ksec

macseeker said:

Now we can burn through our data plans in a few minutes time. NEAT! Still will have the same low amount data plans. 5G really not worth it.

5G is more about capacity, or in Carrier's POV, lowering the cost per GB. And the 5G defined just a week ago really is a 4.9G. The world is moving towards unlimited plans as Carrier should have abundant capacity once they have 5G rolled out.

Assuming consumers continue to renew their phone every 30 months or so, which is big part of how Network can improve efficiency since your phone has to support it. We are looking at 4 - 5X capacity improvement with the current infrastructure.

That is excluding any Frequency Band refarming and new Band added to LTE.

lymf said:

While the question can and should be raised, the fact that it comes from Ted Cruz is just discrediting the whole process

Why should the question be raised to Apple and not direct to China?

I think this signals something else entirely ( If the rumours is true ). 

In Apple's style, they will also launch 4K content on iTunes Stores, for 4K Movies to space / bandwidth efficient, you need HEVC. The next ( or really the current ) generation of Video Codec.

But HEVC has an ridiculously expensive license agreement, $25M Max/ year to MPEG-LA and $40M  Max/year to HEVC Advance. 10 times the cost of AVC / H.264 $6.5M Max / Year. The sudden appearance of HEVC Advance Group was the reason Apple dropped all mention of HEVC / H.265 from their product page, initially being listed as a technology for Facetime. Late last year, HEVC Advance group announce that HEVC software implementation to be free of Royalties charges, both encoder and decoder. So theoretically Apple could put in a powerful CPU within Apple Tv to use HEVC in software mode.     

anton zuykov said:

ksec said:

1. MicroLED aren't likely coming to Apple Watch or iPhone. At any rate they may come to TV first, before the tech move into smaller devices if at all.

Probably the opposite is true. It is much harder to manufacture a huge defect free panel with 10M pixels, vs a much smaller panel with 120k pixels, don't you think?
If you have a certain probability that a certain pixel ends up dead due to production, you surely will get a MUCH higher probability of having at least 1 defect, with a 10Mpx panel, comparing to 120kpx panel. That is why it took so long for Apple to get 4k and 5k panels into their products.

True if the panel are produced in wafer / sheet. This is how it works for OLED and LCD.

There are really two types of Micro-LED, one that is being used and sold and continuously refined by Sony. First came out as Crystal LED Technology. You bond those "individual" LED into a panel. That is currently only working at 40PPi, and with an 80PPI coming soon.

The other one is MicroLED on film, which allows up to 1000ppi. But the tech is so far from commercial production, we will likely not see it on any Apple's product in the next five years. Compared to OLED, as much as I hate to admit it, is making a lot of progress and cost saving year after year.  

Metriacanthosaurus said:

It’s always the same story. Our puny minds can’t comprehend the expenses Apple has. Well, every company has expenses that are not materials cost. Is that really the customer’s burden to bear? I think what customers want is for some of that past R&D to start to amortize, and result in stable product lines. This unpredictable continuous rise in prices for no compelling reason has everyone concerned. 

Meanwhile, our puny minds can comprehend the balance sheet, and profit is obscene. The same old story doesn’t fly. 

Dont get get me wrong I think it’s perfectly fine for Apple to have a wide line of iPhone, but they’ve pushed the envelope on what a flagship model can cost and they’re not doing anything they weren’t doing 5 years ago when a flagship iPhone was $650. 

TL;DR -  Innovation is getting more expensive.

It is not unpredictable. It has been the case ever since we finally see the end of Moore's law. It is just most people 1. Did not bother to google and known enough about the topic, 2. Media did an absolutely appalling job, not only did they not understand it themselves, they didn't bother to report it since it is not click baiting enough.

Ever since the Smartphone Revolution, which kicks off a whole lots of other advancement in every computing industry ( or arguably in every industry ), the engineering cost of components and products has been steadily rising. From the Machines that design and Manufacturer the Chips, Engineers wages that has sky rocketed, to Tools required for QA and design, every single part of the process has shoot up in price. That is not including the fact R&D are getting harder as we reach some fundamental limits. It is likely to cost $1B to Fab an TSMC 5nm Chip. That is excluding the cost to ARM and other IP Price. You can literally count with your fingers Companies that has this budget and a market to sell these chips.

Consumer don't see these price increase because most of these R&D were spread to a much larger usage base, 1.3B Annual Smartphones sales compared to ~250M PC, a total of 10-100x increase in Global Mobile Revenue that drives the innovation in 4G and 5G as well as other advancement in the backend. Because the market were so much larger these technologies manage to recoup their R&D and made a handsome profits while charging you tiny amount of money.

But now the Smartphone Market has reached the end of its growth curve and a stage of saturation. Smartphone has reached roughly 80% of the total addressable market, that is world population minus infants and elderly. With the rest concerning more about Food and Water. Smartphone cycle are now longer than 3 years, and trending towards 4. There will be less Smartphone sold every year. ( And one reason why the media and marketing are trying to hype up 5G to force a upgrade cycle )

So what used to be an $1B R&D that spread over 400M iPhones in 2 years time, will now cost $3B R&D that spread over 300M iPhones in 3 years time. That is $0.25 / Unit as compared to  $1 / unit. The numbers are not absolute, they just shows the scale of differences. ( The 400M unit were with respect to most of the early iPhones sold were cutting edge model, the recent iPhone has a much wider spread on older model, which means R&D cost on leading model and spread over a lower volume )

Of Course some of these are over simplified. For example with a 5% decline on Smartphone unit sold causes an avalanche to NAND and DRAM Price ( No, there isn't a cartel in recent NAND and DRAM pricing despite what ever that makes you believe ) Display Prices from OLED and LCD are dropping fast as well due to capacity needed to fill. So some of these will off set the cost of rising R&D. But as a general trend, Tech innovation is only going to get more expensive, and the industry now worries at their 5G investment will take longer to recoup. 

Thanks for killing all the remaining excitement Apple. The amount of leaks coming from Apple's own faults and software is getting fxxking ridiculous.

verne arase said:

Apple is currently buying modems from Qualcomm - shouldn't the IP be baked into the chipset as purchased from Qualcomm?

They're certainly paying Qualcomm enough for the chips and licensing.

Qualcomm only includes their patents and chipset as part of that package, 5G have a few other major contributors such as Nokia, Ericsson and Samsung. Just to name a few everyone should have heard of. 

netrox said:

I honestly don't see much difference between 120Hz and 60Hz. I think it would be just wasted resources, especially on iPhones.  

It is a world of difference on iPad Pro.

proline said:

Weird that Apple feels so easily threatened these days. My local Apple Store was right above a Microsoft store for years. Back then, that just served to visually demonstrate the huge difference in consumer attention between the two. 

So easily threatened, so easily hurt, a walled garden, tightly controlled Media narrative, why does it sound so much like certain country where they produce their iPhone?

1. There is a different between PC / Windows compatibility and x86 Compatibility. 

2. Mac Pro shows Pros Need and Wants the Mac, and I doubt Apple will design a CPU working at 250W just for the Mac Pro Market.

3. The Mac in the long run will be Pro only. Whether that is Prosumer or Professionals, iPad with iPadOS is where the consumers will goes to. ( At least that is the direction Apple hopes to happen )