even the IPS and Retina Displays that Apple uses were in full supply to ensure record sales in 2010. No hesitancy in launching the iPod touch with an Retina display again shows that Apple has enough supply to meet it needs.
Apple had a $500 million agreement with LG some time back to make displays for its products. That was perhaps an investment that ensured that they don’t run into supply issues for popular products like the iPhone. And now its a bigger JV with Toshiba to ensure that the next-gen iPhones / iPods and iPads are all set to get proper supply of LCD.
As per reports Apple is setting up a plant in Ishikawa along with Toshiba that would be at an investment of USD 1.2 billion making. This plant is expected to be functional by 2nd half of 2011 producing Low-temperature polysilicon LCDs (pioneered by Toshiba). These displays are expected to be of Retina pixel density and the plant is rumored to be able of churning out as many as 8.5 million LCD units a month (doubling the existing output of Toshiba to 17 million units a month). Such numbers can only be expected for the iPhone going into 2011 / 2012.
Guess we shall also start hearing about Apple’s future chips that would most likely power the upcoming handhelds and tablets. A4 had done well for 2011, your turn A5!