mpantone

These Apple rumors are getting nuttier and nuttier with each passing week.

At some point one needs to think whether these are actually worth reporting. 

How many times has AppleInsider posted an article about the Apple TV television set? Dozens for sure, if not over a hundred over the past ten years. After a while, anything "predicted" by "legendary" ANALyst Gene Munster ended up being a joke.

And even the recently instituted rumor score meter isn't based on analyst accuracy ratings. It's just some random score determined by site staffers often grossly inaccurate and itself the subject to doubt and ridicule.

Now I realize that AppleInsider -- like all tech media sites -- worships at the Altar of the Almighty Pageview but there is a tipping point between healthy and reasonable speculation and sheer silliness. For each person that threshold is different but for sure veteran Apple watchers will have more skepticism than many other newcomers to technology. Crossing that threshold too many times just erodes confidence and as some people know trust is earned.

Anyhow, thanks for the Sunday morning funnies. Nice break from glancing at Premier League fixture scores. And that's coming from a Yank who has no vested interest in English football.

  

Xed said:

bloggerblog said:

I had never felt so protected from late or missed payments as when using ApplePay, even my bank tries to sneak in a dollar here or there. ApplePay is my preferred payment method by far. The US Consumer Financial "Protection" Bureau is just another financial arm that wants to feel legit and cash grab like the EU.
Who do you think pays the $90M? Us the consumers of course!

Not only do I prefer Apple Pay when it's available, but since getting the Apple Card it's increasingly become my primary card everywhere Apple Pay is available. (save for a few specific types of usage where I get more than 2% to use a different card, like travel and fuel).

Additionally, I use Apple Cash as a middle man for moving cash between accounts without having those accounts directly connected and of course to send most people money. While I do wish there was a way to send money to Android users that was akin to Venmo , I don't want it to hinder Apple Cash in any way.

Well, enjoy your Apple Card now because Goldman Sucks is exiting the consumer banking industry which includes ditching Apple Card. Whether or not Apple can find another issuing bank to take over remains to be seen but there is almost zero chance that if a financial institution agrees to pick up Apple Card, they will not acquiesce to all of Apple's conditions. You will get fewer conveniences and benefits from whoever is the next issuing bank of Apple Card.

Still beta. That's why no restaurant is going to use beta Apple Maps on their website.

And no restaurateur is going to sign up for Apple's Developer Program either. It's nice that Apple is working on it but they are years behind Google Maps.

The launch was a disaster and they are still trailing by miles. Like I said, Google Maps blows Apple Maps away in some regions. Apple Maps is so bad in Tokyo that half the times I use it, I have to switch to Google Maps. Which is a non-starter. Just start with Google Maps from the beginning.

Naturally Tabelog (their restaurant review site, like Yelp) uses Google Maps. Apple Maps definitely plays second fiddle in Tokyo. And it still suffers from all of the non-web compatibility in other Japanese cities.

If you are going to travel the world with your smartphone as a reference tool you still need to occasionally use Google Maps. If you live in your mom's basement in Boondocks County USA, sure, you can probably survive just sticking with Apple Maps.

And that doesn't change that Apple Maps data is fundamentally poorer in quality than Google Maps in a widespread area. Remember that Google's business is selling your data to advertisers (mostly through Google AdWords). Companies have more incentive to be on Google Maps because of Google Search.

Apple is going to have to try a LOT harder to make Apple Maps as good as Google Maps. They are years away from that still.

AppleZulu said:

This should be unsurprising, because it’s at the heart of Apple’s business model, and is the same concept as Apple’s exclusive relationship between its hardware and operating systems. Boiled down, it’s about limiting unnecessary variables. 

Honestly, it’s surprising how few people seem to get that, and even more surprising that no competing company has tried to replicate that approach. 

Samsung tried and failed, notably on the software side with their Tizen operating system. Of course they design continue smartphones and Exynos SoCs. And yes, they do have some of their own services like the Galaxy Store (smartphone apps).

Google's business model is to track everything you do and sell that data to advertisers. They would benefit the most by having control over smartphone hardware which is evidenced by their continued work on Pixel smartphones. In fact, recent Pixel models are now using a Google Tensor G4 SoC which is now their fourth generation silicon.

My guess is that there are a couple of companies who have prototype smartphone SoCs in their labs. I know little about the Chinese smartphone market but most likely there are several companies (like Huawei) working on it.

It's possible that Amazon is trying to develop their own silicon for handhelds but it may never see the light of day in a shipping device.

Microsoft completely blew it. They were a dominant smartphone platform before the iPhone emerged on the scene. Microsoft fumbled it all away and now they are destined to stand on the sidelines and wistfully watch others lead the way. Consumer technology innovation hasn't been driven by PCs for well over a decade. Remember that Apple was not designing their own smartphone silicon when the iPhone debuted in 2007.

Facebook partially blew it. There was a Facebook smartphone but Facebook abandoned further development over a decade ago.

https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/heres-why-the-facebook-phone-flopped/

And now there is evidence Meta is trying to develop custom SoCs mostly for their cloud servers. But rather than be a major player in the smartphone industry, Meta is basically a few apps/services that are popular in some markets and relatively unpopular in others. There's plenty of evidence that shows that Meta's focus is misdirected. They sunk a lot of money into a VR blackhole and their inane "metaverse" B.S. instead of trying to make a dent in smartphones.

9secondkox2 said:

Really doubt this. 

The one thing the VP has going for it is the specs. And it still flopped. It’s not like a faster GPU or GPU is going to help. 

You are ignoring the fact that the M4 SoC is on a different process node (N3E) than the M2 (N5P). It takes less electricity for the M4 to do the same tasks as the M2 (the SoC in the current AVP). This is important for the AVP because it is battery powered.

If everything else remains the same, this hypothetical AVP 2 (with M5 SoC which is expected to be on the TSMC's 2nm process node) would likely have better battery performance than the original model.

Note that the 100 Hz refresh rate of the AVP definitely can be improved. Of course faster refresh rates require more power so saving some on the SoC is going to help. A pleasant VR experience is really going to be around the 120-160Hz refresh rate. I own an Oculus Rift S (70Hz refresh) which is pretty much at the lowest threshold.

Part of AVP's lack of sales has to do with the discrepancy between Apple's specs and Apple's price vis-a-vis the competition. It simply isn't worth $3500. It's not ten times better than a Meta Quest 3 ($400) or Quest 3S ($300). Plus the fact that there's a lot more software and content available for the Quest HMDs. Anyone who has tried a consumer-grade product from the competition knows this.

Hell, anyone who shoved their smartphone in a Mattel View Master VR device (about $18 in 2015) also knows this. These were Google Cardboard-compatible devices from nine years ago.

https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/mattel-view-master-virtual-reality-viewer-starter-pack

Sure the user experience sucked (you had to hand hold the viewer) but it was less than an Andrew Jackson.