cloudmobile

rogifan_new said:

zroger73 said:

For Apple's sake, they better have a significantly superior product to overcome the popularity Amazon's Echo has gained.

The echo is cheap. I’m sure a lot of purchases are people just trying it out because the cost of entry is low. But is this the next big thing or is it another cheap fitness tracker that gets shoved in a drawer after a few months?

How quickly we forget that the cost of entry for the iPod was similarly low. And similar to the iPod, the primary use for the smart speakers will be to play music, which people aren't going to suddenly stop doing. In other words, for most people, the Echo and the Home will simply be another small bluetooth speaker. And since small bluetooth speaker quality varies widely being able to get a quality, name-brand and 100% supported bluetooth speaker for as little as $29 - as opposed to the off brand Chinese equivalent that normally dominates at that price range - is a lure that should not be underestimated. Just get a name-brand one instead? Please. You will often see devices no better than the Alexa or Home going for 2-3 times as much. 

I see that a lot of Apple fans are dismissing this category merely because it was one that Apple didn't originate by comparing it to fitness trackers. Never mind that Apple has only originated or disrupted with 3 devices - the iPod, iPhone and iPad - which leaves the entire rest of the tech world to others. And yes, this includes speakers, a market that Apple has little penetration or reputation in even after buying Beats. But here's the deal: tech products that tend to fail are those that are electronic/computerized versions of pre-existing successful and widely used non-electronic ones. Non-electronic fitness trackers (think pedometers) long existed, were never widely used, so there was no reason to think that they would ever be successful. In fact, the main lure of early fitness trackers was precisely the fact that you could pair them with your iPhone and use the iPhone to collect and track data. They were sold as iPhone accessories, NEVER as standalone devices. And since smartphones also had the very same health tracking features, they were redundant. They were also useful to people who were ALREADY bikers, joggers, gym rats etc. but worthless to everyone else. 

But the iPod? It replaced the walkman and other portable radios/cassette players with a superior device. The iPhone? It replaced cell phones, which while not saturation ubiquitous like they are now, were still very common (imagine the opening sequence of "The Matrix" without them being so) as well as iPods and to a degree PCs. The iPad? Combination iPhone/PC/casual gaming console. That's why they were huge successes. They were new, better ways to do popular existing activities. The same way with Alexa and Google Home. At the very least, you get a very good Bluetooth speaker for $79. Before you claim that no one wants or needs those, you should state that Apple should stop selling the Beats Pill, especially if they are going to charge 3 times as much for it. The "smart" features for it? Sure, claim that there is any difference between saying "Hey Alexa" to your speaker and "Hey Siri" to your Apple TV or MacBook. There isn't. All it does is take a pre-existing successful product - a connected speaker - and add functionality to it that was popularized by Apple with Siri. The only reason for thinking that it would fail is having some strange notion that only Apple is capable of or deserves the right to create a successful product. Which, again, is bizarre because Apple makes only like 6 products: iPods, iPads, iPhones, set top boxes, watches, PCs.

brakken said:

What these idiots fail to understand is, that if they succeed in destroying Apple, then they won’t be able to keep using their iPhones. 

I expect we’ll now have to enact bills on how many documents can be ordered in ehat timeframe. 

No one is trying to destroy Apple. Qualcomm is merely trying to get Apple to pay the same for their IP for the iPhone 7, 8 and X as Apple paid for the 3G, 4, 5 and 6. The difference between what Apple wants to pay and what Qualcomm wants Apple to pay is a fraction of the licensing costs that Apple tried to use to drive Samsung from the mobile business, and ultimately succeeded in driving HTC from the mobile business because where HTC agreed to Apple's licensing demands Samsung fought back in court and wound up paying Apple far less as a result, even though they sold many times more devices than HTC ever did. In other words, it was Apple who was trying to use the courts and trade commissions to destroy the competition. In contrast, Qualcomm wants Apple to make and sell as many iPhones as possible because that is more money for Qualcomm. Realize this: Apple sold far fewer iPhone 3Gs than they will iPhone 8/X and they charged much less for the iPhone 3G than they do for the 8 and X. To pretend that this lawsuit poses any sort of threat to Apple's bottom line is hilarious. Even if Apple loses, Apple will either 1) raise the price of the iPhone accordingly or 2) find someone else in their supply chain to squeeze to make up the difference. And if Apple wins, no, they aren't going to lower the cost of iPhones or do anything else to pass that money onto consumers. It will just go into their coffers. Meaning you won't benefit unless you are a stockholder, and even if you are a stockholder, this lawsuit amounts to pennies compared to Apple's $850 billion valuation so you won't see much action on that front either. And finally: Qualcomm's IP is based on obsolete 2G/3G/CDMA tech. Within 5 years and possibly within 3 years, no one is going to be using that stuff anymore anyway. Verizon, for instance, will turn off their 2G and CDMA networks by the end of 2019. (Sprint still uses CDMA too, but who knows whether they will still be in business by then.) So by the time the final appeals are heard on this case, it will be a moot point, and the battle will be over how much Apple has to pay Qualcomm for their IP in Apple devices sold in the past. Something that both Apple and Qualcomm know by the way. Qualcomm is trying to maximize how much they can get for their IP while it still has some value. Apple wants to drag this out until the 2G/3G/CDMA patents are economically worthless and then use that as leverage to get Qualcomm to settle for as little as possible.

Do you know why Apple never sued Schmidt for corporate espionage or Android for copyright infringement? Simple: Android didn't even support touchscreens until version 1.5. By then, the HTC Dream - a device that emulated the Blackberry, Microsoft CE and Nokia Symbian devices that preceded the iPhone - was on the market. It took Google until July 2009 - more than 2.5 years after the iPhone's design was made public - to so much as release an Android device that could support touchscreens. So either Schmidt stole ideas for Android from Apple ... and for some reason chose not to use them until 2009, and in the process incurred the risk that Microsoft, Nokia, Blackberry or some other competitor would beat them to market with a touchscreen design. Or Schmidt and Google saw the top-secret product for the first time in 2007 like everybody else, and UNLIKE Nokia, Blackberry, Microsoft etc. knew the device would succeed and immediately began to reverse engineer it. And since Apple didn't invent touchscreen mobile devices in the first place (that would have been IBM with the Simon in 1992) it was possible for them to do so without infringing on a single bit of Apple IP, or even needing to license tech from Apple (though they did need to license tech from Microsoft and others). Which is more likely? Answer .. the one that actually happened.

I don't get this. Samsung will use the Qualcomm 845 for devices sold outside South Korea. They can use their own Exynos SOC for devices sold inside South Korea, but naturally that will not be anywhere near 100 million. 

"Qualcomm and MediaTek could also be in a position to order 7-nanometer chips, but those companies simply develop processors rather than make complete devices."

Huh? That doesn't mean anything. Quite the contrary, the opposite is true. Qualcomm doesn't need to rely on a single vendor to move 120 million 7 nm chips. So long as Samsung, LG, Motorola, Google, Xiaomi, Oppo etc. all buy the chips then they make a profit regardless of who makes the phone. In fact, they don't need the phones to sell to make a profit. If LG buys 30 million Qualcomm chips and only sells 25 million LG G8s and LG V30s, that is LG's loss. Qualcomm gets paid the same. So this analysis makes no sense. 

Qualcomm could have gotten the 7 nm design this year if they had prioritized it. Instead, they prioritized getting the AI, AR, VR, HDR, graphics and biometrics features better, as well as increasing efficiency with an existing 10 nm design. Meaning that they focused on new features. Had they focused merely on getting to 10 nm, the new features would have had to wait. And it was the right decision. Smartphone owners don't care much about 10 nm versus 7 nm, especially when the new 10 nm design will improve power consumption (as will the new release of Android). But they do care about better cameras, video recording etc.

genovelle said:

I find it appalling that a company with a product like Android that has the largest security problems in the industry and the largest number of exposed users would focus any resources on finding ways to hack a competitor and partner for search and other services. Then to release them and put my devices at risk like they leave there’s is irresponsible!  This is why I don’t use them for anything. They can not be trusted. Period!

 

Actually, what you hate is that Google developed Android in the first place because you want Apple to have a monopoly in mobile devices, resulting in decreased choice for consumers and less innovation in tech overall. Which means that you would be happy still using the iPhone 5, iPad Air and last-generation Apple TV, as all the meaningful updates to iOS devices since then are thanks to Google, Samsung and company.

But alas, while Android is very important to Google for the purposes of keeping Microsoft at bay - because Microsoft would probably own Google by now had it not been for Android with Microsoft funneling money to Yahoo as a sham to keep the antitrust hounds at bay - unlike Apple for whom iOS is their main revenue producer and mindshare driver by far, Android is not Google's main business. Applications and services are, and Google provides them on nearly all platforms: iOS, macOS, Windows, Linux (most major distros), Android, Tizen, even the various smart TV operating systems. So instead of merely being concerned with their own platform, Google needs their army of engineers and programmers pre-occupied with security, usability and other issues on practically every commercially viable one. Otherwise they would need to rely on - for example - Apple and Microsoft to identify problems that could potentially affect the Chrome browser and Google Drive on their platforms. Which isn't going to happen. Because A) Apple and Microsoft do not know enough about Chrome and Google Drive to research on Google's behalf. And as Apple and Microsoft own competing products to Chrome and Google Drive - OneDrive, iCloud, Safari, Internet Explorer/Edge etc. it isn't in their financial interests to. Instead, it is in their interests for Chrome and Google Drive to be as buggy and insecure as possible on their platforms so people will use the Microsoft and Apple products instead. Which would result in a feedback loop. What is a major reason why people buy premium Android smartphones? Because Chrome. Drive, Maps etc. on Android integrate so well with the same apps on iOS, macOS, Windows, wherever. If that ceases to happen, why on earth would you buy an LG V30 or a Moto X? You would instead get an iPhone or a Windows Phone (assuming such things still existed) so you can use those apps instead.

And incidentally, if you think that Microsoft and everybody else who develops applications and services for iOS and macOS aren't doing the same thing - researching bugs and performance issues and publicizing them within their own community when it happens - you are nuts. It is just that no one talks about it when someone else does it. It is only a story when Google does it because everyone despises and likes to trash Google. It is amazing: Google is now more hated than Microsoft, Comcast, Oracle, IBM, Facebook and the cell phone companies, and is now rivaling tobacco and oil companies in public disdain. Oh well.