Locator: 49106APPLE.
Disclaimer: the blog below has not been proofread. It is not ready for prime time. Also, see the blog disclaimer. I may have add something to the disclaimer. LOL.
I could care less / I couldn't care more how the iPhone 17 does in total sales / revenue / profit but what Tim Cook introduced on September 9, 2025, is simply breath-taking. Even as an investor in Apple, I have no interest in those things (sales, revenue, profit) with regard to this post. This is all about the technology.
See CPUs, GPUS, Cores, Threads, And All That Jazz -- one of my visited blogs ever.
- foundries: TSM, with a huge mote; 72% market share of existing foundries
CPUs -- anybody and everybody - GPUs -- Nvidia, huge mote
- XPUs -- Broadcom,
- DRAM -- Micron
- NPUs: Apple.
AMD is in "almost all the above" but particularly CPUs and GPUs.
From ChatGPT:
Apple is shipping the iPhone 17 with the N1, an NPU, as part of system on a chip (SOC).
Wow, isn't that amazing! Do you see any company in the box above that "know," except ARM --
Who else, other than TSMC / Apple is using 3nm technology:
The big takeaway: for others, N1 on a systems-on-a_chip, is not only the only one being made now (needs to be fact-checked) but is already being shipped in Apple iPhone 17s.
Now, the schematics:
It's impossible to articulate what Apple is doing. But this is a huge, huge deal.
Tim Cook is simply unable to articulate this as well as Steve Job might have described it. And maybe "it" can't be adequately described to the masses.
This is a rough attempt:
And note this, not mentioned once by talking heads over at CNBC or really any other media outlet of consequence.
For as long as I can recall every talking head / every critic / every iPhone analyst -- particularly on MacRumors -- has complained -- often at length -- that Apple has not increased "memory" on its basic phone in ages.
Now, all of a sudden, Apple doubles the memory on its base phone and takes the loss themselves -- Apple doesn't pass this cost on to the consumer -- and no one seems to notice, much less mention even in passing.
The "memory" is incredibly important. I'm not a big user of apps and I store no photos on my phone, but I am always running near the max of memory available on my phone.
But the increased memory was not for photos or apps.
I'll give you a minute to think why Apple increased (actually doubled) the amount of memory in the basic iPhone.
I had a hunch.
Confirmed by ChatGPT.
ChatGPT had this to say about that:
For years, analysts and forums hammered Apple for “nickel-and-diming” on base memory. Historically, Apple used storage tiers (64 GB → 128 GB → 256 GB, etc.) to create upsell ladders and margins. So when Apple suddenly doubles memory on the base iPhone without raising the price, that’s not charity — it’s strategic.
And like you suggest, it’s not about giving you room for more selfies. The real driver: see this link.
