Of course it is a Samsung part. Leaving Samsung will mean acknowledging that the current designs are far more Samsung than Apple.
Apple chose Samsungs 64 bit for prestige. Obviously the coming 64 bit iPads, low resolution 64 bit Mini ones too, will be Samsung co-designs. Just because everyone needs to say Apple make it, does not mean they have ever been sole Apple designs.
As you know by now, the conclusion that TSMC was manufacturing the A7 was incorrect. Sammy was and is making the chip. I was actually hoping you were right and was disappointed that your otherwise excellent analysis didn't hit the mark. Maybe next time.
Reading this article and the subsequent comments was actually painful enough that I felt a need to make an account just to address a few statements that are absolutely moronic. Before I get into it I have to go through the usual spiel to prevent the standard 'You're just a dumb impoverished apple hater' response. I've owned iPods going back to the original Nano, my primary laptop for the last seven years has been a Macbook, and I'm a huge fan of the way Apple pushed higher DPI displays in mobile devices.
Firstly, the burning hatred of Samsung that both the author of the editorial and 90% of the discussion participants seem to have. I've owned one Samsung phone - a Galaxy S II that was replaced shortly afterwards with a HTC Desire. It was a great phone - light, thin, responsive, and it had a lovely OLED screen that blew the (then current) iPhone 3G/3GS out of the water. I wouldn't buy any of the current Samsung phones because they feel unpleasantly like a child's plastic toy, but I certainly don't want Samsung to stop making phones - more innovation is always good, and Samsung certainly do innovate. A key example of this is the supposedly 'failed' Exynos 5 Processor (but we'll get to that later). Other examples would be the 2560x1600 Samsung made panel in the Nexus 7 (for reference, the iPad is 2048x1536), and then there's they way they're pushing NFC - anyone who doesn't think that's a good idea has some explaining to do.
Continuing on from the previous discussion there's the supposed failure of the Exynos 5 Octa.
Quote:
Originally Posted by AppleInsider
Outside of backwards land, the Exynos 5 Octa was such an expensive failure...not shipped on NA versions
While it's adorable to see you refer to the remainder of the world as 'backwards land' (I'm presuming the author is North American?), there would have been reasons for Samsung's decision to ship an alternate version to America (as has been discussed, these may have included incompatibility issues with America's backwards CDMA network. I believe that due to Qualcom's patents on CDMA tech it's more expensive to produce the necessary hardware for other manufacturers. The Exynos 5 certainly isn't a failure, as it's still being produced.
Quote:
Originally Posted by AppleInsider
Having more than an incredible billion transistors means the A7 is in a similar category to the Sun UltraSparc T3 16-core server CPU (really). A 6-core Gulftown Intel Core i7 has 1.17 billion transistors. An Intel Core 2 Duo has 291 million, while the original Macintosh was powered by a Motorola 68000 with a mere 68,000.
Then there's this. While these numbers certainly look impressive and are great for making people go 'wow', that doesn't actually make them relevant. Stating that the A7's in the same category as the Sparc T3 is like saying that your Prius is in the same category as the B-52 Stratofortress. Yes, they're both vehicles, and yes, they both hold people, but your Prius can't drop 108 high explosive bombs from 50,000 feet. There is no comparison between the A7 and the T3, and nor should there be. The A7 operates within a TDP between one and four watts - the Sparc T3 comes in at 139W.
Competition is a good thing in any industry, and the mentality I'm seeing in this thread is the sort that generates things like patent wars - It's not beneficial in any way for a company to have a total monopoly, because suddenly they don't need to innovate. If you think that's fine, I'll just leave you with a reminder of why progress is good:
I've owned iPods going back to the original Nano, my primary laptop for the last seven years has been a Macbook, and I'm a huge fan of the way Apple pushed higher DPI displays in mobile devices.
Thanks for invalidating your post early. Saves people the trouble of reading it at all.
Thanks for invalidating your post early. Saves people the trouble of reading it at all.
I was wondering how you managed to get 28,000 posts on this forum but if your standard post is just non-relevant dribble like that It's much easier to understand.
When you post pure dreck, it’s easy to see why people ignore you. You’re basically just running down the list of things not to do here.
If you'd like to raise a genuine issue with my post please do so, otherwise please refrain from further disrupting a thread that's about the new A7 chip, it's performance against comparable processors, and who was manufacturing it.
To quote the forum guidelines:
Quote:
0. If you're here to crap on Apple, its fans or its customers, you're not long for this forum.
1. No personal attacks on members of AI.
2. No intentional disruption of the forum (spamming images, posting nonsense after every post, etc).
I'm obviously not here to crap on 'Apple, its fans or its customers'. As I stated (and, apparently, the only part of my post you read), I don't hate Apple. They're a company. They make products. I buy some of their products.
I also made no personal attacks on any members of AI, although you may have misunderstood my assessment of your posting style as such. You, however, appear to have broken rule #2, since you jumped in this thread and responded to my post with what I'd consider nonsense.
@Taverner: Regarding your post, some good points. DED never really gave any significant context for why he consider Exynos a disaster, or even a failure, except that it is made by Samsung, who are apparently the new root of all evil (check roughlydrafted .com articles five years ago and he was doing similar rants disguised as technical analysis against Microsoft, and two years ago it was all about Google). Carrying over a dislike of Samsung's approach to handset design (COPYCOPYCOPY how very dare they?!) into an attack on the chipset business is just bizarre. And his conclusion that Apple "may have" dumped Samsung has not carried through to reality. They haven't, and even if they had, would it really have anything to do with Exynos?
@Mods. if you're going to go to the trouble of editing my posts to remove criticism of TS for posting troll-nonsense, then could you please also go to the trouble of removing TS's troll-nonsense?
@Mods. if you're going to go to the trouble of editing my posts to remove criticism of TS for posting troll-nonsense, then could you please also go to the trouble of removing TS's troll-nonsense?
Ta
The problem is that the post being responded to doesn't seem credible. It's another new signup from a Windows user claiming to be a Mac user (could be both of course) who then says that attacking Samsung/Android etc shouldn't be done and competition is healthy etc. TS just pointed out that it fits the common profile where people start out with the disclaimer about using Apple products and use it to validate some kind of criticism (e.g I hate Apple but I own an iPod so it's rational hate that you should consider). Sometimes TS picks up a false positive but is usually accurate.
I agree that the reactionary comments don't add anything but aren't any different from saying something like 'nothing you've said has any substance to it' or 'I stopped reading after this', which people would be allowed to say.
I don't agree. TS accuses people of being trolls however they preface what they're saying if there's even the slightest element of Apple criticism that he doesn't agree with. The "common profile" and his ridiculous list of troll-hunting rules is just a shortcut for jumping straight to the hysteria where he was going to go anyway. And it's not a unreasonable thing for someone unversed in TS's "rules" to say as practically all users here will own Apple stuff, so it becomes an absurd accusation when it's used indiscriminately. It's turned into a language-detection trollhunt that plagues seemingly every major thread and makes this place very tedious, when a simple "don't feed the trolls" would suffice.
But whatever. Thanks for responding at least. Though I'd still prefer a bit less of the editing.
I’d love to hear what you think wasn’t trolling in that post.
As to the article, there’s a reason the word ‘may’ is in the title.
“That seems like a cop out…”
Really? You see people here getting slagged for not using such qualifiers all the time. So either it’s a “cop out” or a necessity, and he used it correctly. I’d say the latter.
As for the conclusion drawn itself, I personally wouldn’t have put it higher than “possibility” (and not written anything about it), given the information at hand. First “some of the chips”. Therefore, hey, some of the chips. The important ones are “some of the chips”, but we’d have heard ‘processor’ if processor. Second, “build A7 for iPhone 6”. That’s some red flags right there, provided the author knows how to count. iPhone 6 was always going to get A8. Third, DIGIFREAKINGTIMES. That immediately invalidates anything being said. And then when you look at what’s being said, the (now) A8 from TSMC was to be created this month. That’s fine and all, until you realize it’s about six months too soon to be starting fabrication for the next devices.
In short, I would have given it a “maybe, soon”, not “this very device, being released in nine days”.
Originally Posted by Crowley
And it's not a unreasonable thing for someone unversed in TS's "rules" to say as practically all users here will own Apple stuff, so it becomes an absurd accusation when it's used indiscriminately.
Okay… having said that, do you not see how this becomes a wholly unnecessary qualifier? Since we’ll already be owning them, pointing it out has ONLY. EVER. served as prelude (or addendum) to unjustified complaint that unrelated to said devices!
How many posts are we… 2.4 million, it looks like. Go ahead: find one where the person mentions the number and type of Apple products they own appended to such a complaint that isn’t a troll.
…It's turned into a language-detection trollhunt that plagues seemingly every major thread and makes this place very tedious, when a simple "don't feed the trolls" would suffice.
Then you’d complain about not addressing his points at all and simply “dismissing new users as trolls”. I won’t play this game; no one can win. Either it’s that or we demand point for point rundowns of why what is being said isn’t a valid opinion, and that’s a lot of work to waste on people who don’t deserve the time of day from us.
@Taverner: Regarding your post, some good points. DED never really gave any significant context for why he consider Exynos a disaster, or even a failure, except that it is made by Samsung, who are apparently the new root of all evil (check roughlydrafted .com articles five years ago and he was doing similar rants disguised as technical analysis against Microsoft, and two years ago it was all about Google). Carrying over a dislike of Samsung's approach to handset design (COPYCOPYCOPY how very dare they?!) into an attack on the chipset business is just bizarre. And his conclusion that Apple "may have" dumped Samsung has not carried through to reality. They haven't, and even if they had, would it really have anything to do with Exynos?
This goes down as a dud article.
Maybe you should actually read the article, which details that the Exynos 5 Octa chases down a design path nobody else in the industry is using (from the Apple you have contempt for to Qualcomm, which like Apple went for a customized Cortex A-9 instead).
If you also have a problem with criticism of Microsoft 2004-2009, or Google 2008-2012, maybe you should do some independent research and explain why those companies subsequently ran into problems, falling behind Apple in every metric of corporate competency, from revenue to profits to third party ecosystem and hardware proficiency.
Back to processors: you claim that the GS4 and iPhone sell in similar quantities of “tens of millions." But that’s not remotely true. Over the last 4 quarters since iPhone 5 was released, Apple sold over 145 million iPhones, more than half of which were iPhone 5. That’s at least 70 M devices with its latest processor. Pretty decent economies of scale. If you think the iPhone 5s will sell in smaller quantities, you are a fool.
Samsung sold at least 2x as many “smartphones,” but 60 percent of those were garbage. It “shipped” an estimated 20M of SG4’s across its first two quarters, but Samsung is now calling its investors to a meeting to explain why sales are “less than expected,” as Reuters reported.
But let’s say Samsung actually sold that many. How many were sold in North America, half? Those don’t use the Exynos chip, they use a Qualcomm Snapdragon. So now we’re talking about ~10M Exynos 5 GS4 sales compared to 70M A6 selling in iPhone 5. Which do you suppose is cheaper to build at those quantities? I’ll wait while you pull out your sliderule.
The A6 is also used in other devices, including the global iPhone 5c, which I dare you to bet against the way the your British press is likely to given that UK buyers are smartphone bargain hunters. Now ponder whether Samsung will sell a lot of other devices with the "8-core,” huge hot and heavy Exynos 5 chip in them. No, they’ll use more Snapdragons from their design competitor and lower end Exynos chips on subsequent flagship phones. The Note 8 and Tab 3 both have an Exynos 4, while the Note 3 is again split regionally between a Qualcomm and Exynos 5.
You can be critical without being a groveling sneak whispering to your online friends about how the author is rumored to be wrong by many other trolls. Why not man up and join the discussion like you’re worthy of sitting at the adult table?
The problem is that the post being responded to doesn't seem credible. It's another new signup from a Windows user claiming to be a Mac user (could be both of course) who then says that attacking Samsung/Android etc shouldn't be done and competition is healthy etc. TS just pointed out that it fits the common profile where people start out with the disclaimer about using Apple products and use it to validate some kind of criticism (e.g I hate Apple but I own an iPod so it's rational hate that you should consider). Sometimes TS picks up a false positive but is usually accurate.
I agree that the reactionary comments don't add anything but aren't any different from saying something like 'nothing you've said has any substance to it' or 'I stopped reading after this', which people would be allowed to say.
So just to be clear, if you join this particular forum and don't like a few points made in a post (At no stage did I attack Apple, Apple products, or Apple users...) then you're instantly an Apple hating troll. Seems legit.
If you like I can post a picture of the Apple devices I own sitting next to a piece of paper with 'TS is wrong' written on it. It won't contribute to the discussion (much like every post after mine first one in this thread) but it should help TS sleep at night.
So just to be clear, if you join this particular forum and don't like a few points made in a post (At no stage did I attack Apple, Apple products, or Apple users...) then you're instantly an Apple hating troll. Seems legit.
If you like I can post a picture of the Apple devices I own sitting next to a piece of paper with 'TS is wrong' written on it. It won't contribute to the discussion (much like every post after mine first one in this thread) but it should help TS sleep at night.
No one needs to list all their Apple products. Has anyone had a discussion about a current movie and list all the movies he's watched that the director has done?
The list doesn't add to the discussion. if you are a fan, you don't need to prove it to us. But keep in mind we have a lot of drive-by trolls.
Maybe you should actually read the article, which details that the Exynos 5 Octa chases down a design path nobody else in the industry is using (from the Apple you have contempt for to Qualcomm, which like Apple went for a customized Cortex A-9 instead).
Of course I read it, I don't think it's meaningful to say that "nobody else in the industry is using" the principles behind the big.LITTLE architecture as an example of a particular chipset being "disastrous". Samsung are using it, a lot, and are being successful with it, a lot. Yes, it's big, and yes it's expensive, as you point out, but Samsung have stuck it in their devices, and it works and they are selling. That's not a disaster, not even a failure. Even if Samsung are their own only customer for the chipset, they're shifting lots of units. It's not a disaster. If the handset were failing, or blowing up, or the chipset was in some way responsible for them not selling, then maybe you'd have a point.
And besides that, whether it's a disaster or not, what does it have to do with Apple? Why would Apple choose to manufacture or not manufacture the A7 with Samsung because of the supposed failure of a completely unrelated chipset? Apple are not without reasons to split from Samsung, but I fail to see how this is one of them. And that was the title of the article.
For the record, I don't have contempt for Apple. I'd list the Apple products I own, but apparently that would make me a troll, so instead I'll ask you to cite where I've said anything that could be interpreted as showing contempt for Apple.
See this is the problem I was getting into earlier with Marvin. Anyone who questions anything about Apple or the establishment of this forum is a troll and a hater, without any real regard for what they say. It's tiresome.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Corrections
If you also have a problem with criticism of Microsoft 2004-2009, or Google 2008-2012, maybe you should do some independent research and explain why those companies subsequently ran into problems, falling behind Apple in every metric of corporate competency, from revenue to profits to third party ecosystem and hardware proficiency.
No, because that's not the point. You do very good research and have good technical observations, I'm not disputing that. All I'm saying is that the tone of your articles is ranty, and it has been since your early days when Microsoft was your Undesirable #1; you come at your journalism aggressively and use your facts in a bilious way to paint a picture of Apple as a paragon of virtue and magical foresight, and every other player as the enemy of mankind. That's not a healthy standpoint and it doesn't make for good journalism, it makes just you sound like a fan with a stick up his ass.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Corrections
Back to processors: you claim that the GS4 and iPhone sell in similar quantities of “tens of millions." But that’s not remotely true. Over the last 4 quarters since iPhone 5 was released, Apple sold over 145 million iPhones, more than half of which were iPhone 5. That’s at least 70 M devices with its latest processor. Pretty decent economies of scale. If you think the iPhone 5s will sell in smaller quantities, you are a fool.
70 million isn't tens of millions? Yes it is, it's 7 of them. And if the GS4 has sold at least 20 million then that's also tens of millions, at least 2 of them. They aren't the same number (I never said they were) but they're on the same scale, the 10m to 100m scale of tens of millions. how is that "not remotely true", it makes perfect logical sense to me.
I make no claim whatsoever about how well the iPhone 5S will sell, so I guess I'm not a fool. Neither am I a person who puts words in another persons mouth and then calls them names.
All this sprang from a question over what phones you were referring to when you said that there are more expensive phones than the iPhone that sold in far less quantity than the iPhone. It was nothing to do with processors, so I'm going to gloss over the rest of your post as not really relevant to what I was asking. As far as I can see you still haven't answered that. Since the Galaxy S4 sold 20 million in it's first few months, it's on the same scale of tens of millions, which I'd say is a very harsh understanding of "tiny volumes". Also the Galaxy S4 isn't significantly more expensive than the comparable iPhone in most markets. If you meant the Galaxy S4, and you were just a little loose with your language that's fine, all I wanted was clarification because I didn't know what you were talking about.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Corrections
The A6 is also used in other devices, including the global iPhone 5c, which I dare you to bet against the way the your British press is likely to given that UK buyers are smartphone bargain hunters. Now ponder whether Samsung will sell a lot of other devices with the "8-core,” huge hot and heavy Exynos 5 chip in them. No, they’ll use more Snapdragons from their design competitor and lower end Exynos chips on subsequent flagship phones. The Note 8 and Tab 3 both have an Exynos 4, while the Note 3 is again split regionally between a Qualcomm and Exynos 5.
I'm neither responsible for, nor a great fan of the British press, so that's a pretty insipid comment to make. I don't take every US-based tech blogger to task for Fox News (or MSNBC, whatever your leaning). Nor am I responsible for all UK buyer's purchasing habits, actually almost everyone I know has an iPhone. Pointless nationalist nonsense.
Now ponder something that is an internal engineering decision at Samsung? This is pure speculation. Maybe you're right and Samsung will drop Exynos as not the best option for their phones. So what? Engineering decision like that are made all the time. They still sold loads of them. It's not a runaway success, but neither is it a disaster.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Corrections
You can be critical without being a groveling sneak whispering to your online friends about how the author is rumored to be wrong by many other trolls. Why not man up and join the discussion like you’re worthy of sitting at the adult table?
Whispering? On the public comment thread for the author's article? Weird definition of whispering you have. To my recollection I haven't even exchanged a word with Taverner before this thread, so s/he's hardly an online friend (no offence T, I'm sure you're a great guy).
How exactly can I join the discussion any more than I already have, I'm writing a reply to you, aren't I?
Btw, you never answered my direct question about what handsets are more expensive than the iPhone and sell in tiny volumes. And I'm the one whispering and not joining the discussion?
You seriously need to learn to tone down the rhetoric and engage with criticism more measuredly.
So just to be clear, if you join this particular forum and don't like a few points made in a post (At no stage did I attack Apple, Apple products, or Apple users...) then you're instantly an Apple hating troll.
Nope, there are just patterns that people follow when they intend to be a nuisance poster. There are exceptions but they are rare. People who are new understandably are not aware of the patterns but people who have been members for years have seen it quite a number of times. What happens after it gets called out is generally one of two things: people who are the disruptive kind get defensive, claim freedom of speech and suggest the forum isn't open enough for healthy discussion; the people who sign up to be constructive to the forum tend to be more accepting of the criticism and realise that as a new member, it's better to be respectful than to suggest the members or article authors here are making moronic comments and need to learn from the new poster.
Being part of a community involves earning respect and you don't do that by criticising a well-written article without addressing the main points in the article and mainly suggesting that criticising the competition is unjustified. It's like walking into a sports stadium full of people wearing blue shirts while wearing a green shirt and telling them not to be so hard on the green team because without them the blue team would have nobody to play against. The people already know this and so the defense of the green team just serves to annoy people. It might seem obvious but some people don't seem to grasp it even after a very long time that if your preference is not the subject of the forum then this really isn't the forum to be on. If you prefer Windows, sign up to a Windows forum; if you prefer Android, sign up to an Android forum etc. It's not a requirement to be an Apple user but it's an easy indicator that your intent aligns with the purpose of the forum.
If you like I can post a picture of the Apple devices I own sitting next to a piece of paper with 'TS is wrong' written on it. It won't contribute to the discussion (much like every post after mine first one in this thread) but it should help TS sleep at night.
Ok but if there are white tables, we'll know you just went into a local Apple Store with the piece of paper. You can also just post on the forum using your primary computer. It actually wouldn't do much good now because you already fit a pattern of a disruptive poster but you can still be one of the rare exceptions who stick by the forum rules and post in a respectful manner. Your first post was not an example of posting respectfully for the following reasons:
Firstly, the burning hatred of Samsung that both the author of the editorial and 90% of the discussion participants seem to have.
The language here is intended to suggest that people here have an irrational hatred towards Samsung. It's perfectly rational and relatively conservative. When people make a rational statement and someone else says 'geez, calm down I don't know why you're so upset by what I said', the purpose is to suggest that the people making rational objections are making irrational, emotionally driven statements.
I've owned one Samsung phone - a Galaxy S II that was replaced shortly afterwards with a HTC Desire. It was a great phone - light, thin, responsive, and it had a lovely OLED screen that blew the (then current) iPhone 3G/3GS out of the water.
Using phrases like "blew one of Apple's products out the water" after describing a single superior feature, we get that a lot e.g look at the Nokia Lumia 41MPixel, it blows the iPhone out the water or look at the quad-cores in Android phones that blow iPhones out the water or look at the resolution on the Nexus 7, it blows the iPad mini out the water. The same people who make accusations of irrational hatred of the competition make these exaggerated statements promoting the competition and the usual intent is to annoy people. If some features are better, that's fine but just say that, there's no need to word it as though people who don't make the same purchase choices are being deluded into buying something with a worse feature here and there.
I certainly don't want Samsung to stop making phones - more innovation is always good, and Samsung certainly do innovate. A key example of this is the supposedly 'failed' Exynos 5 Processor (but we'll get to that later). Other examples would be the 2560x1600 Samsung made panel in the Nexus 7 (for reference, the iPad is 2048x1536)
Did someone suggest Samsung should stop making phones or components? People here naturally want the competition to do badly but suggesting that people should vote for every competing manufacturer to succeed just isn't feasible. Apple users don't go to Android or Windows forums to suggest that they be more open minded and promote Apple too.
then there's they way they're pushing NFC - anyone who doesn't think that's a good idea has some explaining to do.
Hardly anyone uses it. That's why people have started saying it stands for Nobody F*ing Cares. It's not that it's a bad idea, just irrelevant.
While it's adorable to see you refer to the remainder of the world as 'backwards land' (I'm presuming the author is North American?)
Condescending language used because you didn't understand the article. There was some confusion in the wording but the article was referring to the Samsung-fed tech media as being backwards - the same media that says Apple selling 5 million units in a weekend is disappointing but Samsung shipping 10 million in a month is a success. Rather than be a constructive poster and ask whether you read it correctly, you make accusations about the author.
The Exynos 5 certainly isn't a failure, as it's still being produced.
So is Windows 8. Just because something keeps getting manufactured doesn't mean it's a success. The article points out the relative shipment volumes and performance of each processor. If you'd rather say both are successful, that's up to you but people are free to judge something as a failure relative to another more successful comparison.
Competition is a good thing in any industry, and the mentality I'm seeing in this thread is the sort that generates things like patent wars - It's not beneficial in any way for a company to have a total monopoly, because suddenly they don't need to innovate. If you think that's fine, I'll just leave you with a reminder of why progress is good:
iPhone (original):
Samsung sells over double the amount of smartphones Apple does and over 50% of all Android phones. Suggestions of Apple being a monopoly are pretty redundant when you are backing Samsung.
Anyone who questions anything about Apple or the establishment of this forum is a troll and a hater, without any real regard for what they say. It's tiresome.
It is but it's also tiresome to read the same baseless statements again and again. If people say 'Apple isn't the same without Steve' then the first time, it's easy to be sympathetic. After about 50 times for every decision Apple makes, it's tiresome. Somewhere in the middle we have to find a balance between giving people the freedom to make valid criticisms and allowing people to defend against baseless criticism. There isn't a perfect balance because if there was, we'd have world peace. People will always pull in one direction or the other but the rules have to promote the best outcome for the forum. Given that this is an Apple-oriented forum, pro-Apple discussion is favoured. There are no rules to prevent people criticising Apple or supporting the competition but it's obvious that it won't be met with welcoming arms.
if you prefer Android, sign up to an Android forum etc.
Hey, that would apply to me.
Preferring one OS over another doesn't mean you have to hate everything that's not your preference. Some people take it to that extreme, but it's a pretty rare occurance out in the real world. It's possible to prefer one, but like others at the same time. I'm aware that you weren't implying that, but it seemed like a relevant point to add.
I've probably said it before, but I do follow a couple of Android based sites as well and it's hard to get the whole story there. In fact, it's extremely rare to see an Apple story on an Android site so it's difficult to keep up with what's going on in the Apple world if one didn't follow an Apple site or two as well. AppleInsider covers both Apple and Android so it's an easy choice for someone like myself.
It is politics, that is all that we seem to have left in tech these days. The A6 made the best of old technology yet because Apple used it, it was declared better than the next generation ARM chips.
Now we have Apple at 64 bit, suddenly the next generation is once again fine. Funnily enough, moving to 64 bit might put existing 32 bit users on borrowed time, at least on the more proprietary systems.
Comments
Apple chose Samsungs 64 bit for prestige. Obviously the coming 64 bit iPads, low resolution 64 bit Mini ones too, will be Samsung co-designs. Just because everyone needs to say Apple make it, does not mean they have ever been sole Apple designs.
Reading this article and the subsequent comments was actually painful enough that I felt a need to make an account just to address a few statements that are absolutely moronic. Before I get into it I have to go through the usual spiel to prevent the standard 'You're just a dumb impoverished apple hater' response. I've owned iPods going back to the original Nano, my primary laptop for the last seven years has been a Macbook, and I'm a huge fan of the way Apple pushed higher DPI displays in mobile devices.
Firstly, the burning hatred of Samsung that both the author of the editorial and 90% of the discussion participants seem to have. I've owned one Samsung phone - a Galaxy S II that was replaced shortly afterwards with a HTC Desire. It was a great phone - light, thin, responsive, and it had a lovely OLED screen that blew the (then current) iPhone 3G/3GS out of the water. I wouldn't buy any of the current Samsung phones because they feel unpleasantly like a child's plastic toy, but I certainly don't want Samsung to stop making phones - more innovation is always good, and Samsung certainly do innovate. A key example of this is the supposedly 'failed' Exynos 5 Processor (but we'll get to that later). Other examples would be the 2560x1600 Samsung made panel in the Nexus 7 (for reference, the iPad is 2048x1536), and then there's they way they're pushing NFC - anyone who doesn't think that's a good idea has some explaining to do.
Continuing on from the previous discussion there's the supposed failure of the Exynos 5 Octa.
Outside of backwards land, the Exynos 5 Octa was such an expensive failure...not shipped on NA versions
Then there's this. While these numbers certainly look impressive and are great for making people go 'wow', that doesn't actually make them relevant. Stating that the A7's in the same category as the Sparc T3 is like saying that your Prius is in the same category as the B-52 Stratofortress. Yes, they're both vehicles, and yes, they both hold people, but your Prius can't drop 108 high explosive bombs from 50,000 feet. There is no comparison between the A7 and the T3, and nor should there be. The A7 operates within a TDP between one and four watts - the Sparc T3 comes in at 139W.
Competition is a good thing in any industry, and the mentality I'm seeing in this thread is the sort that generates things like patent wars - It's not beneficial in any way for a company to have a total monopoly, because suddenly they don't need to innovate. If you think that's fine, I'll just leave you with a reminder of why progress is good:
iPhone (original):
Thanks for invalidating your post early. Saves people the trouble of reading it at all.
Thanks for invalidating your post early. Saves people the trouble of reading it at all.
I was wondering how you managed to get 28,000 posts on this forum but if your standard post is just non-relevant dribble like that It's much easier to understand.
When you post pure dreck, it’s easy to see why people ignore you. You’re basically just running down the list of things not to do here.
You should add the link just in case he would want to read them.
When you post pure dreck, it’s easy to see why people ignore you. You’re basically just running down the list of things not to do here.
If you'd like to raise a genuine issue with my post please do so, otherwise please refrain from further disrupting a thread that's about the new A7 chip, it's performance against comparable processors, and who was manufacturing it.
To quote the forum guidelines:
1. No personal attacks on members of AI.
2. No intentional disruption of the forum (spamming images, posting nonsense after every post, etc).
I'm obviously not here to crap on 'Apple, its fans or its customers'. As I stated (and, apparently, the only part of my post you read), I don't hate Apple. They're a company. They make products. I buy some of their products.
I also made no personal attacks on any members of AI, although you may have misunderstood my assessment of your posting style as such. You, however, appear to have broken rule #2, since you jumped in this thread and responded to my post with what I'd consider nonsense.
@Taverner: Regarding your post, some good points. DED never really gave any significant context for why he consider Exynos a disaster, or even a failure, except that it is made by Samsung, who are apparently the new root of all evil (check roughlydrafted .com articles five years ago and he was doing similar rants disguised as technical analysis against Microsoft, and two years ago it was all about Google). Carrying over a dislike of Samsung's approach to handset design (COPYCOPYCOPY how very dare they?!) into an attack on the chipset business is just bizarre. And his conclusion that Apple "may have" dumped Samsung has not carried through to reality. They haven't, and even if they had, would it really have anything to do with Exynos?
This goes down as a dud article.
@Mods. if you're going to go to the trouble of editing my posts to remove criticism of TS for posting troll-nonsense, then could you please also go to the trouble of removing TS's troll-nonsense?
Ta
The problem is that the post being responded to doesn't seem credible. It's another new signup from a Windows user claiming to be a Mac user (could be both of course) who then says that attacking Samsung/Android etc shouldn't be done and competition is healthy etc. TS just pointed out that it fits the common profile where people start out with the disclaimer about using Apple products and use it to validate some kind of criticism (e.g I hate Apple but I own an iPod so it's rational hate that you should consider). Sometimes TS picks up a false positive but is usually accurate.
I agree that the reactionary comments don't add anything but aren't any different from saying something like 'nothing you've said has any substance to it' or 'I stopped reading after this', which people would be allowed to say.
I don't agree. TS accuses people of being trolls however they preface what they're saying if there's even the slightest element of Apple criticism that he doesn't agree with. The "common profile" and his ridiculous list of troll-hunting rules is just a shortcut for jumping straight to the hysteria where he was going to go anyway. And it's not a unreasonable thing for someone unversed in TS's "rules" to say as practically all users here will own Apple stuff, so it becomes an absurd accusation when it's used indiscriminately. It's turned into a language-detection trollhunt that plagues seemingly every major thread and makes this place very tedious, when a simple "don't feed the trolls" would suffice.
But whatever. Thanks for responding at least. Though I'd still prefer a bit less of the editing.
I’d love to hear what you think wasn’t trolling in that post.
As to the article, there’s a reason the word ‘may’ is in the title.
“That seems like a cop out…”
Really? You see people here getting slagged for not using such qualifiers all the time. So either it’s a “cop out” or a necessity, and he used it correctly. I’d say the latter.
As for the conclusion drawn itself, I personally wouldn’t have put it higher than “possibility” (and not written anything about it), given the information at hand. First “some of the chips”. Therefore, hey, some of the chips. The important ones are “some of the chips”, but we’d have heard ‘processor’ if processor. Second, “build A7 for iPhone 6”. That’s some red flags right there, provided the author knows how to count. iPhone 6 was always going to get A8. Third, DIGIFREAKINGTIMES. That immediately invalidates anything being said. And then when you look at what’s being said, the (now) A8 from TSMC was to be created this month. That’s fine and all, until you realize it’s about six months too soon to be starting fabrication for the next devices.
In short, I would have given it a “maybe, soon”, not “this very device, being released in nine days”.
And it's not a unreasonable thing for someone unversed in TS's "rules" to say as practically all users here will own Apple stuff, so it becomes an absurd accusation when it's used indiscriminately.
Okay… having said that, do you not see how this becomes a wholly unnecessary qualifier? Since we’ll already be owning them, pointing it out has ONLY. EVER. served as prelude (or addendum) to unjustified complaint that unrelated to said devices!
How many posts are we… 2.4 million, it looks like. Go ahead: find one where the person mentions the number and type of Apple products they own appended to such a complaint that isn’t a troll.
Then you’d complain about not addressing his points at all and simply “dismissing new users as trolls”. I won’t play this game; no one can win. Either it’s that or we demand point for point rundowns of why what is being said isn’t a valid opinion, and that’s a lot of work to waste on people who don’t deserve the time of day from us.
I’m all for clinical replies like,
[quoted point]
You’re wrong.
Here is the truth. [truth]
Here is why this is the truth. [source]
But that removes all humanity, which isn’t fun.
@Taverner: Regarding your post, some good points. DED never really gave any significant context for why he consider Exynos a disaster, or even a failure, except that it is made by Samsung, who are apparently the new root of all evil (check roughlydrafted .com articles five years ago and he was doing similar rants disguised as technical analysis against Microsoft, and two years ago it was all about Google). Carrying over a dislike of Samsung's approach to handset design (COPYCOPYCOPY how very dare they?!) into an attack on the chipset business is just bizarre. And his conclusion that Apple "may have" dumped Samsung has not carried through to reality. They haven't, and even if they had, would it really have anything to do with Exynos?
This goes down as a dud article.
Maybe you should actually read the article, which details that the Exynos 5 Octa chases down a design path nobody else in the industry is using (from the Apple you have contempt for to Qualcomm, which like Apple went for a customized Cortex A-9 instead).
If you also have a problem with criticism of Microsoft 2004-2009, or Google 2008-2012, maybe you should do some independent research and explain why those companies subsequently ran into problems, falling behind Apple in every metric of corporate competency, from revenue to profits to third party ecosystem and hardware proficiency.
Back to processors: you claim that the GS4 and iPhone sell in similar quantities of “tens of millions." But that’s not remotely true. Over the last 4 quarters since iPhone 5 was released, Apple sold over 145 million iPhones, more than half of which were iPhone 5. That’s at least 70 M devices with its latest processor. Pretty decent economies of scale. If you think the iPhone 5s will sell in smaller quantities, you are a fool.
Samsung sold at least 2x as many “smartphones,” but 60 percent of those were garbage. It “shipped” an estimated 20M of SG4’s across its first two quarters, but Samsung is now calling its investors to a meeting to explain why sales are “less than expected,” as Reuters reported.
But let’s say Samsung actually sold that many. How many were sold in North America, half? Those don’t use the Exynos chip, they use a Qualcomm Snapdragon. So now we’re talking about ~10M Exynos 5 GS4 sales compared to 70M A6 selling in iPhone 5. Which do you suppose is cheaper to build at those quantities? I’ll wait while you pull out your sliderule.
The A6 is also used in other devices, including the global iPhone 5c, which I dare you to bet against the way the your British press is likely to given that UK buyers are smartphone bargain hunters. Now ponder whether Samsung will sell a lot of other devices with the "8-core,” huge hot and heavy Exynos 5 chip in them. No, they’ll use more Snapdragons from their design competitor and lower end Exynos chips on subsequent flagship phones. The Note 8 and Tab 3 both have an Exynos 4, while the Note 3 is again split regionally between a Qualcomm and Exynos 5.
You can be critical without being a groveling sneak whispering to your online friends about how the author is rumored to be wrong by many other trolls. Why not man up and join the discussion like you’re worthy of sitting at the adult table?
The problem is that the post being responded to doesn't seem credible. It's another new signup from a Windows user claiming to be a Mac user (could be both of course) who then says that attacking Samsung/Android etc shouldn't be done and competition is healthy etc. TS just pointed out that it fits the common profile where people start out with the disclaimer about using Apple products and use it to validate some kind of criticism (e.g I hate Apple but I own an iPod so it's rational hate that you should consider). Sometimes TS picks up a false positive but is usually accurate.
I agree that the reactionary comments don't add anything but aren't any different from saying something like 'nothing you've said has any substance to it' or 'I stopped reading after this', which people would be allowed to say.
So just to be clear, if you join this particular forum and don't like a few points made in a post (At no stage did I attack Apple, Apple products, or Apple users...) then you're instantly an Apple hating troll. Seems legit.
If you like I can post a picture of the Apple devices I own sitting next to a piece of paper with 'TS is wrong' written on it. It won't contribute to the discussion (much like every post after mine first one in this thread) but it should help TS sleep at night.
No one needs to list all their Apple products. Has anyone had a discussion about a current movie and list all the movies he's watched that the director has done?
The list doesn't add to the discussion. if you are a fan, you don't need to prove it to us. But keep in mind we have a lot of drive-by trolls.
Maybe you should actually read the article, which details that the Exynos 5 Octa chases down a design path nobody else in the industry is using (from the Apple you have contempt for to Qualcomm, which like Apple went for a customized Cortex A-9 instead).
Of course I read it, I don't think it's meaningful to say that "nobody else in the industry is using" the principles behind the big.LITTLE architecture as an example of a particular chipset being "disastrous". Samsung are using it, a lot, and are being successful with it, a lot. Yes, it's big, and yes it's expensive, as you point out, but Samsung have stuck it in their devices, and it works and they are selling. That's not a disaster, not even a failure. Even if Samsung are their own only customer for the chipset, they're shifting lots of units. It's not a disaster. If the handset were failing, or blowing up, or the chipset was in some way responsible for them not selling, then maybe you'd have a point.
And besides that, whether it's a disaster or not, what does it have to do with Apple? Why would Apple choose to manufacture or not manufacture the A7 with Samsung because of the supposed failure of a completely unrelated chipset? Apple are not without reasons to split from Samsung, but I fail to see how this is one of them. And that was the title of the article.
For the record, I don't have contempt for Apple. I'd list the Apple products I own, but apparently that would make me a troll, so instead I'll ask you to cite where I've said anything that could be interpreted as showing contempt for Apple.
See this is the problem I was getting into earlier with Marvin. Anyone who questions anything about Apple or the establishment of this forum is a troll and a hater, without any real regard for what they say. It's tiresome.
If you also have a problem with criticism of Microsoft 2004-2009, or Google 2008-2012, maybe you should do some independent research and explain why those companies subsequently ran into problems, falling behind Apple in every metric of corporate competency, from revenue to profits to third party ecosystem and hardware proficiency.
No, because that's not the point. You do very good research and have good technical observations, I'm not disputing that. All I'm saying is that the tone of your articles is ranty, and it has been since your early days when Microsoft was your Undesirable #1; you come at your journalism aggressively and use your facts in a bilious way to paint a picture of Apple as a paragon of virtue and magical foresight, and every other player as the enemy of mankind. That's not a healthy standpoint and it doesn't make for good journalism, it makes just you sound like a fan with a stick up his ass.
Back to processors: you claim that the GS4 and iPhone sell in similar quantities of “tens of millions." But that’s not remotely true. Over the last 4 quarters since iPhone 5 was released, Apple sold over 145 million iPhones, more than half of which were iPhone 5. That’s at least 70 M devices with its latest processor. Pretty decent economies of scale. If you think the iPhone 5s will sell in smaller quantities, you are a fool.
70 million isn't tens of millions? Yes it is, it's 7 of them. And if the GS4 has sold at least 20 million then that's also tens of millions, at least 2 of them. They aren't the same number (I never said they were) but they're on the same scale, the 10m to 100m scale of tens of millions. how is that "not remotely true", it makes perfect logical sense to me.
I make no claim whatsoever about how well the iPhone 5S will sell, so I guess I'm not a fool. Neither am I a person who puts words in another persons mouth and then calls them names.
All this sprang from a question over what phones you were referring to when you said that there are more expensive phones than the iPhone that sold in far less quantity than the iPhone. It was nothing to do with processors, so I'm going to gloss over the rest of your post as not really relevant to what I was asking. As far as I can see you still haven't answered that. Since the Galaxy S4 sold 20 million in it's first few months, it's on the same scale of tens of millions, which I'd say is a very harsh understanding of "tiny volumes". Also the Galaxy S4 isn't significantly more expensive than the comparable iPhone in most markets. If you meant the Galaxy S4, and you were just a little loose with your language that's fine, all I wanted was clarification because I didn't know what you were talking about.
The A6 is also used in other devices, including the global iPhone 5c, which I dare you to bet against the way the your British press is likely to given that UK buyers are smartphone bargain hunters. Now ponder whether Samsung will sell a lot of other devices with the "8-core,” huge hot and heavy Exynos 5 chip in them. No, they’ll use more Snapdragons from their design competitor and lower end Exynos chips on subsequent flagship phones. The Note 8 and Tab 3 both have an Exynos 4, while the Note 3 is again split regionally between a Qualcomm and Exynos 5.
I'm neither responsible for, nor a great fan of the British press, so that's a pretty insipid comment to make. I don't take every US-based tech blogger to task for Fox News (or MSNBC, whatever your leaning). Nor am I responsible for all UK buyer's purchasing habits, actually almost everyone I know has an iPhone. Pointless nationalist nonsense.
Now ponder something that is an internal engineering decision at Samsung? This is pure speculation. Maybe you're right and Samsung will drop Exynos as not the best option for their phones. So what? Engineering decision like that are made all the time. They still sold loads of them. It's not a runaway success, but neither is it a disaster.
You can be critical without being a groveling sneak whispering to your online friends about how the author is rumored to be wrong by many other trolls. Why not man up and join the discussion like you’re worthy of sitting at the adult table?
Whispering? On the public comment thread for the author's article? Weird definition of whispering you have. To my recollection I haven't even exchanged a word with Taverner before this thread, so s/he's hardly an online friend (no offence T, I'm sure you're a great guy).
How exactly can I join the discussion any more than I already have, I'm writing a reply to you, aren't I?
Btw, you never answered my direct question about what handsets are more expensive than the iPhone and sell in tiny volumes. And I'm the one whispering and not joining the discussion?
You seriously need to learn to tone down the rhetoric and engage with criticism more measuredly.
Nope, there are just patterns that people follow when they intend to be a nuisance poster. There are exceptions but they are rare. People who are new understandably are not aware of the patterns but people who have been members for years have seen it quite a number of times. What happens after it gets called out is generally one of two things: people who are the disruptive kind get defensive, claim freedom of speech and suggest the forum isn't open enough for healthy discussion; the people who sign up to be constructive to the forum tend to be more accepting of the criticism and realise that as a new member, it's better to be respectful than to suggest the members or article authors here are making moronic comments and need to learn from the new poster.
Being part of a community involves earning respect and you don't do that by criticising a well-written article without addressing the main points in the article and mainly suggesting that criticising the competition is unjustified. It's like walking into a sports stadium full of people wearing blue shirts while wearing a green shirt and telling them not to be so hard on the green team because without them the blue team would have nobody to play against. The people already know this and so the defense of the green team just serves to annoy people. It might seem obvious but some people don't seem to grasp it even after a very long time that if your preference is not the subject of the forum then this really isn't the forum to be on. If you prefer Windows, sign up to a Windows forum; if you prefer Android, sign up to an Android forum etc. It's not a requirement to be an Apple user but it's an easy indicator that your intent aligns with the purpose of the forum.
Ok but if there are white tables, we'll know you just went into a local Apple Store with the piece of paper. You can also just post on the forum using your primary computer. It actually wouldn't do much good now because you already fit a pattern of a disruptive poster but you can still be one of the rare exceptions who stick by the forum rules and post in a respectful manner. Your first post was not an example of posting respectfully for the following reasons:
The language here is intended to suggest that people here have an irrational hatred towards Samsung. It's perfectly rational and relatively conservative. When people make a rational statement and someone else says 'geez, calm down I don't know why you're so upset by what I said', the purpose is to suggest that the people making rational objections are making irrational, emotionally driven statements.
Using phrases like "blew one of Apple's products out the water" after describing a single superior feature, we get that a lot e.g look at the Nokia Lumia 41MPixel, it blows the iPhone out the water or look at the quad-cores in Android phones that blow iPhones out the water or look at the resolution on the Nexus 7, it blows the iPad mini out the water. The same people who make accusations of irrational hatred of the competition make these exaggerated statements promoting the competition and the usual intent is to annoy people. If some features are better, that's fine but just say that, there's no need to word it as though people who don't make the same purchase choices are being deluded into buying something with a worse feature here and there.
Did someone suggest Samsung should stop making phones or components? People here naturally want the competition to do badly but suggesting that people should vote for every competing manufacturer to succeed just isn't feasible. Apple users don't go to Android or Windows forums to suggest that they be more open minded and promote Apple too.
Hardly anyone uses it. That's why people have started saying it stands for Nobody F*ing Cares. It's not that it's a bad idea, just irrelevant.
Condescending language used because you didn't understand the article. There was some confusion in the wording but the article was referring to the Samsung-fed tech media as being backwards - the same media that says Apple selling 5 million units in a weekend is disappointing but Samsung shipping 10 million in a month is a success. Rather than be a constructive poster and ask whether you read it correctly, you make accusations about the author.
So is Windows 8. Just because something keeps getting manufactured doesn't mean it's a success. The article points out the relative shipment volumes and performance of each processor. If you'd rather say both are successful, that's up to you but people are free to judge something as a failure relative to another more successful comparison.
Samsung sells over double the amount of smartphones Apple does and over 50% of all Android phones. Suggestions of Apple being a monopoly are pretty redundant when you are backing Samsung.
It is but it's also tiresome to read the same baseless statements again and again. If people say 'Apple isn't the same without Steve' then the first time, it's easy to be sympathetic. After about 50 times for every decision Apple makes, it's tiresome. Somewhere in the middle we have to find a balance between giving people the freedom to make valid criticisms and allowing people to defend against baseless criticism. There isn't a perfect balance because if there was, we'd have world peace. People will always pull in one direction or the other but the rules have to promote the best outcome for the forum. Given that this is an Apple-oriented forum, pro-Apple discussion is favoured. There are no rules to prevent people criticising Apple or supporting the competition but it's obvious that it won't be met with welcoming arms.
if you prefer Android, sign up to an Android forum etc.
Hey, that would apply to me.
Preferring one OS over another doesn't mean you have to hate everything that's not your preference. Some people take it to that extreme, but it's a pretty rare occurance out in the real world. It's possible to prefer one, but like others at the same time. I'm aware that you weren't implying that, but it seemed like a relevant point to add.
I've probably said it before, but I do follow a couple of Android based sites as well and it's hard to get the whole story there. In fact, it's extremely rare to see an Apple story on an Android site so it's difficult to keep up with what's going on in the Apple world if one didn't follow an Apple site or two as well. AppleInsider covers both Apple and Android so it's an easy choice for someone like myself.
The A6 made the best of old technology yet because Apple used it, it was declared better than the next generation ARM chips.
Now we have Apple at 64 bit, suddenly the next generation is once again fine. Funnily enough, moving to 64 bit might put existing 32 bit users on borrowed time, at least on the more proprietary systems.