loquitur

I'm very skeptical of this chip-binning-due-to-flaws notion. As yields improve, a chip customer
might not be able to get enough off-spec chips to match the market. They'd have to eventually
ship full-spec chips and somehow "nerf" the functionality before incorporation into products.

But if they can do that at the outset (turn off a CPU/GPU, cut lines to a cache, fiddle with
frequencies and firmware), isn't the more likely explanation ithat the 18's are exactly
an 18 pro with functionality reduced by firmware/circuitry hacks at the nano level?

This was actually a time-honored tradition in the days of the "mainframe". Models would
ship with instruction set add-ons (like better floating-point or string-related instructions,
or maybe a "population count" instruction which the NSA supposedly liked for cryptography).  
But the shipped machines, for manufacturing efficiency, had exactly the same parts -- they
just needed the extra stuff to be enabled in the field, for $ of course!

Oh, and there was such a thing as "reverse binning".  A possibly apocryphal story
involved legendary supercomputer designer Seymour Cray, who was upset that
a more fleshed-out design couldn't be made to run as fast with a full-complement
of parts.  It turned out that the first few transistors/ICs were special faster "quantity one"
one-offs from the supplier, but couldn't be made available with full-speed spec
in larger quantity. Perhaps the truth was that the quantity one parts were just a teaser
and they just wanted more money to scale up.

Massiveattack87 said:

[....]
Apple Car has never made sense. 

Since the Tesla Model 3 debuted as a minimalist software-driven iPad on wheels, indeed, an Apple effort never made sense. (Although I don't drink Elon Musk Koolaid, I'm quite happy with my Tesla, only needing windshield washer fluid and tires over the last five years.)

What value did they think they would add?  Apple doesn't do much in the way of batteries, etc. I'd really like to know
from the ex- amps among the 2,000 what Apple thought their angle would be over just being a "me too" EV.
Further, why did it take them that long to "say no" -- just bureaucracy?

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, my stereo(!) class-A amplifier Apple iPod Hi-Fi is still going strong,
not using the decrepit iPod connectors (or the useless boom-box battery mode), but as a wired
sound bar for my kitchen TV.  If I want to get really fancy, I suppose I could airplay something
to it using ye olde airport express connected via the optical jack!  (Old farts at play.)

To Apple non-coder outsiders, layering an OS atop other hardware always seems like
sleight-of-hand, possibly because of Apple's infamous secrecy.  But it's SOP
in the industry.  (I'm long-retired from participating in such at the defunct Sun Microsystems,
which maintained software builds for SPARC, Intel, PowerPC, and even HP's Itanium.)

Some of the transition stuff is motivated by contractual obligations.  
I believe for Motorola/IBM they had a 15-or-20 year exclusive arrangement to use just that architecture.  
Steve Jobs analogized it to a marriage contract.  Maybe they had something similar for
Intel -- I vaguely recall details (partly-redacted) which show up in SEC documents.
So when the exclusivity ends, and either the vendor has fallen behind the competition,
or you are allowed to roll-your-own, it's always wise to have a Plan B lined up
beforehand.   

Aside: yes you can certainly get a divorce mid-stream at a cost.  Tesla did this due to a rift
with Mobileye, and their transition to Nvidia served them until they could vertically integrate better.

mikethemartian said:

Rayz2016 said:

Thrashman said:

 Coming out. - Not sure what you do in your private life is anyone’s business- so not sure why you bring it up.

Someone asked her what her proudest moment was; she answered honestly.

 Do you think she should have said, "learning to ride a unicycle" just to protect your delicate self?

If I could learn to ride a unicycle it would be my proudest moment. Especially if I could juggle at the same time. :-)

Well, yeah!  My grad school adviser (same as for Ken Thompson at Cal Berkeley, of Unix fame) did that trick.
That would be Elwyn Berlekamp of M.I.T. (prof at age 23), and chairman of three departments at UCB (math,
computer science, and electrical engineering), R.I.P.   One of his fave things (besides juggling 5 golf balls off
the floor whilst chatting with his students) was to ride thru the halls of Berkeley's Evans (Cory?) Hall on a
unicycle while juggling four hatchets.  Yup, the good ole days, before Bell Labs Unix, thence
BSD, formed the basis of the Apple Unix kernel.