ericthehalfbee

tmay said:

ericthehalfbee said:

Huawei will make another “announcement” just before the next iPhone releases claiming they have the worlds first N7 processor in the world.

Last year's 980 was about the same die size as the A12, and near the same transistor count, with the A12 again having about a  20% edge in performance. I don't expect that differential to change much this round. The big question in everyone's mind: will Huawei double down on another benchmark cheat?

There won’t be anything big from Huawei this year. They (and Qualcomm) got lucky last year in that ARM finished their A76 core design in time to coincide with TSMC 7nm production. The “stars aligned” as they say, and that’s why the Kirin 980 was good (though still behind Apple).

This year there’s no new ARM cores to use, so all they can hope for are minor improvements from the slight change that N7 Pro will bring to their existing cores.

Meanwhile Apple gets the upgrade from N7 along with whatever changes they make to their custom cores. Nobody is going to touch the A13 this year, or well into 2020.

I live nearby and have seen this in the local news. A few things:

Note: I've worked with Transport Canada in the past doing vehicle fire investigations, so have some experience in this and also in the language fire department officials use and what it means.

The iPhone is in the possession of an "independent forensics company" and Apple has indeed not had a chance to examine it yet. If they refuse to hand over the iPhone it's probably because they know it wasn't the cause. If they had determined the iPhone was in fact faulty, then I'm quite sure they would have released that information. For now the cause is "undetermined". I wonder if this company even has the engineering expertise to examine something as complex as an iPhone and even come up with a cause.

When we finished an investigation (which would be very well documented since we know we might not get another chance to examine the vehicle) we never prevented others from looking at it. In fact, at times there might be more than one investigation. I've been at an insurance facility looking at a vehicle when another investigator from a different firm showed up to also do their own investigation. We weren't allowed to talk to each other to avoid influence, but at no time did I ever come across a situation where access would be denied.

This forensics company could allow Apple to send an engineer to examine it in their presence if they wanted. This is also a common practice I've witnessed before when dealing with independent insurance companies. Bottom line: There's absolutely no excuse to prevent Apple from also having a look at this device.

There was also a notebook involved, "it would appear that the phone or charger generated enough heat to ignite the leather chair and notebook and start the fire." This comment was followed up by "The cellphone was on a combustible surface while charging. It was in the area of origin but was not ruled out or determined to be the igniting object or direct cause of the fire,". They like to focus on the first part of the comment while ignoring the clarification made later. I can't find further details on exactly how the notebook was involved, but it's an interesting fact many people are leaving out. Were the iPhone and notebook stacked on top of each other?

Product liability is typically only limited to the value of the product itself. Exceptions to this would include product defects. In the automotive trade a vehicle fire would be paid out by the insurance company. They may (depending on circumstances) ask for a detailed analysis of the fire and if there's a defect (perhaps a precursor to a full recall), then the insurance company may go after the manufacturer for their costs. The majority of the time insurance just pays out the claim for the fire and leaves it at that. That said, if the iPhone did in fact cause the fire, Apple would not be responsible unless it can be proven that there's a known defect with the iPhone that makes them more dangerous than similar products. This will be practically impossible to prove given the very low incidents of fires and the hundreds of millions of iPhones out there.


This will go nowhere for this family. While I feel bad for what happened, they should have had additional insurance coverage to cover their business. Now they're just lashing out trying to shame Apple into helping them out.

sflocal said:

So does this new ruling invalidate the recommendation to ban iPhones from a few hours ago?  I don't understand why it's not explained clearly.

No. This is the first case Qualcomm filed. The second case is the one ruled on earlier today. It just happens that the final result from the first case landed on the same day as the preliminary result in the second case.

Margins in the 40% range are very good for a company selling physical goods.

But they pale in comparison to the margins over at Google (average of 61% for the past 10 years) or Microsoft (average approaching 70% and a record high of 80%). Yet I don't see anyone giving them a hard time about how much money/profit they're raking in.

crowley said:

ErlendurK said:

Apple doesn't use ARM cores.  They have a license of the instruction set that they use to develop their own cores, so technically they aren't ARM cores, but Apple cores that are using ARM instruction set.

That's not a useful distinction; ARM aren't a manufacturer of any processors, so any processors that use the ARM instruction set are going to get called ARM cores for convenience.  Insisting that they be referred to as "Apple cores that are using ARM instruction set" is needlessly long winded pedantry.

sarrica said:

ARM doesn't manufacture chips, they license their reference designs and intellectual property. Apple's chips are manufactured by TSMC and, until the last iPhone rev or two, Samsung.

Samsung, Qualcomm and Huawei license actual ARM core designs. Apple only licenses the ARMv8 ISA and designs their own custom cores to run it. That’s why Apple processors are vastly superior to everyone else. Samsung uses a mix of both, but their custom cores are way behind Apple.

saltyzip said:

MnMark said:

A secure version of Android. That's funny!

Now if only appleinsider educated people, rather than playing a game of protectionism, we wouldn't get comments like this.

Read this to educate ones self:
http://www.zdnet.com/google-amp/article/the-worlds-most-secure-smartphones-and-why-theyre-all-androids/

We are educated. Which is why we know Android is a joke for security. You linking an article without context doesn't change that.

First off, those aren't "Android phones" that a normal person might buy, like an LG or Samsung. They run highly modified versions of Android but are stripped of much of what normal users associate with Android or any smartphone. They then install their own custom software to replicate functionality that we get from "stock" Apps. They are completely and 100% locked down. The only reason they use Android is because it's a free OS with the source code provided for you to allow you to customize it how you like.

Calling these phones Android phones would be like calling the Presidents limo a "Chevy" just because the base platform happens to be a Cadillac.

Android that the general public gets with the phones they buy are a joke compared to iOS, and will never match the security of iOS. 

Niels Jørgen Kruse said:

There is no analog audio in Lightning. See https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Apple+Lightning+to+Headphone+Jack+Adapter+Teardown/67562

I still see a lot of confusion over this.

Lightning is 100% digital. There's no pass-through that lets analog audio go through the Lightning port to your headphones. The Lightning headphones have a miniature D/A converter and amplifier built right into the connector. That's why it's physically larger (though not by much). The Lightning to 3.5mm adaptor also has a built-in D/A converter and amplifier. That's why selling it for $9 at the beginning made it such a bargain - it's not a traditional adapter and actually has a lot of tech packed into its connector.

A coworker who always had iPhones bought a Galaxy S7 Edge this time around when he upgraded. He summed it up the other day to me after having it for a few months:

"This phone is like that blonde-haired, large breasted model you see in the club. You hook up and start having a fling, but after a couple weeks you find out she's a bitch with a lousy personality and dumber than a bag of hammers and you can't stand to be around her."

Impressive in the store, lots of sex appeal with the bright screen and curves, but ultimately just an average device.

radarthekat said:

avon b7 said:

This is part of what the EU had to say:

"Today's decision concludes that Apple's anti-steering provisions amount to unfair trading conditions, in breach of Article 102(a) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (‘TFEU'). These anti-steering provisions are neither necessary nor proportionate for the protection of Apple's commercial interests in relation to the App Store on Apple's smart mobile devices and negatively affect the interests of iOS users, who cannot make informed and effective decisions on where and how to purchase music streaming subscriptions for use on their device.

Apple's conduct, which lasted for almost ten years, may have led many iOS users to pay significantly higher prices for music streaming subscriptions because of the high commission fee imposed by Apple on developers and passed on to consumers in the form of higher subscription prices for the same service on the Apple App Store.

... "

Apple makes no reference to its anti-competitive behaviour in its statement and instead tries to put the spotlight on Spotify, its European nature and music streaming.

I’m curious, does Spotify discount its service by the amount of Apple’s commission when a customer pays directly through Spotify’s website?