gmgravytrain

linkman said:

Intel is running up against the fact that wavelengths of light can get only so short (10 nm is pretty stinking short) and physics is going to win at attempts to get much smaller. A transistor can't get smaller than an atom. Progress on ICs is getting slower and will need some sort of breakthrough (like power reduction, using neural-type processing, memristors, light instead of electricity, etc.) before we can see performance improvement rates that we've experienced over the last 40 years.

Actually, there are working 5nm transistors that should be going into production in 2020. It's just amazing. https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/05/ibm-creates-a-new-transistor-type-for-5nm-silicon-chips/ I'd heard if we could go to some other materials from silicon, transistor gates could be made much smaller without having an electron tunneling problem.

That's fairly decent profits but yet the iPhone X is considered a "failed" product. I suppose anything can be considered a failure if it doesn't meet a particular person's standards. Apparently, the only measure for Wall Street is when a product exceeds a certain amount of market share percentage whether or not the product is profitable or not. If market share percentage is the only measure of success for a product, then no Apple product will ever be considered "successful." Generally speaking, Apple's entire business is not considered a successful business as far as Wall Street is concerned because of such low growth potential and Apple doesn't seem to dominate any particular market. However, Apple's cash flow is good and profits are relatively high but is still considered a doomed business due to certain set standards of what is considered a successful business.

High benchmarks are nice but I believe most consumers are more concerned with what the total package brings them.  Most people I know have no interest in benchmarks and certainly they don't choose their smartphones based on benchmarks.  Most of their choices seem to be based on some sort of price/feature selection.  Many are happy with products that are just 'good enough' for their needs.

No matter how fast the A12 Bionic is, very few consumers in India will never get their hands on one.  Same goes for Brazil or Russia.  The smartphone that's going to win in those countries is the one most consumers can afford to purchase.

Although the A12 Bionic is a monster SoC, when flagship smartphones are tested next to one another, they're usually within milliseconds of each other when performing routine app launch tests.  Seriously, most consumers are not going to pay a couple of hundred dollars more for a gain or loss in milliseconds.  Apple's OS animations are very fluid but many times some Android smartphone can launch an app slightly quicker.  Apple just needs to keep making the whole iOS platform and ecosystem better and that will make the biggest difference in what smartphone consumers will purchase.  I'll always prefer an overall balanced package but that's just me.  As long as Apple doesn't keep pricing the iPhone much higher, Apple will do quite well selling a nicely balanced iPhone product.

wizard69 said:

It is pretty delusional to believe that pricing isn't an issue.   It is pretty easy to argue that Apple could have sold a lot more iphones if they didn't price the things so high.

One could say that much about any product. Porsches could be as numerous as Toyotas if they were cheaper in price.

Sure, why not remove the cable when the charging port is going bye-bye?  Ahhh... the whole ecology just breathed a sigh of relief.  Social media is going to go nuts.  So amusing.  They should be used to this by now.  Apple is chasing after profits and will do (remove) anything to get it.  I've got cables and adapters up the wazoo, so it doesn't matter to me.

In a recent earnings report, Apple warned of weak iPhone sales for the remainder of the year, so this news isn't unexpected.  I'm surprised Apple hasn't sold off further.  Shareholders absolutely hate hearing that sort of news.  They seem to think that no matter how bad the economy is, a company should manage to sell as many products as when the economy is strong.  I suppose they'll just have to find a company that isn't affected by the economic downturn.  I'm sure there are a few out there.  Apple is too dependent upon consumers and should be attempting to get more sales from enterprise companies.

Android smartphones have already been using vapor-chamber tech for a few years.  I think that's what it's called using copper foil, wicking material, and liquid.  Android smartphones place the material between the processor and case.  I always wondered why Apple didn't use it on their iPhones.  It couldn't be that expensive where Apple couldn't afford to do it.