I can see their point (and that of any other content provider) in that context, but I'm sure they do care. It would be fine even if it required a dedicated hard

I can see their point (and that of any other content provider) in that context, but I'm sure they do care. It would be fine even if it required a dedicated hardware encoding bloc, but lack of reasonable RT encoding (including low wattage) would create a significant technical impediment to full general adoption, so I can't believe that optimization hasn't been at least somewhat considered. There is of course still plenty of real time streaming that's important, though in those cases reduction in quality would often be an acceptable tradeoff. However, Apple and Google both have a quite reasonable and absolute need for real time (or a close enough cheat), high quality offline encoding on mobile systems within the physical constraints of a handheld form factor. End users will also want to (again, quite reasonably) be able to immediately share what they make without the need for a lengthy reencoding stage or trip through a middleman. So if there wasn't at least a timeline for 4k+ RT on iPhone or Android devices I can't see how HEVC wouldn't stick around for a very long time. That a live stream has already been demonstrated should mean that this has been considered and they do care though, and thus won't be a problem. Ideally of course at least the high end of current generation devices would be capable of AV1 recording through software updates, which would enable moving on much more rapidly from HEVC. For that at least though I think it'd be an acceptable tradeoff to have those become legacy if that's what it takes to get us into a patent-unencumbered future afterwards. A pity software patents couldn't have just been eliminated entirely but I guess that remains politically infeasible for now.