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.
