Building a processor that can compete with the x86 juggernaut is expensive. Look at Intel's budget -- they have the production capacity and engineering resources to do pretty much whatever they feel like doing.
For Apple to attempt to compete with Intel, it would need to be willing to invest billions of dollars just in fab technology with a minimum of 3-5 years before seeing any return on that investment.
And Apple doesn't have the volume... so it wouldn't get the return on investment.
So Apple worked with IBM and Moto, but weren't buying enough CPU's from either one to make much of a difference, so after Jobs ended the clone program, the PPC consortium focussed primarily on embedded computing, in particular networking. Apple wasn't big enough to merit a custom chip, so it had to make do with a chip designed for a network router.
And so on...
What they're doing with this in-house design probably differs in several ways.
One is that it's probably aimed at a hand-held device, or something in a similar form factor. As such, it doesn't need to be able to compete with Intel's flagship x86, so Intel's technology edge isn't a factor.
Two is that being aimed at a hand-held, it's going to be small -- which means a lower cost for manufacture. So it doesn't have to have Intel's manufacturing capacity to gain from economies of scale.
Three is that it doesn't require that Apple builds its own fab; it can develop a design in-house and bid it out for fabrication to any of the big fabrication shops out there, like Chartered, UMC, TSMC, Samsung, etc. The fab process won't offer the same performance (i.e. clock speed ramping) as those of AMD and Intel, but in the hand-held market, that's a lot less important than minimizing power consumption.
And if the first fab partner can't keep up, owning the design means that Apple can follow Microsoft's example and hire a 2nd fab partner to boost production.
I guess that's a long winded way of agreeing with you, but there you go :)
For Apple to attempt to compete with Intel, it would need to be willing to invest billions of dollars just in fab technology with a minimum of 3-5 years before seeing any return on that investment.
And Apple doesn't have the volume... so it wouldn't get the return on investment.
So Apple worked with IBM and Moto, but weren't buying enough CPU's from either one to make much of a difference, so after Jobs ended the clone program, the PPC consortium focussed primarily on embedded computing, in particular networking. Apple wasn't big enough to merit a custom chip, so it had to make do with a chip designed for a network router.
And so on...
What they're doing with this in-house design probably differs in several ways.
One is that it's probably aimed at a hand-held device, or something in a similar form factor. As such, it doesn't need to be able to compete with Intel's flagship x86, so Intel's technology edge isn't a factor.
Two is that being aimed at a hand-held, it's going to be small -- which means a lower cost for manufacture. So it doesn't have to have Intel's manufacturing capacity to gain from economies of scale.
Three is that it doesn't require that Apple builds its own fab; it can develop a design in-house and bid it out for fabrication to any of the big fabrication shops out there, like Chartered, UMC, TSMC, Samsung, etc. The fab process won't offer the same performance (i.e. clock speed ramping) as those of AMD and Intel, but in the hand-held market, that's a lot less important than minimizing power consumption.
And if the first fab partner can't keep up, owning the design means that Apple can follow Microsoft's example and hire a 2nd fab partner to boost production.
I guess that's a long winded way of agreeing with you, but there you go :)