GG1

Soli said:

coolfactor said:

It hasn't been reported that Macs would use A-series processors, just custom processors developed by Apple. They may be entirely new, far more powerful, processes from the A-series processors that power mobile devices, AppleTV and HomePod. 

I'd be very surprised if they even used the A-serie moniker. In the past few years when I made a case for Apple using their own ARM designs in an Mac I got a lot comments about how the A-series chip in the iPad isn't good enough or, more commonly, that it was a stupid idea that will never happen. I'm glad to see that a lot more people are on board with the issue as being feasible, even if many are bitching about virtualizing for their Windows VM.

I'm surprised by the consternation among some people about this rumor. Unless it's fake consternation.

But using a new moniker would be appropriate and fully welcome to throw the (fake) consternators off the trail. (Yes, I made consternators up.)

cgWerks said:

Basically, I see two scenarios for the Mac:
1) The Mac has fallen behind because of Apple growth pains and bad decisions. They've recognized this and will now fix it. The future looks bright.

2) The idea is to move on to the new iOS-thing and 'the future' and just put enough effort into the Mac to stave off chaos. In that case, the future looks bleak.

3) Apple are tired of Intel's slow releases (unless this is your first point)

4) Apple can make their processors more secure if kept in-house (avoid Spectre/Meltdown exploits as the design is kept secret)

Zuckerberg can speak like that to Cook but I doubt he'd speak like that to Congress.

ericthehalfbee said:

I think the bigger picture isn't News, but privacy in general.

Apple has continually promoted their stance on privacy and protection of user data. We haven't really had any major breaches at Google or Facebook that caused a large amount of personal data to be leaked, so people currently don't seem to care how much they know about you. All it takes is one major incident to get people thinking, and this Facebook issue could be a tipping point in general awareness about what companies know about you. Enough that people might start getting fed up with data mining your personal habits/tastes. Consumer backlash (and maybe even legislation) could have serious consequences for Facebook and Google, and virtually none for Apple. It would probably have the opposite effect on Apple, improving their reputation in the eyes of consumers.

This is a big "what if", but what if Apple started a Facebook type service with their normal privacy stance in place? And open it up to anyone (just create an AppleID account).

Then we could gauge if people are really motivated by privacy. I realize that Facebook is "sticky" if you've been there for years, so the concern for privacy needs to hit a tipping point. Have we reached that tipping point yet?

bestkeptsecret said:

So the VCSEL modules are manufactured in the US, shipped to China for assembly and then shipped back as a completed product.

If Apple worked towards automating the iPhone assembly, would it then be able to move that to the US as well? Besides assembly, what else is Apple dependant on China for? I think there is something to do with rare minerals as well, right?

The manufacturing of all the phones' piece parts is hugely dependent on China now. China have developed the ecosystem to not only design, but to rapidly prototype and build in volume the myriad of parts needed for a phone: machined metal (screws), tooling for metal, plastic, rubber parts (stampings, injection moldings, etc.), printed circuit boards, flexible printed circuit boards, discrete electrical components (resistors, capacitors, etc.), and so on.

Now once they are built, the parts can be shipped to other countries, but with low labor prices in China, why assemble elsewhere? Especially if a problem occurred in a part, the feedback would be much quicker if everything stayed in China.

I've wondered if other countries besides Brazil and India would eventually require Apple (or whomever) to manufacture in their country in order to be allowed to sell there. If this becomes a trend, manufacturing costs would increase (and you and I would pay for it!).