melgross

sbdude said:

I'm loving all the comments along the lines of "things cost more these days" and "people are just used to cheap cables". What's completely lacking in this article is "What's the actual cost of materials?" And you'll probably find it's less than $20. That's always cause for consternation.

And having more computing power than a 16 MHz 68k processor isn't saying much.

The cost of materials in this cable is higher than you would imagine. There are custom chips inside that likely can’t be used for anything else. That’s just part of it. People not involved in manufacturing have some strange idea that the cost of materials and parts make the price of the product. They don’t. They’re only about one third of the price. The rest is R&D, manufacturing, warrantee costs, the costs to pay the staff of the company, the building rental or building costs. Costs of machinery, taxes on everything that not directly used in manufacturing, mowing the lawn, changing lightbulbs, shipping, marketing and a myriad of other costs associated with running a company.

it’s amazingly naive to think that the cost of parts has more than a passing relationship with product pricing. I was a manufacturer years ago, and I can say that it’s vastly more complex than you can imagine.

It would be nice if my monitor came in so that I could complain along with everyone else. But from a shippin g date from April 7-14th, it went to the current 22nd to 29th. While it says preparing g your order, it didn’t indicate that with the green bar which is still in processing. Since it’s now the 26th, I somehow doubt it will get here by the 29th, unless it’s shipping without the Apple store app being aware of it. One can only hope. Meanwhile my Studio computer sits mournfully awaiting for its eyes and ears to appear.

libertyandfree said:

melgross said:

While I was an owner, and employer, in businesses, I would prefer Apple take some of those tens of billions they’re throwing away in stock buybacks, and give their employees better compensation in various ways. I don’t like the way things have been going. It used to be one of the best places to work, but it’s quickly becoming repressive. There’s no need for that, Apple can afford to do anything required to meet employee expectations.

Why in the world would Apple or any company “do anything required to meet employee expectations”  this is not a valid reason for paying them more.  Because  a company can afford it doesn’t make it valid or reasonable.  Apple store employees are competing with employees at Best Buy, target etc.  they are retail employees and are justly compensated and are free to go to greener pastures.  The unions are using the tight labor market to entice the employees to go to the dark side.  Stores that unionize will regret it once the good labor market vanishes, which it will.  Unions impose  unreasonable work rules, protect the bad workers from being fired and the first hired last fired rule applies and is totally unfair to both sides. Unionize at your own peril.  

Maybe you’ve never been involved with hiring, firing and compensation. So I imagine that you don’t fully understand what I meant. I didn’t mean that you give emp,oyees every thing they want. But you do need to meet them in a place where they believe they’ve been fairly dealt with. That’s expectations. Apple has been trying to squeeze every penny of profit out in recent years. There’s no need for that.

lkrupp said:

melgross said:

While I was an owner, and employer, in businesses, I would prefer Apple take some of those tens of billions they’re throwing away in stock buybacks, and give their employees better compensation in various ways. I don’t like the way things have been going. It used to be one of the best places to work, but it’s quickly becoming repressive. There’s no need for that, Apple can afford to do anything required to meet employee expectations.

And just how is working for Apple becoming “repressive”? All we know about the situation what we read in biased news media reports. All we’ve been presented with are one sided accounts of alleged employee incidents because that’s what gets clicks. As for employee expectations what is expected by retail floor sales clerks? $80K paychecks, 20 minute breaks every hour? What? Respect is a two way street. 

Don’t be naive. We see this daily now. Don’t believe just what you want to believe. Apple has lost lawsuits ove some things they’ve done. One that got major media attention was the bag checks at the end of working shifts. Being an employer, I find it easy to spot what happening. I’m no idealist, and I’m a strong capitalist. But I’m also understanding of worker rights and compensation. 

fastasleep said:

melgross said:

fastasleep said:

melgross said:

tenthousandthings said:

Allow me to add that I don’t quite get the argument that it has to be M2 — I gather there is a technical reason for it, but I think that’s hard to say without knowing a lot more than we do. I find the idea that Apple would design this entire M1 line but not account for the Mac Pro to be absurd. 

In terms of naming, I don’t think they will call it the Ultra Pro or Ultra+, they will all be Ultra, just with different core counts. Basically an Ultra is 2 or 4 Max fused together. 

It’s pretty clear that they are finished with the M1. Will people please stop making new M1 chips up? They may use two or even four M1 Ultra chips. They may change their concept of introducing more powerful chips over the year, and have an M2 Ultra for the Mac Pro. We don’t know. But they won’t have a four chip Ultra. John made that pretty clear.

So what do we make of the myriad rumors going way back of the Jade 4C-Die alongside those of the Jade 2C-Die which came to fruition with the M1 Ultra? It seems unlikely that was a very similar codename for a next gen 4x SoC design. The Ternus comment of course complicates all this, so did they maybe test that design at one point and decide to skip it this gen for some reason? Certainly possible, but it seems like it'd be a disappointment for many if the Mac Pro tops out with the same top end as the Studio. I feel like there's gotta be another trick up their sleeve. 

Well, they could use two chips. People seem to think that Apple has come out with a more advanced connector than Intel’s, and AMD’s versions, and that’s it for Apple. They can’t possibly think of a faster way of connecting two chips together on a mobo. Why would people think that? I just watched MacBreak weekly. Gurman was on it, and was talking about this very thing. He did mention a possibility of a four chip solution, but he thought it was likely to be an M2 thing - if Apple did it. That would be more likely, I think. It’s also possible, as you say, they tested it and it proved deficient, at least, for now. Not everything scales up linearly. Take multi cpu core chips. They never perform as all of the cores would indicate, including Apple’s chips.

Welp, there are still rumors a-floating of stacked Ultras as a possibility, in which case it wouldn't be a new chip, it'd be dual-Ultras. This was covered on this week's ATP rounding up the rumors, and I think it's likely that's the trick up the sleeve.

Rumors, rumors. Anyone can make up a rumor, and most are wrong. Even the best known rumors guys are wrong at times, and even change what they say as time goes on.

it’s what I’ve been saying. It would be two chips, not one, as some others are hoping for, though I don’t know why. But right now, anything for M2 is completely up in the air. Is it going to be based in the A15 (disappointing if so), or the upcoming A16. After all pretty much all the work on the A16 is done. Just final tape-out, approval from Apple, then preproduction. Manufacturing of that chip would start around May/June. That’s enough time for an A16 based M2 to come out this year. I would imagine that Apple has been planning the M2 for at least a year already. With the experience with the M1 derivatives, the M2 series could come out more rapidly. End of year? Maybe.