tht

NYC362 said:

ssfe11 said:

These chips would be shipped to China AND India for assembly? 

Yup.. that's exactly how it would work.  It might sounds nuts, but the costs of everything are figured out to the penny and if it was cheaper to do it elsewhere, they would. 

I think the silicon dies might go back to Taiwan, Japan or South Korea for chip packaging, then to where ever for assembly into the final product. Could be China, Vietnam, India, Brazil, who knows. It's global supply chain. A lot of people moan about Apple products being assembled in China, but that is akin to complaining about wanting to do landscaping or grass cutting jobs.

Most of the high skill jobs needed for an iPhone or a Mac or an iPad are not in China. Camera sensors come from Japan, until recently. Memory chips come from Korea or the USA (Micron, Sk Hynix or Samsung). Glass is designed by Corning in the USA, fabbed in the USA and China. Logic chips are designed by Apple and fabbed in Taiwan. Wireless chips are designed by Qualcomm, Broadcom, Skyworks, and fabbed at TSMC or other lower end fabs. If Apple actually ships its own modem, a lot of the design and work for it may come from Europe/Germany. A lot of the software is designed, coded in the USA, not only Apple's, but all the other operating systems running on an iPhone.

There's like 3 to 4 different operating system running on an iPhone. The user facing one that Apple makes. Apple also writes the boot firmware. Then, there is an OS that runs the wireless modem, currently Qualcomm, probably in San Diego. The one that runs the secure enclave, which might have its majority contribution from Germany? The one that runs the camera systems, probably Japan? Apple has semiconductor design teams in Israel, whose code and designs you use whenever you use Touch ID.

Intel should be trying to get all their chips on TSMC N4P post-haste. Their server and desktop chips really need it. It is an easy win. AMD GPUs too. Their own fabs have been cratering, but the opportunity presents itself here. Tough situation they are in though.

gatorguy said:

tht said:

kellie said:

Apple is more interested in profits than helping their customers lead healthier lives. The licensing fee they would have to pay for O2 levels is a pittance in the overall scheme of finances at Apple. They got caught violating a patent and their ego is preventing them from admitting it which is preventing existing and future customers from the health benefits of monitoring O2 saturation. 

The US Trade Court said the Apple Watch violated a Masimo patent for a blood oxygen sensor that is housed in a convex surface with a chamfer. This patent was filed after Apple started selling watches with a blood oxygen feature. 

Masimo submarined Apple here. Ie, they got a patent on an Apple Watch design feature 5 years after the design shipped.

I think the patent you're referring to has a priority date of 7/3/2008. That's way before the Apple Watch was even a thought. Am I mistaken? If so, what's the patent number for the one you're talking about? 

EDIT: I think you're getting confused by the grant date, which can be years after the patent application was filed. Those are two different things; Apple wasn't submarined. 

What is this 2008 patent and what is the dependent claim number for the chamfer in this 2008 patent.

The USITC is claiming that the Apple Watch violates the last dependent claim, which claims a chamfer on a convex sensor housing. This dependent claim was filed later in the same month that Apple announced the blood oxymetry feature on Watch 6 (I think that was the model). Prior patent claims did not include those sensor housing features. It wasn't granted until 4 months later or so.

Perhaps I'm wrong, as patents are obtuse by design, as well as interpretations of patents being overly broad.

kellie said:

Apple is more interested in profits than helping their customers lead healthier lives. The licensing fee they would have to pay for O2 levels is a pittance in the overall scheme of finances at Apple. They got caught violating a patent and their ego is preventing them from admitting it which is preventing existing and future customers from the health benefits of monitoring O2 saturation. 

The US Trade Court said the Apple Watch violated a Masimo patent for a blood oxygen sensor that is housed in a convex surface with a chamfer. This patent was filed after Apple started selling watches with a blood oxygen feature. 

You guys need to be mindful that the blood oxygen feature is only disabled in the USA. It works everywhere else in the world, and Apple Watches are being sold with the feature today. 

Xed said:

I can't prove it, but I'm sure it 1) cost considerably more than AVP,  2) still offered no profit for Meta despite their years of "cornering" the market, and 3) was still years away from being able to match AVP's SW capabilities.

That isn't to say that Oculus does' have some great features that AVP could use — like pretty much anything interactive with other AVP users— but  were are still only a half a year since AVP was dropped onto our laps and it is inarguably best to create a solid foundation before you still building the skyscraper above it.

No way to prove 1 as nobody knows what was in this La Jolla headset. If the rumored BOM target of $1000 is correct, a rationale MSRP would be $3000. Since Meta couldn't get there, it more or less proves Apple's VP headset has no real margin in it. Apple has to de-feature and wait for component cost reductions to make a $2000 headset with microOLEDs. A Chinese microOLED component supplier, 2nd and 3rd suppliers, can't come soon enough.

Meta is losing about $1000 to $1500 per Quest headset sold, depending on model. If they want to sell this Quest Pro 2 for say $1500, oy, that's probably taking a $2000 to $2500 loss per QP2 headset. Kind of hard to justify such a model when Meta Reality Labs has lost $50b over the last 4 years. Meta has a dug a hole so deep with its Reality Labs products that they will never make profit out it. All they have done is driven all the players into the edges of the market as nobody is willing to take the losses to compete. Apple does things their way for the most part.