techconc

sflocal said:

It's not necessarily being unable to meet Apple's needs, Intel couldn't meet the market's needs.  It's why AMD came in with guns blazing and showed Intel how to do it right and is progressing at a rate that will take Intel years to catch up.  It's an embarrassment really that showcased Intel's incompetence in remaining a market leader.  Intel essentially abandoned that position.

AMD is indeed doing better than Intel, but really, what has AMD done?  They're basically the same with the only real advantage being AMD is on a superior TSMC manufacturing process.  They've done a nice job with thread ripper, etc. but Intel has pretty much countered that, minus the manufacturing process advantage.

CuJoYYC said:

lmasanti said:

—three month to bankruptcy—.

This is a myth. Apple's cash and cash equivalents in the mid 90s would last 7 years assuming their quarterly losses matched the worst quarterly loss of that period. I know. I built an all Mac business based upon this forgotten fact. It wasn't pretty but it wasn't on the brink of bankruptcy either.

That's largely true, but probably not to the extent you claim.  In the worst days, they were losing roughly $500M or so per quarter.  Apple didn't have 7 years left at that rate.  It wasn't 3 months either.  That's obviously something that people have claimed to make the turn-around sound so dramatic.  I believe Jobs' own comments to that effect were taken literally by some without doing the actual analysis.  Still, Apple did have a cashflow problem. 

GeorgeBMac said:

That's not talking out of "both sides of his mouth".   It's simply the reality of situation.

Further, Intel is correct that Apple's M1 does not have the power of an Intel system.  But that could be an accurate but misleading claim since so few have a need for the full power of an Intel system (such as a gaming laptop) and an M1 will meet their needs splendidly.

That's not a correct assessment.  Let's be clear on a few things...

1. The M1's CPU exceeds the single-core performance of ANY Intel chip.
2. The M1 represents the low end of a family of Mac specific chips.  Other M1 based chips will of course offer more cores and by extension, more multi-core performance.
3. The M1 is an SoC that provides a host of other advantages and accelerations such as Neural engine, matrix multiplication for ML, Image single processor, etc, etc. that Intel's CPU's lack. 

In short, the M1 completely outclasses Intel's equivalent chips where they actually compete.  Apple will fill out its line of chips over the next year or so and they will each crush the Intel equivalent.  

Overall, this is indeed the right direction for Intel.  However, realistically, this is something they should have done 10 years ago.  I'd like to see Intel succeed in order to keep US based manufacturing.. Not just plants in the US, but companies based in the US.

Short term concern - Intel's current manufacturing process isn't competitive with either TSMC or even Samsung.

Long term concern - Intel has had a really bad track record for missing targets and even quality issues over the past 10 years.  I'm not optimistic they'll turn that around overnight.  

Additional concerns - Intel is accustomed to high margins.  They're not going to get that in the fabrication business.  How competitive will they be?

GeorgeBMac said:

At some point Apple needs to start catching up to the industry.

LOL... Yeah, apparently someone needs a reality check.  As iPads and MacBooks are praised in reviews and have sold extraordinary well in 2020 during COVID lockdown, what do we see from Microsoft?

http://https//www.inputmag.com/reviews/microsoft-surface-go-2-is-a-terrible-ipad-and-a-bad-laptop

"Microsoft's Surface Go 2 is a terrible iPad and a bad laptop"

http://https//www.windowscentral.com/surface-revenue-2020-not-disappointing

"Was Microsoft's Surface revenue disappointing during the 2020 pandemic? Don't overthink it."

etc, etc.  

I have the 10.5" Pro now.  I've been waiting for a real update to the 2018 iPad Pro for a while now.  The A12z update didn't cut it for me.  Apple has been leaving money on the table for quite a while now by not providing a real update to the 2018 model. 

I have a late 2016 15" MacBook Pro.  It's used heavily every day by several family members which includes teenage kids.   According to the tech press, I guess my keyboard should have blown up a long time ago.  Yet, I've never had a single problem with it.  Mind you, I'm not crazy about the lack of travel on the butterfly keyboards, but I've not had any reliability problems.  I guess I'm the lucky one??