Yeah but some things would never have seen the light of day. The M1 chips for example were a huge investment that wouldn’t have been made without the behemoth that is Apple behind it.
For example, remember Standard Oil? They made oil super cheap, researched new oils, basically were great for customers almost like Amazon - but they were monopolistic and were shattered for being so. Similar monopolies in the past like Bell Telephone or, arguably, Amazon now are great from the consumer's perspective but terrible for businesses.
In the past, we were less afraid to say, "you're doing great, but you're still too powerful."
A big part of that popularity comes from the tight vertical integration. That’s why so many Apple users see this kind of talk as an attack on us, you want to make the things we like about these products illegal or commercially infeasible. I just don’t see how that is in our interests as consumers.
If you want to use products that work a different way, fine, but I don’t see how that’s our problem.
Would you expect a LG microwave to be forced to support other operating systems ?
And how do warranties and support work for this.
2-3x more energy efficient + the same performance (if not better) than other (Intel) chips ~2 times more expensive. I don't think there's been another leap like that in the last 20-25 years.
Without this you have... well, literally everyone else who haven't done this (because they couldn't or wouldn't). This is what makes it different from "specialty SOC offerings".
Keeping companies "stay hungry, stay foolish" is probably in our best interest ! :)
And yet they implemented and executed a multilayered intertwined decade-long (or actually longer) plan.
Their first custom chip was launched in 2010. It means they were designing it since at least 2008, but definitely since before then.
The original iPhone was launched in 2007.
So, they were designing and releasing a new product category, and already designing custom chips for it.
Even fat lazy companies can stay hungry and foolish. There are not that many of them, though.
Or 5-6 years earlier when they started developing iPhone?
Or in late 2010s when they decided to transition their laptops and desktops to an entirely new CPU architecture?
They had no differentiator, Apple products were seen as beautifully machined luxury trinkets. IBM, and then Intel had them by the balls because Apple couldn't improve the performance of their products unless Intel innovated on their chips - which they had no reason to.
This is a direct response to a perceived threat:
"We believe that we need to own and control the primary technologies behind the products that we make, and participate only in markets where we can make a significant contribution" - Tim Cook
https://explorersfoundation.org/glyphery/458.html
>Or 5-6 years earlier when they started developing iPhone?
https://www.history.com/news/iphone-original-size-invention-...
"Apple executives worried that the iPod would lose market share once cellphone manufacturers figured out how to put MP3 players on their phones. But not if Apple beat them to it."
This applies to literally every single company that "just earns the same money doing nothing, or very little".
> Apple executives worried that the iPod would lose market share once cellphone manufacturers figured out how to put MP3 players on their phones.
Again, this applies to every single company in the same space
And yet somehow Apple spent those billions of dollars on R&D and others didn't. And on hardware side they keep doing it while the rest of the industry sort of just watches, doing nothing.
As an example: Samsung is entirely dependent on Google for software and on Qualcomm for chips. Unlike Apple, their entire product lines are literally under continuous existensial threat from multiple sides. Tell me, what exactly have they done to fix that?
Whereas Apple, the richest company in the world, either takes risks introducing completely new categories of products (new for them as a company) and wiping the floor with competition (see Apple Watch, 40% market share with Samsung a distant 10%), or managing seamless CPU transition for a two-decade old OS while again wiping the floor with the competition (see the entire M1 saga of the past few years).
>And yet somehow Apple spent those billions of dollars on R&D and others didn't. And on hardware side they keep doing it while the rest of the industry sort of just watches, doing nothing.
False. https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/which-companies-spend-the-mo...
>As an example: Samsung is entirely dependent on Google for software and on Qualcomm for chips. Unlike Apple, their entire product lines are literally under continuous existensial threat from multiple sides. Tell me, what exactly have they done to fix that?
https://techcrunch.com/2022/02/09/samsung-google-expand-wear...
https://indianexpress.com/article/technology/tech-news-techn...
https://retailpartnerships.withgoogle.com/ads/success-storie...
https://news.samsung.com/global/samsung-electronics-announce...
--
This is my last reply. I wish you good luck and godspeed. :)
So, you don't know they are threats.
> False. https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/which-companies-spend-the-mo...
What's false? Your narrative that "only Apple was under threat unlike those other fat companies that... are actually spending money on R&D"?
> A bunch of links
Most of those actions are very reactionary. And again don't prove your points.
Yes, custom SoCs are nothing new. To pretend that M1 isn't any different from other "specialty SoCs" is delusional.