cloudmobile

genovelle said:

gatorguy said:

jbdragon said:

gatorguy said:

Oh I SO look forward to @ericthehalfbee 's reaction to Apple finally buying into the Google-led royalty-free alternative to HEVC.  We've had numerous discussions in the past about this, some relatively recently.

Apple didn't do that!!! Google's is VP8 which went no where, and now followed by VP9. Which is what Google is using for YouTube in HD and why Apple doesn't support it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VP9

AV1 which is what Apple has finally signed onto is being developed by the Alliance for Open Media (AOMedia) In which Amazon, ARM, Cisco, Facebook, Google, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Mozilla, Netflix, Nvidia, and now Apple have signed onto as Founding Members. Along with others.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliance_for_Open_Media

It's not Google-led. As for royalty-free, give it time, I'm sure someone will be suing them, maybe the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG).

As I read it Google rolled their next version VP10 into AV1 and serves as basis for the codec being finalized by the Open Media Alliance. 
https://www.xda-developers.com/av1-future-video-codecs-google-hevc/

So yeah Apple is buying into into Google's vision, and that's OK. The more rabid Apple fans and loudest Google-haters have more of an issue with that than Apple themselves do, so trust what Apple chooses as several of the most vocal members here would normally suggest. . 

Not really Google’s Vision. Apple rightly choose not to use anything that Google controlled. They got burned with maps when they decided to complete on phones and held back features like turn by turn for years to make Apple look bad. They are supporting this because it is a merger of three platforms and Google’s control will be limited. Here is a quote from the article you linked. “Cisco was developing Thor for use in their videoconferencing products, and Xiph was developing Daala (a codec designed to be substantially different from all previous codecs, in order to prevent any possibility of patent claims). All three codecs (Thor, Daala, and VP9/VP10) were looking quite promising, but the split efforts were stifling their development and adoption, so the three organizations came together and merged their codecs into one (AV1), and created the Alliance for Open Media to further the development and adoption of this joint codec. AV1 aims to take the best parts of each of those three codecs, and merge them into a royalty-free package that anyone can implement.”

Sure ... if you ignore the fact that it was Google's idea to begin with. And this was never going to be something that Google "controlled" to begin with. No one controls open standards. That's the whole point. And yes, other entities to contribute to open standards. Hence the "open" and community" nature of it. The only issue was that no one else was willing to join in and support the open standard because they wanted to maintain and monetize their own. That would have happened whether it was Apple, some international standards body like ISO or IETF etc. proposing it, just as it has in the past long before Google existed and/or before they bought YouTube and launched Android and was just a search engine. But now that technology and market conditions have changed, everyone else is just now coming around to the idea that Google started promoting TEN YEARS AGO. 

It is hilarious. When Google stopped supporting Flash in Android, you guys were quick with the "Steve Jobs was right so take that Google fans!" comments. (Never mind that Android's support of Flash was very useful in helping Android gain adoption internationally and thus was a valid business and technology decision at the time.) But now when Apple joins an effort that Google recognized the need for due to their buying and operating YouTube way back in 2006 and had to deal with issues and gain expertise that Apple did not have as a result and had to spend the next 10 years getting other entities to join their efforts finally forcing Apple to act or else risk getting locked out, you guys say "nope has nothing to do with Google at all." And by the way, Google didn't even develop VP8 and its predecessors. On2 Technologies did. In 2008, Google bought On2 Technologies and immediately open-sourced VP8. If Google wanted to "control it" they would have never open-sourced it. But Google wanted this because they anticipated this business need which no one else has. And because Google didn't have their own proprietary video formats to license and monetize. (Meanwhile Google had to pay licensing fees on everyone else's formats.)

But now because of 4K everyone else has the same needs that Google has had since buying YouTube. So now they want in. Including Apple. Those are the facts no matter how you want to spin them. Had Apple been the one to buy YouTube instead of Google, they would have come to the same conclusion long ago too. 

Stop. Please stop. For goodness sakes. Whenever Apple accuses someone of infringing their patents or abusing FRAND, everyone sides with Apple and wants the offender that Apple accuses crushed by paying huge licensing fees,  having their products banned from the market, and massive financial penalties and even driven out of business outright. But when someone accuses Apple they are always a patent troll, Apple is free and clear and innocent, or the amount that they are seeking from Apple way exceeds the value of the patent because it is how Apple incorporates everyone else into their tech that gives the IP value in the first place. Look, there is being a fan and being a fanboy.

The same patent laws that applies to everyone else with Apple's IP applies to Apple with everyone else's IP. It is amazing: the same people who want Android banned despite a decades'-old Supreme Court ruling allowing one company to copy another company's UX/UI, a ruling that Apple has since taken advantage of themselves like everyone else. The same people who insist that Apple should have to pay pretty much pennies for critical hardware patents like ARM CPU designs and 2G/3G/4G designs without which smartphones and mobile tech in general wouldn't be practical AT ALL agreed with Apple's attempts to ban all Samsung products from the market - or pay a $50 per device licensing fee - over trade dress, rounded corners, icon shapes, home buttons and pinch-to-zoom.

It is hilarious. How many people wanted Oracle to drive Android off the market over APIs that Sun allowed EVERYONE to freely use at the time - and which Google could have easily rewritten if they didn't - do not want Apple to pay practically anything over ARM designs and wireless standards?

Here is the deal: Apple chose Wisconsin's designs over ARM Holdings' design. Qualcomm, Samsung, MediaTek and everyone else pay ARM Holdings, Inc. because the Snapdragon, Exynos etc. are based on the ARM Holdings base design. (In fact, Qualcomm had overheating issues with the Snapdragon 810 because they used an ARM Holdings design for the cores. When they used their own design that was derived from the ARM Holdings base design for the 820 the problem went away.) So your rationale for why Samsung and Qualcomm have to pay ARM Holdings but Apple doesn't have to pay the University of Wisconsin is what exactly?

Finally, you mention that it was a Wisconsin court, as if that is all nefarious or something. The problem is that this actually HELPS the University's case. Why? Because were UW-Madison some troll filing a flimsy case, they would have filed the lawsuit in East Texas like all the actual trolls do. Instead of court-shopping, the University of Wisconsin actually filed their case in the appropriate jurisdiction: where they are located. Why? Because they knew that they would win based on the merits of the case. And this is why UW-Madison has won every appeal on this case.

Apple will ride this out because it is cheaper to pay lawyers - who work for Apple and are on the payroll already for the most part - than it is to pay $1 billion. But they will pay eventually, just as Samsung paid Apple over rounded corners and icon placement eventually.

Do you know why Apple never sued Schmidt for corporate espionage or Android for copyright infringement? Simple: Android didn't even support touchscreens until version 1.5. By then, the HTC Dream - a device that emulated the Blackberry, Microsoft CE and Nokia Symbian devices that preceded the iPhone - was on the market. It took Google until July 2009 - more than 2.5 years after the iPhone's design was made public - to so much as release an Android device that could support touchscreens. So either Schmidt stole ideas for Android from Apple ... and for some reason chose not to use them until 2009, and in the process incurred the risk that Microsoft, Nokia, Blackberry or some other competitor would beat them to market with a touchscreen design. Or Schmidt and Google saw the top-secret product for the first time in 2007 like everybody else, and UNLIKE Nokia, Blackberry, Microsoft etc. knew the device would succeed and immediately began to reverse engineer it. And since Apple didn't invent touchscreen mobile devices in the first place (that would have been IBM with the Simon in 1992) it was possible for them to do so without infringing on a single bit of Apple IP, or even needing to license tech from Apple (though they did need to license tech from Microsoft and others). Which is more likely? Answer .. the one that actually happened.

And you believe Facebook gain nothing from this? I know content providers have their own apps in Appstore, some are free and some are subscribe based. Are you saying that 'these content providers' are looking for a loophole to sell their services to iOS users for free?

Sigh . Let me answer your question with a question. Why are you so determined to blame this on Facebook instead of the providers? What did Facebook do to become Apple's enemy in your book before now?

Now to get back at your question directly. Facebook has never had an issue with the App Store policies before. So why would they now? The answer. They don't. Facebook is like Google. They don't need App Store revenue. In fact they don't want it. Do you know why? Ads. Facebook makes far more on ads than they ever would from people buying subscriptions through the App Store. Now look. Open your mind here and realize that there are other business models than Apple's. Like the business model that allowed Google to surpass Yahoo and Microsoft and become the world's second biggest company by giving away Chrome, Android, the GSuite software and nearly all their other products and services for free. 

Now please be willing to actually understand instead of doing the fanboy "I am closing my mind now because this information flies in the face of what I choose to believe about my favorite company" thing on purpose. Facebook doesn't want to use the subscription model for any of their services because they make less money that way. They can't make money by restricting themselves to 25% of the market and making a premium on hardware sales to that 25%. They make money off ads, and the way to make money off ads is to have as many users as possible engaging with their product as much as possible. The subscription model flies in the face of that because if they adopt that they will lose 50% to 75% of their customers off the bat. They don't want to write off those customers as "cheap", "uneducated", "unsophisticated", "moochers", "leeches", "no taste", "don't understand tech" etc. (The way that Apple fans view Android and Microsoft consumers.) They can make revenue off showing ads to those people too because their business model is volume not margin. To use a broadcast analogy, Google and Facebook are network TV where Apple is premium cable. Or Facebook is broadcast radio where Apple is satellite radio.

That is why the only consumer services that Google charges for are YouTube Red, Google Play Movies/TV/Books/Music and cloud storage. Now the latter has real infrastructure costs and if Google gave away unlimited cloud storage for free you would have 1 billion people uploading 5 TB of data just because. But the former? The content providers own the content and they want to be paid for it. 

The same is going on here. Hearst, Tronc, and the Washington Post are the ones who want - and need - this revenue. Facebook doesn't, and trust me if they could work out a way where they could provide this service for free they would. Yes, Facebook benefits. Why? Because right now Facebook serves up links and when you clink on a link you leave Facebook and go to the newspaper's site. This allows you to subscribe to the newspaper within the app, read the news content while staying in the app and still seeing Facebook ads. The paper gets the subscription revenue, Facebook gets the ad revenue and both win. But if there was some way for Facebook to get the ad revenue without the subscription component that is what they would do because that is what they do for every single other app that they have in the App Store. It would maximize the number of people who read the news content while staying in their app and in the process see their ads. Instead, 50%-75% fewer people will use this app than otherwise would. Facebook isn't happy with this, but they have no choice but to go along, because that way it makes the content providers their partners instead of their competitors and Facebook wants to keep their partnerships with the content providers in a way that maximizes the time that people stay on Facebook.

But hey, you go ahead and blame Facebook for this because you choose to believe that every other company is an enemy of Apple out to take away Apple's hard earned money.

You guys are funny. Roku has been on the market and the sector leader in its category for years. Now that Apple FINALLY updated Apple TV to compete in this category - not so much against Roku but Amazon Fire TV - all of a sudden Rokus work terrible, are impossible to understand and set up etc.? Which, for example, JUST HAPPEN to be the same arguments that you guys use against Android phones and Windows PCs? Hilarious. Well guys I have owned several Rokus. The difficult, arduous setup process is this: 1) create a Roku account using your email address 2) plug in your Roku to the HDMI port 3) plug in the power cable 4) connect the Roku to your Wi-Fi or Ethernet 5) sign in to the default streaming channels 6) add any new streaming channels that you want (which unlike Apple TV can be done either on the Roku itself or by managing it from the Roku website using the browser) That's it. It also just happens to be similar to the setup process of an Apple TV (which I have owned), smart Blu Ray player (which I have owned), iPads (which I have owned) and so forth. If anything a Roku is a breeze compared to the nightmare that is iTunes for Windows. Or the fact that there is no real web-based interface for the App Stores on either iOS or macOS. And all the things that the Apple TV does better than the Roku? Most people have no interest in. They aren't trying to do console-quality video games (there are Playstations, Switches and XBoxes that do it a lot better with much better content and don't cost that much more) or anything that would require all that CPU, GPU and RAM. The vast majority just want to stream Netflix, YouTube, Hulu and Amazon Prime. You're deluding yourself if you think any differently. Apple TV is for hardcore Apple fans who have a ton of content on iTunes. And not because it is inherently better at it by the way. It is only because Apple TV is the only practical way to access your iTunes content. But if you have content on Google Play, Amazon Prime and Ultraviolet, Roku is better because it can actually play all those things. If being all Apple all the time is good for you, then great. But the rest of the market will choose what is best for them. And yes, for them price is a factor. Especially considering that the best TVs on the market these days - Samsung, LG, Sony, Vizio - are already smart TVs anyway.

brakken said:

What these idiots fail to understand is, that if they succeed in destroying Apple, then they won’t be able to keep using their iPhones. 

I expect we’ll now have to enact bills on how many documents can be ordered in ehat timeframe. 

No one is trying to destroy Apple. Qualcomm is merely trying to get Apple to pay the same for their IP for the iPhone 7, 8 and X as Apple paid for the 3G, 4, 5 and 6. The difference between what Apple wants to pay and what Qualcomm wants Apple to pay is a fraction of the licensing costs that Apple tried to use to drive Samsung from the mobile business, and ultimately succeeded in driving HTC from the mobile business because where HTC agreed to Apple's licensing demands Samsung fought back in court and wound up paying Apple far less as a result, even though they sold many times more devices than HTC ever did. In other words, it was Apple who was trying to use the courts and trade commissions to destroy the competition. In contrast, Qualcomm wants Apple to make and sell as many iPhones as possible because that is more money for Qualcomm. Realize this: Apple sold far fewer iPhone 3Gs than they will iPhone 8/X and they charged much less for the iPhone 3G than they do for the 8 and X. To pretend that this lawsuit poses any sort of threat to Apple's bottom line is hilarious. Even if Apple loses, Apple will either 1) raise the price of the iPhone accordingly or 2) find someone else in their supply chain to squeeze to make up the difference. And if Apple wins, no, they aren't going to lower the cost of iPhones or do anything else to pass that money onto consumers. It will just go into their coffers. Meaning you won't benefit unless you are a stockholder, and even if you are a stockholder, this lawsuit amounts to pennies compared to Apple's $850 billion valuation so you won't see much action on that front either. And finally: Qualcomm's IP is based on obsolete 2G/3G/CDMA tech. Within 5 years and possibly within 3 years, no one is going to be using that stuff anymore anyway. Verizon, for instance, will turn off their 2G and CDMA networks by the end of 2019. (Sprint still uses CDMA too, but who knows whether they will still be in business by then.) So by the time the final appeals are heard on this case, it will be a moot point, and the battle will be over how much Apple has to pay Qualcomm for their IP in Apple devices sold in the past. Something that both Apple and Qualcomm know by the way. Qualcomm is trying to maximize how much they can get for their IP while it still has some value. Apple wants to drag this out until the 2G/3G/CDMA patents are economically worthless and then use that as leverage to get Qualcomm to settle for as little as possible.

macplusplus said:

A codec is nothing without hardware implementation.

Not even close to being true. Most codecs are software only and do not require extra hardware because the CPU can handle them just fine. For example: what is the hardware implementation of audio formats like *.mid, *.aac and *.mp3? There isn't one because your MacBook Pro doesn't need specialized hardware to decode a 20 megabyte *.mp3 file. ITunes can handle that just fine by itself. 

Now granted for THIS, 4K/8K video compression you will need new GPU designs and such to support it so in this case that is why Intel, ARM and others are on board. But in general terms, nope.

"He suspects that the OLED displays for the "iPhone 8" cost Apple between $120 and $130 per unit -- well beyond the $45 to $55 per unit Apple is said to pay for the iPhone 7 Plus 5.5-inch LCD screen."

So ... the site that is infamous for defending Apple's high-margin pricing strategy AND criticizing consumers for buying cheaper Microsoft, Android, Linux etc. alternatives AND attacking people who criticize Apple's fees (i.e. developers over the app store's 30% fee) AND attacking suppliers like Nokia, Qualcomm, the University of Wisconsin etc. for wanting Apple to pay practically nothing - or in fact nothing at all - for their IP (patent trolls they are called?) claiming that someone else is somehow fleecing Apple? This is rich.

Consumer: "I have five kids and elderly grandparents to take care of on a blue collar salary. I can't afford an iPhone, iPad and a Mac. I need to get an Android phone, Android tablet and a Windows PC instead and pay 75% less in the process." Apple Insider fans reply: "You are a horrible, terrible, very bad, no good, evil immoral person!

These are the same people who don't want Apple to have to pay $60 dollars more to benefit from what is clearly superior tech from the only company in the world that is able to supply it to them (because they, er, invented it). Amazing ...

blastdoor said:

Samsung? Pfft. They're done. 

The more interesting competitor to TSMC now is Intel, because Intel offers the potential to integrate the cellular modem into the SOC. 

But I wonder if Intel might have waited too long to get serious about going after Apple's business. These fab processes are difficult to assess by marketing name alone -- TSMC's 10nm is as good as Intel's 10nm, for example. But my impression is that the transistor density of TSMC's 10nm is better than Intel's 14 nm, and that TSMC's 7 nm MIGHT beat Intel's 10nm. If so, then Intel might have finally lost its fab process lead. And that would be a very big deal if true. 

But Samsung? Ha. They're done. 

Intel would have to 1) start making ARM SOCs instead of x86 ones and 2) make SOCs that are competitive with the ones made by Samsung and TSMC. Right now, Intel doesn't even have the foundries to make ARM chips, nor the expertise to make them or operate them. Getting that would take years and billions of dollars. That is why Intel spent years and billions trying to get mobile device makers to use their mobile x86 designs instead, and when that failed they decided to exit the mobile business to focus on IoT. Now that Windows runs on ARM nearly as well as it runs on x86, Intel is probably freaking out. And the multiple security issues that have been identified with their chips will only give manufacturers more incentive to switch from x86 to ARM for Windows PCs that don't require professional/workstation type performance. Yes, Samsung is done, but they never really needed Apple's SOC business anyway. They've had 4 straight record quarters without it. Time to let the Samsung thing go. Apple's lawsuit against them was going on 9 years ago, and Samsung has made 20 times as much money supplying Apple with components than Apple would have ever gotten out of that lawsuit anyway. And there is also the not insubstantial fact that Apple has taken far more design ideas for the iPhone X (and 8/7/6S/6) from the Galaxy S and Galaxy Note lines than Samsung ever did from the 1st and 2nd generation iPhone for their iPhone knockoffs that didn't sell anyway.

I don't get this. Samsung will use the Qualcomm 845 for devices sold outside South Korea. They can use their own Exynos SOC for devices sold inside South Korea, but naturally that will not be anywhere near 100 million. 

"Qualcomm and MediaTek could also be in a position to order 7-nanometer chips, but those companies simply develop processors rather than make complete devices."

Huh? That doesn't mean anything. Quite the contrary, the opposite is true. Qualcomm doesn't need to rely on a single vendor to move 120 million 7 nm chips. So long as Samsung, LG, Motorola, Google, Xiaomi, Oppo etc. all buy the chips then they make a profit regardless of who makes the phone. In fact, they don't need the phones to sell to make a profit. If LG buys 30 million Qualcomm chips and only sells 25 million LG G8s and LG V30s, that is LG's loss. Qualcomm gets paid the same. So this analysis makes no sense. 

Qualcomm could have gotten the 7 nm design this year if they had prioritized it. Instead, they prioritized getting the AI, AR, VR, HDR, graphics and biometrics features better, as well as increasing efficiency with an existing 10 nm design. Meaning that they focused on new features. Had they focused merely on getting to 10 nm, the new features would have had to wait. And it was the right decision. Smartphone owners don't care much about 10 nm versus 7 nm, especially when the new 10 nm design will improve power consumption (as will the new release of Android). But they do care about better cameras, video recording etc.