The ARM business model doesn't work like that of AMD or Intel. ARM comes up with the architecture for a processor, but never physically makes the CPU. Instead, it licenses out the design to companies like TI, Samsung and Qualcomm, who in turn make SoCs based on the architecture either at their own fabs or at foundries like TSMC. TI's ARM based SoCs are branded OMAP, while Qualcomm's custom Cortex A8-based SoC sounds slightly more tangible with its Snapdragon name.Apple and Palm had more motivation to go the performance route with their handsets. They were sold at a premium and performance had to be as high as possible to enable the sort of usage models Apple / Palm were targeting. But the Cortex A8 is built using 65nm transistors, which makes it roughly twice the size (and thus twice the cost to manufacture) of an ARM11 core. That means expensive phones get to use it, while cheaper phones don't.We just pinged Skyfire for comment and they say it's not Apple's fault;demand for a Flash video workaround is apparently so high that the company's having server issues and decided to pull the app rather than introduce new users to a sub-par experience. Skyfire assures us that it's adding servers as quickly as it can, but didn't provide an ETA on when we might see the app once more.
Update: While we're not sure how an digital app can be "sold out," that's exactly what the company says happened to its $2.99 browser today -- after quickly becoming the top grossing app in the iTunes App Store, Skyfire is "temporarily not accepting new purchases" and says it will issue Facebook and Twitter status updates when the next batch of licenses is available. In other words, Skyfire's throttling the flow of purchases from now on. PR after the break
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