spheric

davidmalcolm said:

 the fact that we know they were working on Covid as a bio weapon

libertyandfree said:

macxpress said:

beowulfschmidt said:

No doubt someone will claim that Apple has an unfair advantage, and buying all of the first batch is simply a tactic to suppress other potential buyers.

Apple also used to purchase all of the NAND Flash chips for its iPods, iPhones and certain Macs back in the day too....because it had the money to do so and it wanted to make sure the supply of NAND Flash wasn't the limiting factor in getting their products out the door. 

tmay said:

I very much doubt that Apple would be inclined to purchase 2nm SOC's for the equivalent of a "year's worth of revenue" at $173 B, given that Apple is typically about 25% of TSMC revenue (something on the order of $18 B in 2023). 

Still, what would Apple want to do with all of those additional transistors that they are "allegedly"  purchasing? 

My guess would be iPhones and some type of updated Mac....and obviously more M4 iPads. 

Now this is absurd since no way is Apple securing $100B+ from TMSC Apple doesn’t spend anywhere close to that on semiconductors over a few years.  Let’s do some simple math; iPhone processors are about $30 each and for 200M iPhones that’s only $6B per year and lets assume Apple sells 25M Mac’s and those CPUs say cost $200 each that’s another $5B  and  Apple sells about 50M iPads and assume avg processor cost of $60  that adds another $3B.  So we are at about $14B per year even if I’m off by a factor of 2 it’s no where near $170B even over a few years.  

sir_pablo said:

sconosciuto said:

sir_pablo said:

I was unfortunately fired from Apple retail a few years ago. The reason given for my termination was that I "may have violated policy" by refusing to sign documents that would provide Apple with my medical records. I believe that I had a right to privacy and that I should not have been forced to disclose my medical information to my employer.

I'm glad to see that Apple workers are now unionized and have more power to protect their rights. I hope that my experience can help to raise awareness about the importance of worker protections.

jUsT gEt AnOtHer jOb

You know what, sconosciuto, you're right. I did find another job.

But frankly, your dismissive "just get another job" comment only highlights the issue. Not everyone is fortunate enough to have readily available options, especially when dealing with unfair situations like the one I faced.

This experience solidified my belief in worker protections and privacy rights. Maybe you've never been in a similar situation, but a little empathy can go a long way.

dewme said:

Lightning saved us from the scourge of micro USB long enough to move to a better option. If that’s all it ever gets credit for, that’s good enough for me.