This year marks ten years since the launch of the original iPhone and, appropriately enough, Apple has ramped up its R&D spending as a percentage of its total revenue to the level it was during the development of its debut handset.
In other words, something big is coming!
Services have become such an important revenue stream for Apple in recent years that the company decided to update its official business strategy today reflect its expanding money making machine.
In a filing with the SEC, Apple made a couple of changes to the description of its business. It’s the first time a major change has been made to the strategy since around 2014.
Apple has confirmed plans to open two additional research and development centers in China this year.
The centers in Shanghai and Suzhou will focus on developing technical experts for its local supply chain, and attracting graduates from universities like Peking University, Tsinghua University, and Shanghai Jiaotong University.
Apple’s new R&D base in Yokohama, Japan, will focus on artificial intelligence and other related technologies, Tim Cook has revealed.
The new facility is set to be completed by December, well ahead of the projected date of March 2017. In an interview with Nikkei Asian Review, Cook called it a center for “deep engineering,” and said it will be “very different” from the R&D centers Apple plans to build in China.
Apple has announced plans for its second R&D center in China, located in the country’s manufacturing hub Shenzhen. The 2017 opening will help Apple further grow its market in the world’s second largest economy as it challenges local competition.
“We are excited to be opening a new Research and Development center here next year so our engineering team can work even more closely and collaboratively with our manufacturing partners,” Apple spokesperson Josh Rosenstock said.
Apple has reportedly set up its first R&D center in China, located in Beijing’s Zhongguancun Science Park, according to a statement issued by the Zhongguancun Park Management Committee.
The plan is for the center to hire a total of 500 employees, who will focus on a wide range of Apple products and devices including, “the development of computer software and hardware products, communication, audio and video devices, as well as advanced technologies for consumer electronics products and the information industry.”
France will soon host a new Apple research center, according to local reports that claim the iPhone maker plans to lease a new R&D facility in Grenoble.
Apple is seeking an 800,000-square-foot warehouse to work on the Apple Car, according to a West Coast real estate giant, who claims space for developing electric vehicles is currently “a hot demand item” in Silicon Valley.
Upstarts like Apple and Alphabet are apparently competing with traditional automakers to set up shop for next-gen research facilities in the tech mecca.
Apple may have reached peak iPhone this quarter after posting declining revenues for the first time since 2003, but rest assured the company is working on the next big thing.
Tim Cook boasted about the amazingly innovative products coming down Apple’s pipeline, and the company’s latest spending figures show its throwing more money than ever at new ideas.
Progress on the Apple Car is coming along faster than anticipated after Project Titan hit some speed bumps earlier this year.
Based on a batch of new hires, it appears that Apple Car parts may have already entered the prototyping phase at the company’s Product Realization Lab, where machinists and engineers produce and test product designs.
Apple may not spend the same percentage of its revenue on research and development as rivals like Google, Facebook and Qualcomm, but that’s not stopping it from opening new offices dedicated to R&D projects.
The latest of these is based in Canada, with Apple apparently leasing space at a Kanata office complex as a way of establishing a presence in Ottawa. And for those hoping for an Apple Car, that location may turn out to be a significant one.
Apple has bought a former chip fabrication plant in North San Jose — shelling out $18.2 million for a 70,000 square-foot facility next door to Samsung Semiconductor’s new campus in the area.
Apple is set to open its first office in the UK’s innovation capital Cambridge in the next couple of weeks, according to a new report.
The address of the office — which will serve as an R&D lab — is the centrally-located 90 Hills Road, not far from the offices of streaming music rival Spotify. In addition to a healthy startup scene, other major tech companies with offices in Cambridge include leading microprocessor manufacturer ARM, Microsoft, and others.
Although we’ve yet to see a truly mass-market wearable device sweep the world, most people working in high tech believe that devices like smartwatches represent the next big frontier.
With that in mind, Samsung has debuted a potentially transformative creation at the ongoing InterBattery 2014 exhibition being held in Seoul, Korea: a rollable, flexible battery.
Although not too many details are known yet about the exact materials and structural design advances used to create it, it is reported that the battery can function even when bent in half, or rolled up into the shape of a paper cup.
Despite a budgetary increase of 32% from $3.381 billion in 2012 to $4.475 billion in 2013, Apple still spends less than 3% of its revenue (net sales total $170.91 billion so far this year) on Research & Development of new products: something that will surely give ammunition to those skeptics who claim less innovation is taking place under Tim Cook’s command than it ever did while Steve Jobs was at Apple’s helm.
Right?
The City of Shanghai has just confirmed via the Municipal Commission of Commerce that Apple will be opening a research and development center this summer.
Even though Apple’s headquartered in Cupertino, they’ve got operations all across the globe, and we don’t mean just retail stores. There have been rumors that Apple is opening up an R&D center in Israel, but according to a new rumor, that’s not the only place they’re considering.
Tim Cook recently talked to the mayor of Beijing, Wang Ashun, about the possibility of Apple opening an R&D center in Beijing.
