> I've no idea about BMW but if they did the design and someone else did the manufacture, then BMW would still be a car company; they would 'just' be designers and not manufacturers. What's wrong with that?

In a nutshell, it ignores modern reality. BMW isn't in the business of building ECU's, they leave that to Bosch. Similarly to how Airbus and Boeing both don't build their own APU's and buy/contract out the building of that to experts.

> So, if Apple make [all] their own hardware except the silicon then you could have answered the question rather than composing a strawman.

Strawman how? You've an absolutist view of manufacturing that no manufacturer could meet. I'm almost certain that any phone you have has an 8 bit micro that guaranteed wasn't designed or built by the people that put it in. Same as capacitors.

Apple designed their A series chips, their faceid stuff, touchid, security enclave, ac chargers, etc... They contracted out to someone else to build it and used other things like qualcomm LTE chips when there isn't much other choice. I work at a company that does the same for custom hardware as well. I'd be hard pressed to hear that we didn't "design" our own stuff.

> Yes, if BMW don't make their own electrical systems it makes them less of a car company. Is that controversial to you? It's supremely sensible for a company to buy expertise by outsourcing elements of manufacture of complex products IMO.

Is it controversial to me? Yes only in that you completely contradicted your own viewpoints in a single post. Your end is sensible, the start is not. Mostly as its not a very useful view of modern manufacturing. Lots of components are off the shelf from other companies. More than you might think.

Doesn't mean BMW isn't a car company, or Boeing isn't an aircraft company. It is no different than pulling in a shared library for xml or json parsing instead of rolling your own.