7 ms·
Apple deleted a job listing that hints at plans to cut Qualcomm and Intel chips
- dang 8y agoUrl changed from https://gizmodo.com/apple-posts-deletes-job-listing-that-sounds-suspicious-1825672682 https://gizmodo.com/apple-posts-deletes-job-listing-that-sou..., which points to this.
- kw71 8y agoWith no experience rolling subscriber access silicon or MMIC this is likely to have comedic results.
- godzillabrennus 8y agoThey can afford to pay to learn.
- cinquemb 8y agoThis seems like something that should have been pursued at scale (have they?) years ago when markets were in full swing of smart phone growth rather when they are starting to contract? Oh well, we'll hear Q2 earnings in a couple of hours.
- aaronbrethorst 8y agoSteve Ballmer agrees wholeheartedly. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eywi0h_Y5_U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eywi0h_Y5_U
- dang 8y agoPlease don't post flamebait.
- igravious 8y agoTypical Apple fanboy link.
- aaronbrethorst 8y agoMy Google Pixel disagrees with you, but you do you, bro.
- igravious 8y agoI'm not saying you're an Apple fanboy, I'm saying the link is. But if your counter-point was “They laughed at the iPhone and look how successful that was” then posting Steve Ballmer's response to the iPhone (a YouTube video titled “Ballmer Laughs at iPhone”) is dumb because he of all people is hardly going to have said, ”Wow that sure is an amazing phone Apple just produced, Windows Phone sucks in comparison”
- scarface74 8y agoLet's look at the difference between Ballmers reaction to the iPhone and Gates reaction to iTunes. http://allthingsd.com/20100211/bill-gates-on-itunes/ http://allthingsd.com/20100211/bill-gates-on-itunes/
- igravious 8y agoInteresting, quite the contrast. I guess that Gates spoke so freely because this was an internal memo and off the record to the best of his knowledge–and Ballmers is putting on a brave public face. I like how Gates is honest about he knows and what he doesn't know. Funny, back in the day I really really liked eMusic, I wonder if Microsoft ever considered buying them.
- scarface74 8y agoEMusic wouldn't have solved the problem that Gates mentioned. Apple has negotiated rights with all of the major labels. EMusic just had independent artists. What's even funnier that iTunes came out at a time where there were already subscription based services and they all basically failed. Years later Spotify was able to come along and be successful.
- madeofpalk 8y agoWasn't that the exact response when Apple introduced the iPhone? "They have no experience making cell phones!"
- tim-- 8y agoWouldn't an organisation such as Apple (who must be one of Qualcomm's largest customers, surely...) already share design information such as this with engineers inside Apple? This job ad to me doesn't sound like a smoking gun to get rid of Qualcomm.
- saagarjha 8y ago> Wouldn't an organisation such as Apple (who must be one of Qualcomm's largest customers, surely...) already share design information such as this with engineers inside Apple? I don't see your point, and besides, Apple silos their information so that it's only available on a need-to-know basis.
- beedogs 8y agoThat's cool, but not for me. I didn't buy Apple products before they went x86, and I won't buy any after, either.
- aplummer 8y agoI’m keen for an understanding of how this would affect me, can you elaborate? I would assume the performance would need to be better for them to make the change + battery life.
- Tsiklon 8y agoLooking at the article - this is related to the Cellular modems in their telephones as opposed to the CPUs running in their Macintoshes. Judging by Apple's success in creating powerful low energy ARM processors I'd be quite interested in seeing how they can do in designing their own 4/5G modems.
- thisisit 8y agoThe amount of extrapolation seems a bit extreme - one deleted job opening shouldn't mean anything. But I guess in the age of clickbait journalism everything goes.
- esturk 8y agoIf you consider just this one data point yes, it may seem far-fetched. But if you connect it with all the other data points from all the other rumors, then whose to say it's over reaction?
- joshl32532 8y agoIn an efficient market, companies (Intel and Qcomm in this case) would compete to produce products (5G modem) that can tailor to multiple customers for maximum volume to recoup R&D cost. This will converge in the best product at the best price. I wonder what would be the benefit of Apple producing their own chip? Especially with the threat of "peak iPhone" looming.
- roenxi 8y agoLots of possibilities. One simple example is maybe Apple thinks they have a 'special case' problem that other 5G modem suppliers aren't going to solve. Also, theory is all very well but the timespans matter and aren't general. Someone has to physically be the first person to do a new thing. Apple's experience with the original iPhone was that competition caught up eventually. But in the years it took the competition to set up R&D, supply chains, yadda yadda, Apple could cement a dominant market position and turn crazy profits. They might see similar opportunities in other communications technologies (although not on the same scale).
- the-dude 8y agoEnsuring privacy for their users?
- simonh 8y agoThe problem facing Qualcomm is that their main customer for high end modems is Apple, the units they sell to the Android manufacturers are much lower volume (at the high end) and for much less money. Apple has noticed that if they make these advanced modems themselves, the Android ecosystem doesn't have enough profit in it to make building high end modems just for that market viable. At least, it might well force Qualcomm to design down their best modems to meet lower price points at lower volumes than they can achieve now. This is aside from the advantages Apple would have in tailoring their hardware and software to each other, and guaranteeing they get the hardware features they need to achieve their end-user facing feature goals.
- martin_bech 8y agoAnd.. if they can make them even more low power, as they have the CPU/GPU and Wireless (Bluetooth/wifi). they might get an even larger advantage on battery/performance.
- skywhopper 8y agoAre we sure they didn’t just... hire someone?
- pertsix 8y agoThey could have certainly put out the job posting for visa reasons :) http://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=APPLE+INC&job=&city=&year=2017 http://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=APPLE+INC&job=&city=&year=2...
- dbuder 8y agoThat chip is the phone. They're big enough, so why not. I'd want to get away from Qualcomm too.
- magoon 8y agoApple is now a semiconductor company.
- baybal2 8y agoThe coming 5G comes to mind. The problem with Qcom and 5G is that they do not even hide the fact that they wont to monopolize the technology through IP capture.
- dchuk 8y agoSort of related: For a while now I’ve been thinking that a product that helps you monitor your competitor’s job postings could be pretty interesting. Anyone here find value in that concept? It wouldn’t be for finding a job necessarily, but instead to keep a pulse on the potential health/direction of those in your niche.
- cozzyd 8y agoI'm sure investors probably pay attention to that already. That would be an interesting thing to game, actually.
- gumby 8y agoI often check the job listings of competitors to see what they are up to, so using this as part of a "what are these companies up to" (patent filings, job listings, various updates) would be good. It's a hard problem because some companies generate a lot of noise (unenlightening press), or some companies are large so have lots to talk about in areas that don't matter to me, but typically most startups generate so little noise that simply sending me 100% of new news, website changes etc would be useful.
- rootsudo 8y agoIt's also for security. If you've read Kevin Mitnick/Irea Winkler books like Art of Intrusion or Corporate Espionage (1997!) they say monitoring a competitor job ads is great to learn about: 1. Current trends. 2. Infrastructure And more, I can't recall....great books too.
- aeturnum 8y agoI mean, of course they are. I guarantee Apple is considering moving every aspect of their products in house. They'll end up keeping a lot of them external, but they look at all of it.
- ajross 8y agoIndeed. It strains reason to think that a company with cash reserves the size of Apple's wasn't at least exploring the possibility of making their own radios. Hiring a few experts on a moonshot project is cheap relative to the benefits if it pays off. It's likely Google has a similar group. Whether they produce hardware or not is an open question though. High end RF efforts tend to fail a lot. I mean, for high end LTE we're already in a situation where there are only two serious vendors.