narwhal

williamlondon said:

narwhal said:

They were smart to bail from Apple, and California employment laws prevent Apple from doing much about it.

Why? And what do California's labor laws have to do with it?

California Business and Professions Code Section 16600: “Every contract by which anyone is restrained from engaging in a lawful profession, trade, or business of any kind is to that extent void.”

Non-compete contacts aren't enforceable in California.

Given how short-lived the Nuvia company was, I'm guessing they always planned for a quick buyout and payday from any of Qualcomm, Microsoft, Samsung, or Google. Impeccable resumés and exactly the ARM chip expertise those companies want. They were smart to bail from Apple, and California employment laws prevent Apple from doing much about it.

danox said:

Is Microsoft desperate enough to have the (full version of Windows) run native on a Qualcomm owned product? Will others want to have anything to do with Qualcomm when they can roll their own chip and avoid a FRAND Qualcomm scenario? Qualcomm is worse than Intel in that respect.

I don’t know how much Microsoft wants to invest, but if Qualcomm can produce a decent PC chip, Microsoft might want to buy them out. That way it would own a piece of the cell phone market, and increase its control of the PC market.

It would be great if Qualcomm could approach M1 parity within 9 months. Competition helps Apple focus, Microsoft might fully embrace WOA, Qualcomm might create a profitable new business unit. Only losers in this scenario are Intel and AMD.

Having said that, Qualcomm has its work cut out for it. They have good former Apple engineers, but will their M1 equivalent be ready next year? If Qualcomm delays, will Microsoft kneecap them by releasing Windows for Apple Silicon? Apple was forced into an agreement with Qualcomm for modems due to Intel not delivering 5G. Might Microsoft be forced into Apple's ARMs if Qualcomm can't deliver a good PC chip? Windows loyalists won't be pleased if Mac benchmarks smoke even Windows on Xeon benchmarks next year.

Intel's chips are the most expensive component of a PC. Apple likely has more pricing flexibility now than its PC hardware competitors. It's not inconceivable that Apple could markedly increase its PC marketshare this decade if Microsoft's and Qualcomm's ducks don't align. (or something like that)

seanj said:

Sticking old versions of HDMI and SD reader utterly pointless.

As a frequent presenter, every venue has an HDMI cable running from the Epson projector to the podium for me to plug into a laptop. You can talk about how slow HDMI 2.0 is, but I've never even seen an HDMI 2.1 Epson projector. I'm very pleased that Apple stuck an HDMI port in my new MacBook Pro 16.