Apple sued Qualcomm to drop their prices and used Intel to keep them in check. After their settlement/agreement with Qualcomm, they started using Qualcomm and dropped Intel and then Intel quit the smartphone chip business. Now theyre planning to buy Intel's smartphone SoC business for a fraction of the money they would've paid before.
Based on everything I've read, your comment is a complete distortion of what actually happened.
Apple really wanted Intel to provide their chips, to the point of shipping a phone with dual Intel-Qualcomm modems, with the Qualcomm one throttled because Intel couldn't match its speed. Intel just wasn't able to make their modem business work, after years of work and at least four (!) acquisitions of modem makers.
Apple had no choice but to go back to Qualcomm if it wanted to sell phones.
Intel was dropped because they weren’t competitive, not because of some long con to lower acquisition price. Apple really didn’t want to work with Qualcomm again.
They wanted to move away from Qualcomm because they were taking the piss. The problem was that the Intel chips were never that good so the were forced to settle with Qualcomm. It's a story of Intel being useless rather than Apple being evil.
How is it unethical? If you live in a village with two bakeries and one, your favorite, starts charging you double for their delicious bread, you then start shopping at the other one who’s bread is terrible, but suitable enough. Now, faced with competition, your favorite bakery lowers their price, so you go back to your favorite.
Now, the second bakery is hanging on by a thread because you aren’t buying his bad bread. He decides to get out of the bakery business so he can use the money to invest in his roofing business instead. You see an opportunity to make even better bread than the best bakery, so you agree to buy the second bakery.
Nothing unethical at all there. That’s exactly how free markets are supposed to work. The key point is that nobody forced Intel to make bad modems and nobody should be obligated to pay Qualcomm’s high prices. It isn’t Apple’s fault that Intel modems weren’t that good. It isn’t Apple’s fault they want to build something better than other market participants are currently providing.
That isn’t really fair to Apple (or long game, Intel) though. That basically says that it is in Apple’s best interest to never deal with Intel because in doing so, Intel becomes dependent upon them. If they would’ve remained with Qualcomm from day one, Intel’s shortcomings in mobile (iirc, Intel and Windows Phone tried to pair up a bit) could never be blamed on Apple.
That arrangement may work totally for Qualcomm and somewhat for Apple, but it’d be devastating for Intel.
Nice strategy, but its somewhat unethical.