The Apple company announced today that in the next 2 years it will give up one of its oldest partners, whose products are used in all iPhones, iPads and iPod Touches. More precisely, we are talking about Imagination Technologies, the company that produces all the graphic chips used in all the iDevices sold by Apple globally.
The announcement made today by those from Apple has a major impact, because in 2 years the licenses purchased for the use of these technologies will also expire. Apple has confirmed that in 2 years it will use its own graphics chips that it will use in iDevices sold worldwide, this being the first time that its plans are publicly announced with such an advance.
Following this announcement, the value of Imagination Technologies shares fell by no less than 70%, to the lowest price in the last 8 years. A few months ago, information appeared suggesting that Apple wants to buy Imagination Technologies, but probably the negotiations failed and Apple made the decision to produce its own graphics chips.
Those from Imagination Technologies claim that it is impossible for Apple to make graphics chips alone that do not infringe the patents of the British company. In this idea, she announced to her investors that Apple could end up paying her product licensing fees again, but at much lower values than before.
"Apple has not presented any evidence to substantiate its assertion that it will no longer require Imagination's technology, without violating Imagination's patents, intellectual property and confidential information. This evidence has been requested by Imagination but Apple has declined to provide it. Further, Imagination believes that it would be extremely challenging to design a brand new GPU architecture from basics without infringing its intellectual property rights, accordingly Imagination does not accept Apple's assertions."
This change paves the way for many Android manufacturers to use these graphics chips from Imagination Technologies, the best in the industry. With them, Samsung, Huawei, LG, Sony, or HTC could launch smartphones whose graphic performance is at least as good as that of iDevices.
Of course, a lot can happen in 2 years, so it will be interesting to see how things will evolve.
