rare comment

nunzy said:

What would happen if Apple banned Spotify from all of its devices?

They might lose a couple of device sales, but probably not many. Apple has the ability. But do they have the nerve?

Although Apple offers services (and makes reasonable money doing so), its core focii are hardware and user experience. Services support those - they encourage hardware sales and, when well done, enhance the user experience (to encourage more hardware sales). So long as the value of an iPhone to a user is increased by the existence of Spotify, Apple is largely indifferent to whether someone becomes an Apple Music subscriber or a Spotify subscriber - both result in hardware sales. At the same time, music is weird because it can't easily be constrained to an ecosystem - thus the availability of Apple Music on Android. Also, Apple has big plans for continuity across devices (because then they can sell more devices and lower the likelihood of switching ecosystems) and so the creation of Apple Music was important to have smooth integration across iPhone, Mac, Apple Watch, HomePod, and AppleTV. If Apple knew for certain that someone like Spotify would do the same (support all devices consistently and for the foreseeable future) Apple might have been less aggressive on music. But Apple can't know and so needed to build a competitor - to encourage the sales of ancillary devices where Apple cares a lot. A note: given the almost single-minded focus of HomePod on music (and, as a corollary, meaning that Apple Music is especially valuable for HomePod), one wonders what Apple's plans are (or were) for HomePod. We have one, we like it, but its sound quality is not all it was hyped to be (certainly better than Google Home and Echo, but 3x better?). Was Apple Music really created for this meh device?

zimmie said:

fasterquieter said:

I would love for new iPads to have A12X chips, but suspect A11Xs are more likely. I don't recall Apple ever releasing iPads with brand new generation chips. They usually have whatever the iPhone had last. Presumably because yields aren't high enough for lower-margin products.

The A4 was in the original iPad first, then it was used in iPhone 4 when it was launched a few months later. The A5 hit iPad 2 first, then iPhone 4S a few months later. iPads started getting X variants with the A5X (third-generation iPad) and lagging behind the A# base variant with the A6 (A6 in iPhone 5 in 2012-09, A6X in iPad 4 in 2012-10).

And I think the A9 and A9x were announced together.

fasterquieter said:

I would love for new iPads to have A12X chips, but suspect A11Xs are more likely. I don't recall Apple ever releasing iPads with brand new generation chips. They usually have whatever the iPhone had last. Presumably because yields aren't high enough for lower-margin products.

A4 was the first Apple chip. And it debuted in iPad.

mac_128 said:

mike1 said:

brucemc said:

Doesn't seem to make any sense to change away from Lightning.  As noted, it is possible for iPhones to have fast charging provided it is a USB-C at the other end and the right power adapter.  What other benefits are there (other than "I don't have to carry a separate cable for my other theoretical devices...")?

I would say the next move Apple makes is to do away with such a port completely - going with inductive charging completely and high speed wireless.  That might not be for a number of years, but switching to USB-C on the iPhone itself seems an "un-Apple" move.

Wireless charging is not for everyone. Personally, not being able to use the phone or iPad while it's charging is a major problem for me.

To be clear, you’re saying you’re against this because you think you can’t use an iPhone X while it’s charging?

I think mike1 is saying that wireless charging means one cannot easily use a phone while charging whereas wired charging means one can use the phone while charging.  Which is absolutely correct and a big part of many people's workflow.

The idea of leveraging a phone's CPU, memory, and connectivity to make a plug-in workstation is very appealing. People keep trying to make it work (https://www.engadget.com/motorola/atrix-4g-review/; https://www.cnet.com/news/samsung-dex-pad-galaxy-s9-touchpad-pc-mwc-2018-b2b/) but don't seem to get it right (I haven't actually tried any of the past experiments). Which is all a long of way of saying Apple would have the best chance of getting this to work given their software/hardware integration. MacMini on an iPhone!