bleab

tht said:

Nikkei Asia has a good track record for reporting on movements within Apple's supply chain. It very rarely makes predictions on Apple's future plans, but when it does, it generally gets them right.

Weird rumors here.

The iPhone 14 using a 4nm chip imply the 3nm chips are really for 1H 2023 devices. Ie, 3nm mass market production is expected to start in the Fall of 2022 while iPhone 14 needs it to start in the Spring 2022. So, Apple has to use a 4nm process. Nothing too weird here.

But, since when did Intel jump the line to get 3nm chips from TSMC? That essentially means they wrote a $5b check to TSMC about 2 to 3 months ago to get to the front of the 3nm line. This is where you should be skeptical. I could see Intel using TSMC 5nm processes, but 3nm, ahead of everyone else? Skeptical.

Intel won't use TSMC's 5nm process in 2023 because their own 7nm process will be operational by then and their 7nm process is equivalent to TSMC's 5nm process (similar to how TSMC's 7nm process is similar to Samsung's 5nm).

It isn't just process size but also transistor density. So in rising order from least dense to most:
Samsung: least dense. Their 5nm is equivalent to TSMC's 7nm. Which - in addition to yield problems - is why no one uses it unless TSMC doesn't have capacity.
TSMC: middle density. Their 7nm is equivalent to Samsung's 5nm but Intel's 10nm. They are #1 because of a combination of better density/higher yields than Samsung and smaller process than Intel.
Intel: most dense. Much more dense than Samsung - their 10nm and Samsung's 5nm are basically equivalent - but also more dense than TSMC. Meaning that when Intel actually reaches 5nm (and smaller) with their transistor density, that will be formidable.

Also, it has less to do with "Intel paying people off" (why do Apple fans always insist that everyone is corrupt but Apple?) and more to do with the FACT that TSMC won't be able to manufacture very many 3nm chips in 2023. Right now their current capacity is dedicated to 6nm, 5nm and 4nm. Qualcomm, MediaTek, Nvidia, AMD etc. will be using those for years. TSMC will have to build new facilities in Taiwan and New Mexico to accommodate 3nm and 2nm at scale. So, TSMC will only have the ability to fab tens of millions of 3nm SOCs in 2023. That will accommodate the iPad Pro and iPad Air devices that sell a year (the $329 entry level iPad doesn't use the latest SOC and neither does the iPad Mini) and some Xeon/Core i9/Core i7 that Intel will need to hold the line against the progress that AMD is making against them with servers with their Epyc line as well as in workstations and gaming laptops. That "may" be 100 million SOCs between Apple and Intel and could be as low as 50 million. However, about 225-275 million iPhones sell in a typical year and that isn't nearly enough.

A better question may be why Apple isn't using the 3nm SOCs for Macs. I was certain that I read that 4nm M1X chips with at least 12 CPU cores were coming this year for the 14' and 16' MacBook Pro as well as some Mac Mini and iMac models. If that is the case, 3 years would be quite awhile to be on 4nm. But if Intel "jumped in the line" ahead of anyone that would be AMD. 

red oak said:

Evidently, completely ***ing up mobile including the failed Nokia merger and Windows mobile,  the failed MIcrosoft retail stores,  weak Microsoft Surface device sales, failed wearables efforts, failed content services including MS App Store and music, …

Evidently, it all does not matter  how badly you **** up

Until the rise of the iPhone and iPad, Microsoft was the world's #1 company thanks to Windows, Office and enterprise software. While mobile took some of that business away, it didn't take away nearly as much as the people who primarily use Apple devices - and as a result have no idea just how vital those are to the vast majority of businesses and a vital segment of high income consumers - predicted. Instead mobile replaced "dumb" consumer electronics devices that Microsoft never made in the first place: Radio Shack stuff. Or mobile became the first true "personal computer" that people used voluntarily apart from work or school or - in the case of Android in developing nations - used at all.  The result is that while Microsoft missed out on the new market unlike GE, RCA, Sony etc. they didn't lose very much of what they already had to mobile. 

Also need to address some misconceptions and outright falsehoods. First Microsoft makes plenty of money on content: video game sales on XBox and Windows as well as the 50-75 million XBox Game Pass and XBox Gold subscriptions. Also, Microsoft makes plenty of money on mobile by way of their Office 365 apps. Thanks to the 70% cut from those as opposed to a 30% and not having the platform maintenance expenses, lots of people speculated that Microsoft was making more profit off mobile than Google was. Finally while Microsoft gets negligible direct revenue from XBox and Windows hardware they make tons off accessories because of high margins. Microsoft didn't provide full financials on this to the Epic trial because the numbers would have shown that - for example - while they lose money on $300-$500 XBox consoles that lasts 7 years, they make plenty on the $70 controllers that need to be replaced every 18 months, require 2-4 per console and are heavily used for PC gaming too. 

Finally you are ignoring what has been the main driver of Microsoft revenue growth the last 5 years: cloud. While Ballmer was the Microsoft CEO, everyone assumed that Amazon and Google were going to run away with cloud. But Microsoft ditched Ballmer for Nadella who put in a plan.
1.  Admit that Google GSuite was a real threat and get serious about Office 365 to crush it
2. Create a SaaS or PaaS equivalent for every Microsoft enterprise product i.e. Sharepoint, Active Directory, SQL Server etc.
3. Focused on establishing at least basic feature parity for Amazon AWS product.
4. Get their massive enterprise customer base to partially or completely replace their existing products with cloud ones. They are even promoting Azure as the solution for getting rid of their 32 bit legacy code (turning it into software as a service which allows you to use modern hardware and software platforms going forward). So now even though AWS is way ahead Azure is a respectable #2 with Google Cloud Platform only (barely) profitable because it is able to hitch a ride on the same infrastructure they use for YouTube, search and Android.

While a lot of people are laughing at things like xCloud and especially Stadia now as well as calling 5G nothing but hype, it actually is the way of the future. It is going to make platforms agnostic and hardware a commodity for most people. Even graphic design, animation and VFX is being done in the cloud now. Currently the economics are a barrier - a small time operation is much better off spending $50,000 upfront for 10 M1 Mac Minis plus software than getting the equivalent for $3000 a month via cloud - but a larger organization would benefit from being able to provide the same software over the cloud to people who can access it with cheap ChromeOS or Windows 2-in-1s to access it 24 hours a day, 7 days a week from anywhere in the world. Pixar proved that it was possible by doing the last 12+ months of work - voice acting, scoring, sound mixing, postproduction etc. - on Luca from the cloud. Granted it was done with iPads - this is Pixar we are talking about here - and not Dell or HP Surface clones running Windows or ChromeOS, but Apple would rather that work be done with $3000 Macs than $1000 iPad Pros.

That is why Microsoft has $2 trillion in valuation - and Google $1.5 trillion - despite neither selling anywhere near 250 million mobile devices or even 25 million PCs a year. Apple probably gets more new revenue from Apple Arcade than Microsoft from xCloud and especially Google from Stadia today, but everyone believes that the delivery model for xCloud and Stadia - SaaS over 5G (with 6G on the way https://newatlas.com/telecommunications/samsung-6g-prototype-terahertz/) and broadband is the business model of tomorrow. 

lkrupp said:

Microsoft/Android vs macOS/iOS. Who’d a thunk it. The new duopoly. Good luck Satya and Sundar. /s

Huh? ChromeOS has a bigger market share than macOS. So it is Windows vs ChromeOS/Android vs macOS/iOS. Apple makes the profits because Google and Microsoft sell negligible hardware. (Google is dumping Qualcomm for a partnership with Samsung - who will manufacture the SOCs that Google will design with Samsung's help - because they hope to sell more phones and Chromebooks.) But in PCs it is 80% market share (Windows) versus 12% (ChromeOS) and 8% (macOS). In mobile it is 84% share (Android, including ChromeOS tablets that run Android apps) versus 15% (iOS) versus 1% (Windows 10 tablets).  

Now while not having a mobile platform hurts, Windows is the dominant primary computing platform by a mile and this gives Microsoft much more influence than most Apple fans like to admit. (Including the objective fact that Intel isn't going anywhere so long as AMD is stuck being #3 behind Apple and Qualcomm for TSMC's business.) While mobile is extremely profitable - especially for Apple - it is nonetheless a secondary computing platform. Where ChromeOS can be a primary computing platform for two widely divergent demographics - highly skilled people i.e. tech workers who can utilize Linux/SaaS/cloud apps on one hand and people who only need a browser and an occasional mobile app on the other - for most people Chromebooks are for Windows users what iPads are to macOS users. 

robaba said:

Hope this doesn’t go through.  We need less consolidation within chip manufacturing, not more.

1. TSMC and Samsung have 74% of the chipmaking market. GlobalFoundries has 7%.
2. Chip manufacturing requires capital investments and expertise that few small companies are capable of. Only 3 foundries on the planet - TSMC, Samsung, Intel - are capable of even 14nm at high volumes. The fourth will be China's SMIC in early 2022. 
3. America has 3 real competitors in chipmaking: Taiwan, South Korea, China. The other 3 directly subsidize their chipmakers to a massive degree. Meanwhile America only voted to give its chipmakers their first subsidy in decades a few months ago ... and it was comparatively a very small one. So if you want "less consolidation in chipmaking" then you are asking for the federal government to get - for example - Texas Instruments from 130nm to 14nm and get GlobalFoundries' 14nm capacity from tiny to competitive, it would take more money than Intel's $78 billion in revenue last year.
4. The last one - Intels $78 billion in revenue  - is why no antitrust types are going to target them. Where Intel's $78 billion 2020 was a record year for them, Apple at times makes more than that in a single quarter.

Bottom line: you can either have a bunch of tiny chip manufacturers that can't compete with TSMC or maybe 4-6 that can. But you can't have both.

This is straight up why I use Chromebooks instead of iPads: being able to install and run executable and arbitary code is an unconditional requirement. I mean for cheap stuff like the $80 Wal-Mart and Amazon Kindle Fire Android tablets that I just use as e-readers and for Netflix yeah fine doesn't matter. But anything that I pay real money for and use for work or school? Needs to run arbitrary code. That is why that "the tablet that can replace your PC" iPad commercials never applied to me, and the A12Z and M1 being faster than anything below an octacore Intel Core i7 didn't matter either. Can't run what I need means can't use it.

sflocal said

Many of us bought Macs with the intent of also using them to run Windows.  I am one of them, and know many that can't divorce Windows entirely.  That Macs could run Windows was key for me buying my first Mac back in 2008.  I even bought a new 2020 iMac knowing this will most likely be my last Intel machine, and can run Windows for many years to come until both ASi Macs, and maybe even Windows ARM will have been fully baked when I'm ready to get another new Mac.

Of the 20 million Macs that sell a year, if over 2 million of those ever see bootcamp I would be shocked. Of those at most 2 million yearly that are now without bootcamp, most will just get an HP or Lenovo desktop - one with a recent Intel Core i5 and an Nvidia or AMD GPU can cost as little as $500 so not that big of a deal - to complement their primary Mac device. Of the very few remaining that will actually ditch macOS completely over this, they will be replaced several times over by the new customers that Apple Silicon will attract. So they will sell more Macs and will be able to redeploy the programmers responsible for bootcamp to much better tasks. No downside to this for Apple.

"The company might release them individually through the App Store"

Yeah right

"though it could conceivably go the route of Apple Arcade"

Not happening

 "Microsoft's xCloud by fielding a first-party network"

We have a winner! Google, Nvidia, Microsoft and Amazon all tried to create "Netflix for games". Well now we are going to have Netflix do a Netflix for games.

Thinking that they are going to do anything but what Google and the rest have done is hilarious. Netflix isn't an app developer like Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia and Google. Netflix is their sole app and they have it on every conceivable platform. They also don't have platforms to push like Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and Google (plus Nvidia if you count GPU-based hardware platforms). They also don't have hardware like Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Nvidia and Google. Meaning that they are going to add a "games" section to their existing TV and movie sections in the Netflix app. 

Forcing Google, Microsoft and Amazon to make PWAs when they have less than 100 million subscribers combined - with the vast majority of them on Microsoft (who get xCloud as a throw-in for the existing XBox and Windows centered GamePass subscriptions) and most of the rest on Nvidia - is one thing. Telling Netflix - the #2 streaming app in the world behind YouTube - that they can't add a major feature that is going to be present on Android and the other competitors is a whole other matter. We are going to see if Apple is going to stick to their "need to review each individual app for security, content etc." guns or if they are going to have to be forced to let Stadia, xCloud, GeForce Now and Luna through in order to accommodate Netflix.

applguy said:

How would one play a game with a Roku remote? I guess that’s for Mike Verdu to know/figure out and me to find out. Sounds like an input peripheral nightmare. 

The article stated that they are going to focus on mobile gaming first. There is also nothing keeping Roku from releasing:

A. gamepads that use the same protocols as their controllers
B. new streaming boxes that are bluetooth compatible

Note that Roku already lets you connect to a smartphone through their app, which means that you can also connect to bluetooth headphones that are connected to the smartphone. They also have StreamBars - Roku branded soundbars - that connect to Roku devices using the same protocol that their remotes use. So if Roku has to do this in order to keep Netflix gamers from fleeing to other hardware, it would be easy and simple to do.

nicholfd said:

This is my last reply on this topic.

I do know & trust Apple.  What's Microsoft's privacy policy/data sharing/tracking/protection?  Just because you haven't seen any issues, doesn't mean they don't exist, and you don't know how/what Microsoft enforces.  Side loading the Game Pass service would not provide Apple customers any of Apple's protections.

Who says they trust MS?  Most probably don't even think about it.  I already explained above why the app was rejected - Apple couldn't vet the games/privacy/tracking within Game Pass.  You don't know if there are any "Apple privacy/tracking violations" - Microsoft refused to submit each game.  Either you get it or you don't.

Apple doesn't give a **** about Microsoft's Game Pass gaming experience.  Apple cares about Apple's customer's privacy.

You shouldn't trust any company, really. They exist primarily to make money and even when they have secondary goals those may not align with your interests. And even if their primary or secondary interests and goals align with your own right now - likely due to even stopped clocks being right twice a day - they almost certainly won't in the future. That being said, people who do not wish to adhere to Apple's policies have alternatives. In this case you would hopefully get the best Microsoft Game Pass gaming experience on the Microsoft Duo device, and if not the Samsung Galaxy phones and tablets that Microsoft has been using to promote their apps and services on for years. If Microsoft is unable to deliver a good Game Pass experience with either their first party device or their primary mobile hardware partner then the problem may well be with Game Pass itself. In any event, the Game Pass experience isn't a problem for Apple to solve and iPhone/iPad/Apple TV users have a host of other very legitimate reasons for desiring that these products remain as is. Indeed, even Apple being a private business that you would rather not see governments - especially foreign governments who have an interest in promoting their own competing tech companies - push around is a good enough reason in my book.