charlesn

GM has already shown it cannot be trusted with the data collection possible in its new system. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that GM drivers around the country were finding themselves hit with inexplicable, sharp spikes in their auto insurance premiums. The reason? The onboard computers in their GM cars had been tracking and collecting data on their driving habits--speeds driven, hard-braking events, overly sharp turns, etc.--then secretly transmitting that data back to GM via the OnStar connection, and GM sold it to insurance companies. The WSJ's lead tech reporter also documented how difficult it was to opt out of having the data collected--that permission for GM to collect and sell it is buried in the pages of paperwork you sign when buying the car. Supposedly--but only now that it has been caught--GM claims it has ended the practice, but how can you believe a company so willing to cross such an egregious line in the first place? This also does little to help all the GM drivers saddled with increased insurance rates for years because their car was spying on them. And this abuse of customer privacy pre-dates the new Ultifi system, which provides a whole slew of new opportunities for the collection and sale of data about GM customers. NO THANK YOU. 

jbirdiikun said:

I suppose any chance of the iPad mini getting the M4 is nonexistent..? 

What's "nonexistent" is the need for an M4 in an iPad Mini -- like, seriously, what are you doing on a Mini that would require that kind of power? The small screen size dictates its use primarily for media consumption, web browsing, emailing, etc. That Apple doesn't even bother with an accessory keyboard for the Mini tells you a lot. Not that you literally can't do anything else on it--the current A15 chip is actually quite powerful--but the small screen makes other types of work a real chore, especially in iPadOS where multitasking is STILL a kludge. I supposed Apple might drop an M-chip into the Mini's next iteration if it standardizes on M-chips across the whole iPad line, especially if AI capabilities require it--or we may continue to see the entry level iPad and Mini running on an A-chip. 

Well... jumping right to the M4 would certainly be a headline grabber for marketing purposes. But unless there are some new and impressive capabilities that require the M4, it serves no purpose other than marketing. It's not as if current M2-equipped iPad Pros are underpowered--quite the opposite, and this has been the iPad Pro conundrum for a while. Apple keeps marketing increased horsepower which iPad Pro capabilities don't require. We shall see. I hope Tim & Co. can deliver the AI goods with whatever they're planning for WWDC, but I have my doubts. Considering that Siri still sucks after 14 years on the market leaves me wondering if Apple's up to the AI challenge it faces. 

I have only one explanaation: there must be TWO Ming-Chi Kuos covering Apple now! Don't believe me? Well, here's Ming-Chi Kuo #1 from just six weeks ago:

In a new Medium post, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo says U.S. shipments of the Apple Vision Pro are expected to be 200,000–250,000 units this year, better than Apple’s original estimate of 150,000–200,000 units.
And: During the year, Kuo expects Apple to move up to 500,000 units (worldwide)

And here's Ming-Chi Kuo #2 just six weeks later:

Apple has cut its shipment orders for the Apple Vision Pro in 2024 down to between 400,000 and 450,000 units. This is said to be far below the market consensus for shipments at 700,000 to 800,000 units.

So which Ming do you believe? The Ming who only expected "up to" 500K sales--so that number was his theoretical ceiling on sales, not the number he predicted they necessarily would hit. Or the Ming who six weeks later thinks that 400K-450K sales represents a sharp drop in demand? (Even though he has no insight that would allow him to accurately make either prediction.) So let's dissect this, shall we?

This is the typical straw man bullshite that always powers the latest Apple Is Doomed news. "Analysts" throw out a shipping estimate that Apple NEVER said it was going to hit and then start shouting that the sky is falling when Apple fails to hit the totally baseless estimate. As for "market consensus" -- that's hilarious! A month after Vision Pro debuted last June, Wedbush estimated 2024 global sales at 150K units. Ming-Chi Kuo chimed in with 500K. Morgan Stanley pegged it at 850K units. And Goldman Sachs estimated... wait for it... 5 MILLION units. How much of an idiot do you have to be to predict 5 million units sold in the first year for a $3500 v1.0 product that offers an all new computing platform that Apple itself said would be a niche product in early sales? That would be more than three times the sales of the original iPhone! Point is: there is NO market consensus... estimates are wildly all over the map. No one knows anything. And averaging them all out is just another form of nonsense. 

Meanwhile... the Financial Times of London ran this report last July: 

Two people close to Apple and Luxshare, the Chinese contract manufacturer that will initially assemble the device, said it was preparing to make fewer than 400,000 units in 2024. Multiple industry sources said Luxshare was currently Apple’s only assembler of the device. Separately, two China-based sole suppliers of certain components for the Vision Pro said Apple was only asking them for enough for 130,000 to 150,000 units in the first year.

Interestingly, this wasn't a sales prediction, per se--the "fewer than 400K units" estimate was being driven by the complexity of Vision Pro production. That was the ceiling on the number of Vision Pro units that could be successfully manufactured in a year. So, to summarize: the estimated limit from last July on how many units could actually be manufactured in 2024 has now been repurposed by the tech press as a disaster for Vision Pro demand, which we know must be true because it's not hitting "market consensus" numbers, never mind that analysts have wildly divergent forecasts of what that number should be, from 150K to 5 million. But who cares when all you need to know is that Apple is doomed! 

The cherry on top: I cannot source any estimate of Vision Pro sales for 2024 from Apple, itself. If anyone finds a quote from an Apple exec with estimated unit sales for 2024, please post it--but I can't find anything. So ALL of this is nonsense built on a foundation of nonsense. 

AppleZulu said:

With all that, it's hard to understand why no one, in some category or another, has ever adopted Apple's "in house" design paradigm as the best way to compete with Apple. It's certainly a harder uphill climb to get there, but the other way always ends up being a race to the low-margin bottom.

Not "no one." There's a little company called Google that now has a pretty wide and expanding array of devices for which it also designs the OS. So you can have an "all Google" experience. Of course, unlike Apple, it also licenses its various OSes to third parties, which can make the customer experience of say, Android, very inconsistent. Where Google doesn't compete with Apple, in terms of offering its own hardware/OS solution, is computers. Fair disclosure: I despise Google for its wanton abuse of consumer privacy and won't use any of their hardware or software products, but there's no denying their continued creep into Apple's arena of designing both hardware and the OS that operates it.