Costliest of Apple TV's $62 in components is the $17 A4 processor

iSuppli on Tuesday published the results of its Apple TV teardown, which found a total preliminary estimated production cost of $63.95. That price includes the cost of additional item boxes with the product, the research firm said.
The most expensive component was estimated to be the custom-built A4 processor, which sports 256MB of RAM. The Samsung-manufactured chip has an estimated cost of $16.55.
The Toshiba-supplied 8GB of internal memory is the second costliest component of the set top box, with an estimated cost of $14. And the Wi-Fi module, which includes a deactivated Bluetooth chip, is another $7.65.
"The first Apple TV was built like a net top computer. The architecture was basically a stripped down, small-form-factor desktop PC," said Andrew Rassweiler, director, principal analyst and teardown services manager, for iSuppli. "The second generation Apple TV is more like an iPad or iPod Touch with no display. The Apple TV’s A4 processor core, Wi-Fi/Bluetooth chip and power management chip are the same building blocks used in the, iPad, iPhone 4 and iPod Touch."
Though the device sells for a low $99 price point, iSuppli's findings suggest that Apple has about a 35 percent margin on each device it sells. The company also highlighted the remote control included in the package as the "Cadillac of remotes."
"The Apple TV's remote control represents more incredible mechanical engineering from Apple," Rassweiler said. "The remote appears to be machined from a solid piece of aluminum. Because of this, the electronics of the device must be slid in through small holes on the side, similar to putting a ship in a bottle. It’s a clever and a detail-oriented piece of design that makes the remote very pricey and very unique to Apple."

The remote and other items boxed with the new Apple TV are said to cost a total of $6.10, or 9.8 percent of the build of materials cost.

iSuppli also said that it believes about 6GB of the onboard storage is available for caching streaming media. The remaining 2GB is believed to be reserved for the operating system.

iPhone Again Tops Smartphone Satisfaction Survey

For the fourth consecutive year, J.D. Power and Associates has ranked Apple highest in customer satisfaction among smartphone manufacturers.

Apple scored 800 out of a possible 1,000 points, according to the J.D Power study that asked over 6,800 smartphone owners to rank their experiences between January and June 2010. The study, released today, showed that Apple scored particularly well in ease of operation, operating system, features, and physical design.

Motorola, at 791 points, and HTC, at 781 points, grabbed the second and third spots, respectively.

The factors key to overall satisfaction among smartphone users were, in order of importance: ease of operation (26 percent); operating system (24 percent); physical design (23 percent); features (19 percent); and battery function (8 percent).

With the popularity of the App Store, it should come as no surprise that mobile apps are becoming more important to smartphone users. More than two-thirds of users download games and 54 percent report downloading travel software like maps and weather applications. The study also showed that 41 percent of smartphone owners download utility applications and 36 percent download business-specific apps.

J.D. Power also released a study today on customer satisfaction with traditional wireless handsets. That survey found that owners of traditional phones are keeping them longer. J.D. Power pointed to the economic downturn as one possible reason for that.

Earlier this week the University of Michigan's American Customer Satisfaction Index ranked Apple No. 1 in customer satisfaction for the seventh straight year.

Another recent survey from J.D. Power questioned customers on the quality of their cell phone calls. Of those surveyed, 14 percent said they definitely or probably will switch to a different carrier in the next 12 months due to a high number of call-related problems. While Verizon Wireless ranked highest among customers, AT&T came in last in all but two regions in the U.S.