tjwolf

Latko said:

Nice article. However, the route from AR to Airpods seems...hard to follow.
AR will require far better and faster (& more affordable) graphics and that’s hardly Apple’s tradition, sadly.
There’s a few nuts to crack here and giving their accomplishments in changing the IT landscape, it is hard to believe the current Board can lead such transition.

I don’t find it hard to follow at all.  The exquisite experience one gets with Airpod required custom hardware and software - the same is the case with AR.  And I don’t know what you mean with “will require far better/faster graphics...not Apple’s tradition” - say what?  Isn’t it last year’s A11 that still beats today’s best competitor?  And today’s A12 is completely blowing the competition out of the water with overall performance.  It already has more than enough power to drive great AR experiences, so I don’t understand the “will” in your comment.

At this point, it seems to me the main factor keeping Apple from delivering an AR product at the level of Airpods are design: glasses that are light enough and cool enough.  They already have all the other required hardware/sw bits: fast processor/gpu/neural engine, ARKit, fast/efficient wireless audio/video (maybe they’ll use AirPlay tech to project image onto glasses?)

"HiSilicon advised it was planning to spend a minimum of $300 million on a system-on-chip design using 7-nanometer technology, illustrating the potentially high costs involved in working at that level."  I have no idea what the author is talking about here.  Why would it cost any more to *design* at 7nm than at 10nm?  I'm pretty sure the high costs/complexity is mostly on the manufacturing side.

indieshack said:

maestro64 said:

Very few people today care about what is inside. People stopped check list buying habits a long time ago. Only the geeks care and even then it really does not matter on an Apple product what is inside. People just look at the overall experience and call it a day.

disagree - I think even casual users have become more hip to the specs and upgraded internals are a selling point not just for geeks.

Most smartphones sell to folks who just want to browse the web, social media, read e-mail, *maybe* watch a video every now and then.  Hardware has, long ago, become fast enough for these users.  In my opinion, the main driver behind people upgrading iPhones at this point is to get more storage, a better camera, or bigger screen (as they age, the latter becomes more important - I'm witness to that :-)

Nobody I've *ever* come across has said to me: I've got to upgrade because the new iPhone now has 6 cores and runs at a much faster 2.49ghz.  Not once.  They upgrade because they feel their TouchID (or FaceID) was a tad slow or because they ran out of storage or because a friend's photos are better than theirs.  I guess, despite being a geek myself, I don't hang out with geeks or folks that are "hip to the specs".

I guess ignorance is bliss - didn't know that scraping metal at the bottom of the port could do any damage - so a straightened paper clip has always worked for me.  Not sure I'll go to something more 'gentle' because of this article :-)

rogifan_new said:

How about starting by replacing drivers licenses with something digital? My health insurance card is now digital. The only reason I still carry a wallet is for my drivers license.

Been doing that for a couple years now - except that my "Ninja pouch" affixed to the back of my iPhone also needs to hold a credit card - for the many places that still don't take Apple Pay - and my Costco card - because Costco refuses to join the modern age :-(