gmgravytrain

I don't think anyone buying a Galaxy S9 would care about the processor being slower than Apple's A-series processor. They're going to be buying the S9 for the Infinity Display, the variable iris camera and the headphone jack. As long as those features work, I would think users would be more than satisfied. The iPhone really doesn't get that much praise for processing power and Apple mostly downplays benchmarks. All people did was whine about the iPhone X's display notch, so everyone has their own preferences about what they feel is most important on a smartphone.

The way I see it, HomePod sales are going to be compared to sales of Amazon Echo Dots and Google's Home Mini and therefore no matter how many Apple HomePods are sold sales are going to look pathetic in comparison. This is another case of Amazon's market share percentage beating out Apple's profits. I'm sure it's already been declared by the industry how Apple's HomePod is too little and too late. Apple has just that one expensive voice assistant so every other company's voice assistant sales are going to seem immense when compared with the HomePod. Apple is already starting out with Siri being acknowledged as the most stupid AI. Alexa has completely captured the home market and with Amazon's marketing prowess, there's simply no way the HomePod can compete.

 I can already see the headlines. "Amazon's Echo outselling the HomePod by 10 to 1 so Apple has a failing product on its hands." Amazon will be reiterated to reach the $1T market cap mark before Apple because Jeff Bezos is seen as a better CEO than Tim Cook. As an individual, I have no interest in either Echos or HomePods because I don't wish to have listening devices in my house. I'm almost 70 years of age, so I suppose I'm just old-fashioned and don't see voice assistants as some wonderful, game-changing products. My house isn't all that complicated where I need devices to talk to in order to carry out simple commands.  I already have a media center with 7.1 surround sound and a few BT headphones to listen to music if I want to.  Voice assistants may be great for most consumers but I don't fall into that category as of yet.

One of the Youtubers who received a 10-core iMac Pro bench-marked it against a fully customized-to-order iMac that cost about $5200 and the 10-core iMac Pro smoked it (of course). The 10-core iMac Pro cost $5800 but the base iMac Pro would have also beaten the fully CTO iMac. I'd definitely rather buy a base model iMac Pro rather than a fully CTO iMac.

There's no way Apple can ever sell many iPhones in India. Apple doesn't sell $100 smartphones. A used iPhone 4s could be too expensive for most Indian consumers. That's just the way it is. I'm sure Apple must realize this and is merely going through the motions so as not to insult India. India should have allowed Apple to sell refurbished iPhones to consumers but pride seems to be more important than common sense. Both Apple and Indian consumers lose out. Android smartphones have about 98% market share in India. Just unbelievable. That fact alone practically obliterates any chance of Apple gaining global smartphone market share percentage. The Android smartphone manufacturers are laughing hard at Apple in India.

Whatever Apple does in terms of chip density, so will Qualcomm. Qualcomm isn't going to let Apple get the upper-hand. Qualcomm's CEO swears he'll keep challenging Apple, no matter what, and keep all Android smartphone manufacturers on equal footing with Apple's iPhone. That's why both Microsoft and Google are scared if Broadcom purchases Qualcomm. They think that if Broadcom takes over Qualcomm, some advantage is going to go to Apple as Broadcom won't try to keep pace with Apple's A-series SoCs. I'm eagerly waiting to see what happens if a takeover occurs. I like the idea of Microsoft and Google sweating it out over some imagined Apple advantage.

I don't think it's really necessary for most consumers to have a need for 7nm-based smartphones. I'm sure the 10nm SoCs are good for another year or two for most smartphone manufacturers selling mainly low- and mid-range smartphones. Most current flagships have more than enough power for most tasks consumers need to perform. Apple is probably the only company that can easily afford to keep pushing forward in chip density and probably has the most to gain from it.