Herbivore2

MacBAir said:

coolfactor said:

sog35 said:

heybartender said:

How is this design not a complete ripoff of the iPhone???

Ridiculous. They even copied the rumored blue color for the iPhone7

Pathetic company. I watched some of the 'event' and it played like a parody of an Apple event. So sad and pathetic. They should stick to ads

Actually, while I've developed an anti-Google stance, I'm extremely impressed by what they've pulled together, and how they're delivering an elegant, well-executed experience. I have tremendous respect for what they are announcing today. It really puts a spotlight on how Apple is falling behind on several fronts. Apple does have the huge advantage of in-house development of high-performance hardware that is not accessible to competitors, but that same competition is delivering in ways that are truly meaningful to end users.

The advantages that Apple brings to the marketplace is greatly blurred and subdued after today.

Like? Can you be more specific? I watched the whole keynote and saw nothing of relevance.

All I saw was a panic attack after Apple starting to open Siri to devs, a lower quality homekit competitor so Android doesn't get left for dead, a phone with pretty standard/medium hardware specifications (SoC, etc.) at iPhone 7/Galaxy prices and an worse, second grade, design (that, down to the wallpaper, is a pathetic attempt of a "me too" copy of it) and that's it.

Oh, I also saw the heads of the few users that bought Google's previous OnHub router explode.

There's nothing there that you can't do better on iOS. Nothing. Heck, you better believe that Google will have more iOS users using their most uptodate Apps (as far as latest API levels) than Android users, too.

But hey, still talking about the headphone jack. Let's revise this next year.

I have to agree on this one. Google is blatantly and flagrantly copying Apple. The Google experience in being an "elegant and well-developed" one should be. It is identically cloned from what Apple is doing. 

I don't see the Pixel competing with iPhone. It is more like an opportunistic ability to take business from Samsung and the Note 7. 

Apple has moved into the dominant position with respect to hardware and the SoC is the key. Putting on a USB-C port and additional RAM is nice, but the 7+ comes with 3 GB of its own. And while I know the large screen iPad Pro can handle the faster USB interface, I don't know about the newer iPhones. I doubt that it matters. Most people who buy Android phones do so on the basis of cost, not features. 

Google will fail once again. The A11 will be out in less than a year. 

TSMC is substantially ahead of Intel. It makes little sense for Apple to remain tied to Intel for their CPUs. It would be easy to see how iOS takes over many of the tasks of OS X/Mac OS. For portable computing and that includes high end laptops with Intel chips, there will be little performance wise that will be competitive with the upcoming A10X. It will be interesting to see how much DRAM Apple includes with the upcoming iPad Pro.

And TSMC has an aggressive roadmap. 

The key is that their chip are capable of being produced in large numbers at good yields on the state of the art nodes. Intel has had considerable difficulties with their own yields at 14 nm FF. 

I find it interesting that the Intel modem in the iPhone 7 is manufactured on TSMC's 28 nm process. The QCOM modem is manufactured on a more advanced 20 nm process. With QCOM's new partnership with Samsung, I expect that to change in the future. Samsung will not be able to compete going forward either with all of their problems with the Note 7. 

Apple with TSMC is going to move into the dominant position in CPU design and manufacturing. And with that dominance, they can leverage their position into taking control of a number of technologies, including the cloud and AI. 

Intel's x86 and Microsoft's dependence upon it are headed for irrelevance. It is not hard to imagine Apple's top of the line A series chip one day in the near future, within just a few years, as being performance competitive with Intel's Xeon line. 

Intel had to get into the iPhone to remain relevant. They will at least survive and can still thrive. Modems will be a very big business going forward. Especially once Apple works things out sufficiently to include one in the Watch. However, the x86 line is coming to the end of the road. I am not even certain that building x86 emulation for ARM even makes sense. 

The following link outlines the TSMC roadmap. And it doesn't look good for anyone else. Not Samsung, not Intel and not Global Foundries. 

https://www.semiwiki.com/forum/content/6240-will-tsmc-alone-10nm-7nm.html

thewhitefalcon said:

TSMC 10nm does not equal Intel 10nm. They're still behind. 

melgross said:

Let's not get too excited about this. All that matters for Apple, assuming that they are going to stay with TSMC for a few years, is the improvement of TSMC's processes when compared to older TSMC processes.

intel will remain ahead for the next three or four years, at least. But that doesn't matter unless Apple moves to them.

Intel is ahead? By what measure? The A9X has better GPU performance than any Intel CPU and performing better than any Intel processor in the same power envelope. 

The A10X isn't even out yet. The A10 Fusion is a beast and that's on TSMC's current 16 nm FF process using InFO. 

Intel is definitely not leading. They are untouchable on the desktop and server. You'll get no argument from me there. But when it comes to low power devices, Apple and TSMC are substantially better than Intel. It isn't even close. 

I can edit 4k video on the iPad Pro. My son's surface book at double the cost chokes on 4k video when in tablet mode. And when in laptop mode, using the discrete GPU, the battery life is substantially inferior to my iPad Pro. It isn't even a contest. 

That's all on the A9X. The release of the A10X is imminent. 

Intel is not ahead. They had serious troubles with yields getting to their "superior" 14 nm process while TSMC was building very large numbers of A series CPUs for Apple. And TSMC is moving to 10 nm for the manufacturing of the A10X SOC. 

I respect your opinions a great deal. They are insightful with thoughtfulness. However, TSMC does not trail Intel by that much. With Info and 16 nm, TSMC's process is actually better than Intel's current 14 nm process. 

I realize that Intel's 14 nm process is denser than TSMC's 16 nm. But even with that, Apple is getting performance out of their chips that Intel can't touch at the same TDP. 

Over on semiwiki, the processor experts have TSMC seriously ahead of Intel, even predicting that Intel will exit the foundry business. 

I do not know where the 3 to 4 year number comes from with respect to Intel leading the other foundries. Intel's foundry business is also more costly and less flexible. 

TSMC has some very big plans. And TSMC builds processes specifically to manufacture Apple's SOCs. With the guaranteed revenues from Apple's business, TSMC is spending substantial sums on Capex. 

This is a race where Intel can no longer keep up. It is time to face the music. Apple and TSMC are the new powerhouse, displacing Microsoft and Intel. 

Google seems to unusually preoccupied with FaceBook these days. 

I fail to see how Allo is going to do much in taking marketshare from WhatsApp. 

Google has a far bigger problem. Alexa is going to displace search if Google isn't careful. Even Apple is going to have seriously upgrade the capabilities of Siri if they plan to compete. Apple's revenue doesn't depend on Siri, however. Google search is Alphabet's source of profits and capital. 

Google remains poorly focused and it's going to haunt them eventually. Allo isn't going to do much more than Google+ did. If they have smart people, they would know better.

The Japanese are being outcompeted and outclassed in many of the industries they focused on. The Koreans are superior in display technology. The Taiwanese are the best at CPU fabrication. The Americans are now the best at non volatile memory with Intel's/Micron's development of 3D XPoint. Apple's CPU design prowess is the best in the world right now also. 

There is no value to Japan display. Homegrown Japanese technology in this case is worth very little. Apple is going to leave LCD technology and will be using OLED. Both LG and Samsung can deliver those panels. Japan display cannot. 

It is interesting that the Japanese government is upset with the company's dependence on the Apple contract. LG and Samsung are going to compete heavily to get Apple's business. And that's the real problem. Japan display cannot compete with the Koreans for Apple's business. They simply do not have a product as they cannot manufacture high quality OLED panels in the numbers that Apple requires. And when they no longer manufacture panels for Apple, they will have no business. Even the Chinese manufacturers are clamoring for OLED panels from the Koreans. 

Japan is in trouble across many industries for similar reasons. It is quite telling when Japan desired to move into aircraft manufacturing and have essentially failed. They have partnered with Boeing on building some aircraft parts while Bombardier from Canada was able to develop and manufacture some very nice aircraft without the type of assistance that the Japanese manufacturers had gotten from their government. 

The whole notion of Japan focusing on cutting edge technologies is ludicrous. Japan does not lead in any cutting edge technology. It is becoming more and more obvious as Apple continues to move away from Japanese component suppliers. The cameras and the displays were the only two major components left. LG innotek is now supplying the cameras although the image sensor still comes from Sony. With Japan display losing out to OLED, Sony's image sensor may be the only Japanese component left in the next iPhone. And it will be only a matter of time before LG decides to build its own image sensor and profit from the entire unit. LG is the only company mass producing large OLED panels. Sony still cannot do it. LG can easily match Sony's image sensor technology long before Sony can field any type of capable competitor to LG OLED panels whether large or small.

JDI should have done better. They would definitely have gotten the Apple Watch had they focused on OLED. It's now over. The Koreans are working feverishly to bring yields up and costs down while Japan Display needs capital for R&D to even develop OLED.