joguide

The verdict is that Apple is correct in throwing Epic out of the App Store for violating the terms of the agreement.
Also there is no judgment that says Apple has to allow them back in.
Epic does not get its own separate payment store in App Store.

Apple is not behaving in an unfair monopolistic way.
Apple is not allowed to prevent developers and their app from directing the customer outside the App Store.
But there is no judgment that says that Apple cannot charge extra service fee if a developer promote outside exchange.

There is nothing about the construction of EV that is particularly unique or difficult.  As a reference, 30 years ago my friend, Robert, who has an engineering background, single handedly took out the ICE engine of a used MG convertible and placed a fleet of lead batteries to make a very functional, surprising quick EV (albeit quite heavy with only 15 mile range). If lithium batteries were readily available then, he would have built a very effective vehicle.  

Since Tesla is using commoditized lithium cells made by Panasonic, others can make a similar product.  There are a number of start ups making a claim including Fisker, Rivian, Nikola, Faraday Future, Byton, Lucid, Lordstown.   Traditional car makers are slow to follow due to investments in ICE (innovators dilemma), but will be forced by environmental and policy regulations that are coming down (i.e. California zero emission mandate in 2035, British ICE ban in 2030, Europe ICE ban in 2025).   The MIH/Foxconn Alliance promises the "android system of EV industry," which basically means commoditization of all the pertain parts, which would help undermine Tesla's dominance so far.  An EV is battery, electric motor, suspension, body, electronics, interior, safety system, steering, seats and wheels--which is what Bob built by hand 30 years ago.  Tesla's advantage is large scale production which MIH alliance threatens.  

MIH/Foxconn also announced they will commercialize solid state batteries in 2024.  With the promise of a solid state lithium battery with 2.5 energy density, we may be looking at lighter cars with twice the range and supercar performance.  When this all shakes out, Tesla will no longer be all the unique or special; certainly not in their crash prone autopilot technology (san Lidar) we hear about monthly in the news or their lack of QA with poor body panel fittings or loose seats.  

Since these EV are more computer than vehicle, I would think Apple would have an interest in software (autopilot and operating system in the care) but not the hardware.  They would not want to have "android system of EV."

paul turner said:

I don’t care how fast it is, without a identical functioning windows like  version of excel with same updates  its useless to me.

Did you miss the memo?  Window is porting their Window Office suite to the new M1 chip computers to run native, but for now their Office suite is compatible with Big Sur.  Microsoft says that the Apple Silicon updates have feature parity with the previous versions.

kpom said:

 DuhSesame said:

I wonder how much difference we’ll see for the Air vs. the Pro.

I assume it’s just the long-term performance.

I agree, but this is still very impressive. Something like Cinebench will be better for judging the difference in sustained CPU tasks. 

This is an industry changing moment.  Base MBA with no fan, just crushed the laptop world as we knew it. 

cloudguy said:

cornchip said:

Love how “meh” these all are. Thank goodness Apple doesn’t play to these clowns. 

OK ... who are the people who didn't own MacBook Air, entry level MacBook Pro and Mac Mini devices before that are going to run out and buy them now? Let's say that I own a Dell Inspiron 7000. I should run right out and get the new M1 MacBook Pro, right? Or maybe not. Because:

Does this M1 MBP have a touchscreen like my Dell? No.
Does it have a 2-in-1 design with USI stylus support like my Dell? No.
Can the M1 MBP with its unified memory match the combined performance of an 11th Gen (10nm) Intel Core i7 with 16 GB of RAM and the Nvidia GeForce MX350 and its 4 GB of RAM? At best, a definite maybe. It is notable that not at any time did Apple claim that it did. Apple primarily compared the M1 Macs to the lower end devices with discrete graphics that it was replacing, as well as "top selling models" that cost half as much as the M1 MacBook Air.
Can it play my Steam video games, or pretty much any of the software that I need and want? Of course not. 

A bunch of people who already own Macs are going to buy new ones. A few people who love their iPhones and iPads will try out a MacBook Air or Mac Mini. But that will be it, and the analysts know it. You are expecting these droves of Windows users to completely change their computing needs and wants just to get their hands on a PC with an Apple-designed CPU. Which presumes that the 90-95% of the population that doesn't buy Macs and the 75-85% of the population that doesn't buy iPhones loves everything that Apple makes as much as you do. They don't. They are going to look these MacBooks that still cost a lot more than Windows PCs and now run an even smaller subset of the software that they want and need and continue to pass them up as before, Apple-designed CPU or not. 

I think you are going to be in for a rude awakening. Anandtech review of the iPhone A14 chips is known to be competitive with anything that Intel or AMD has to offer in a desktop.  M1 chips is going to be fast.

To your other point, most consumers do not need a faster home computer for email and web browsing.  So any low end, cheap x86 machine is fine, much the way Android phones are fine for the majority of users.  So x86 will not die, but Apple has no interest in the low end market and never has.

Hardware is only as good as the software, but software typically lags behind hardware.  So the questions is like the Field of Dreams, if they build it--hardware that is 2-3x faster than the current x86, will they (developers) come.  

More importantly if you need a high end computer, would you pay big money for a computer that is appreciably slower and drains the battery quicker.  Maybe you would, but I wouldn't.  Overtime time, there will be less people like you willing to make that choice.  Pretty much want happened with iPhone and iPad.