So… for every 10 million devices Apple sells, ARM makes $3m? Last year Apple sold 232.2 million iPhones, 60.4 million iPads, and I can’t find a statistic for Mac sales in 2022 only 7 million in a particular quarter, so maybe 21-30 million. We’ll say 30.
That’s ~320 million devices at 30¢ each (and doesn’t include AirPods, Apple TVs, Watches, HomePods, or any other ARM based device Apple sells). That’s $96m dollars for the license to an instruction set Apple helped create, used for chips Apple designed, and that Apple pays to have fabricated.
Nearly $100m a year on three product lines that don’t use ARM Holdings’ cores, or require ARM’s involvement in engineering or manufacturing, only the instruction set seems fair to me.
Every time I read something new about Reddit, Twitter, and Facebook I find myself more and more pleased with the decision to disengage them. I’m sure they continue to collect data on me as best they can, but not using their services, blocking social trackers, and using payment options that can’t and don’t link my profile to their ad platforms is a big help.
Apple didn’t solder RAM to their devices in 2010 +/- 1 year
https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Pro+13-Inch+Unibody+Mid+2012+RAM+Replacement/10374
https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Pro+13-Inch+Unibody+Late+2011+RAM+Replacement/7651
https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Mac+mini+Late+2012+RAM+Replacement/11726
https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iMac+Intel+27-Inch+EMC+2546+RAM+Replacement/15623
https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Mac+Pro+2009+2010+2011+2012+RAM+Replacement/147697
The exception was the MacBook Air.