Fatman

The risk of being first to market!

I've had my issues with a few Samsung products (bad LCD TV panels/motherboards/capacitor/power supply, appliance failures, and laser printer engine failures), so I'm not surprised. Imagine the problems the Chinese products will have ... probably ten fold - they are known for cutting corners. It will take Apple to figure out the right way to do it, and the others will then copy the design.

Not surprising - I’ve ranted before about Intel’s negative contribution to the industry ... aside from their important contributions in the 70s, Intel has been stifling innovation with monopolistic practices for years. Monolithic, CISC based, power hungry chips with proprietary instruction sets. The only reason they are still in the CPU business is because of their tie in with Microsoft Windows. They lost their ability to innovate decades ago - and snuffed out more advanced technologies from AMD, Digital and IBM back in the 80s, 90s+. However they couldn’t beat ARM, since they didn’t have a mobile processor even close to what ARM has - now it’s the same scenario with Qualcomm, Intel just can’t make advanced power-sipping mobile chips — only overclocked, big chips best suited for hot running data centers. It will be a matter of time before they lose that market too, to AMD, ARM, Nvidia and others. It’s a shame - the greedy stock-owning executives ran the company, not the engineers!

With a budget that high, maybe we can expect to see an Apple branded controller?

I use the Steele Nimbus controller with AppleTV, and for certain games it is a MUCH better experience than using either the AppleTV remote or iPhone touch screen. However, currently not all games are designed to support it.

Raise your hand if 5G is offered in your area, Raise your hand if you are willing to carry a phone with an external 5G antennae. Raise your hand if you are willing to pay your telco a lot more money for 5G service, raise your hand if you know more than two people that could even tell you what 5G is.

The reality is, this is now a battle about 5G capable chips. Qualcomm has them now and is doing a full court press on building awareness and getting them to as many Android handset manufacturers that they can. Apple made a bet that Apple would have a viable alternative to Qualcomm’s 5G chip once there is infrastructure in place plus significant demand for the feature. So far it appears Apple’s prediction is in good shape - in the US at least. If they have a chip (either their own, from Intel, or from another company) by the Sept 2020 iPhone launch, they should be fine - since that will be when 5G will actually be usable/gaining momentum. And like many technologies, once Apple adopts the technology and educates the public, it will take off.

I mostly blame Siri. The reviews rave about the sound, but nearly all end up calling it a ‘dumb speaker’ compared to the competition. The good news is it can be updated as Siri improves (something Apple is finally working on due to recent hires in AI and experts from Google). Secondly, anyone using a music service other than Apple Music was/is out of luck. Apple has seemed to partially address that compatibility. I do not own one - It’s a shame because I am the exact target customer for this product, someone that really appreciates good quality sound (and a musician). Is it too late? Is the product’s reputation forever tainted? A lower price will help - but fixing Siri is the real issue.