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Comment by foobiekr | Hacker News Reader

Apple is not a parts manufacturer/inventor; they assemble parts wonderfully with, on occasion, some customization, so the obvious question is: where are the displays? Diffractive waveguides are a very disappointing display for most uses; not bright enough, poor FOV, bleeding, etc. For a summary, see [1].

Without an external vendor to make the breakthrough in displays, Apple is in the same position as everyone else - talking about an AR future that looks great until you get there.

[1] https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-making-good-ar-displays-s...

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>Apple is not a parts manufacturer/inventor

Manufacturer maybe not, but inventor? They have all kinds of patents and inventions of their own, their own CPUs and processing units, etc...

>they assemble parts wonderfully with, on occasion, some customization

They order custom parts more often than not, with very heavy customization.

Does anybody think that the displays for a 2022 Apple VR device (assuming the rumor is true) would be seen anywhere outside of Apple labs, and be e.g. available as off-the-shelve parts with merely "some customization" required on top in 2019?

Come to think of it, grandparent was probably thinking of the desktop space -- where Apple basically uses Intel, AMD, etc parts + some modifications.

But that's absolutely not the case in the iOS, Apple Watch, etc space. They make their own everything, from best of breed mobile CPU designs, to custom DSPs that are the 2019 1000x equivalents of the Amiga of yore (remember Paula, Denise, Agnus?), own boards, and everything in between.

Apple invents all of their key processors i.e. A, S, T, W, U.

They have also invented technologies like FaceID, TouchID, 3D Touch, MicroLED, LTPO etc.

The idea that they merely assemble other companies is just laughable.

"Apple is in the same position as everyone else”

Not by a wide margin. They have a reputation of paying for the development of unusual/new production methods, and the bank account to go with it.

For example, ‘everybody’ can think “I’ll use CNC milling machines to make by laptop bodies”, but few have the perseverance and the money to perfect that at scale.

If there is a display that’s even a quarter good, they will be willing to spend millions or even billions, to perfect it and work on manufacturing it at scale.

MicroLED in Apple Watch seems to be a step in that direction: https://9to5mac.com/2019/07/22/microled-apple-watch-report/

There is a rumor they're working with Valve on this.

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