6 ms·

What's up with Apple? Seems to me like they should have just dropped the i9 option altogether, since they couldn't make it work. It just further torpedoes the

by 394549 8y ago

What's up with Apple? Seems to me like they should have just dropped the i9 option altogether, since they couldn't make it work. It just further torpedoes their fading reputation for being able to build top-notch hardware.

amrrs 8y ago
I think the comment that they can't build top-notch hardware isn't entirely true. Airpods really made an impression. We also need to count the fact that the entire PC laptop market is in some kind of limbo. Few tried touch and then hybrid then detachable. At least Apple is still kicking in the game I'd say.
- williamdclt 8y ago
  I might miss something, but what's so great about the airpods? Mediocre sound quality (literally my 8 bucks earpods have a better sound) and leaking so much sound it's obnoxious (if you're disturbed by music in the subway, look around: it's probably someone with Apple earplugs). I don't think they were the first to make bluetooth earplugs? Is it the miniaturisation? The touch-sensitive thing?
  - aksss 8y ago
    They look incredibly stupid as well. Style fail.
    - raverbashing 8y ago
      To me that's the biggest factor. Makes people look a lot more pretentious, in my opinion
  - rusk 8y ago
    The fact that they make you look like an ignoramous?
  - philjohn 8y ago
    Yeah, your 8 buck earpods in no way sound better, quit with the hyperbole. Maybe they sound better to you. Yep, they may not have been the first, but once again, they come in and have a bunch of refinements that just make them stand out. I've had bluetooth headphones before, and from pairing to loss of sync when moving more than a couple of metres away, AirPods beat them hands down.
    - rusk 8y ago
      > your 8 buck earpods in no way sound better Of course they do! Any wired solution will outperform even the best Bluetooth one.
      - empthought 8y ago
        In the common case for Apple users (listening to iTunes), the AirPods will have the same quality as wired headphones, since they play back with the same codec/bitrate either way (256kbps AAC). Now if they're wired headphones with gold-plated connectors, that's a whole different ballgame.
        394549 8y ago
        > In the common case for Apple users (listening to iTunes), the AirPods will have the same quality as wired headphones, since they play back with the same codec/bitrate either way (256kbps AAC). Are they literally piping the AAC-encoded bitstream as it appears in the iTune files straight to the AirPods with no manipulation? Because if they're decoding then re-encoding (e.g. decoding the file to raw to pass to the OS, then re-encoding to sent to the AirPods), there will be quality loss even if both codecs are exactly the same, since you'll have generation loss.
        rusk 8y ago
        > they're decoding then re-encoding That’s what’s happening. It’s not like Bluetooth uses the AAC codec, it must be decoded and reencoded. I’ve done a direct comparison and the deifference is clearly audible.
  - et2o 8y ago
    They just... work really well. Sound quality is good enough, mic quality is pretty good, the battery lasts forever and then they also recharge extremely quickly in the carrying case, they pair without any trouble to my phone and mac, etc. At least in my past experience you have to mess around with bluetooth headphones constantly to get them to work. With AirPods, you hardly need to.
- gergles 8y ago
  AirPods were actually completely rushed to market and were hand-soldered according to teardowns. There were tons of supply chain constraints and bugs. I don't feel like this is the best example for your argument.
close04 8y ago
They are re-living their 2003-2004 period when the IBM PPC G5 CPU was way too hot and power hungry to put in the PowerBook and it needed water cooling in the PowerMac. Back then their solution was to switch to Intel CPUs. Now it's probably going to be to switch to in-house designed ARM CPUs.
- rusk 8y ago
  > in-house designed ARM CPUs. What could possibly go wrong!
  - lostlogin 8y ago
    A lot. But imagine what could go right. The thing I most want is battery life, but I hope that isn’t squandered by translating it to thinness.
    - rusk 8y ago
      > imagine what could go right .
  - edbaskerville 8y ago
    Many things could go wrong, but the Apple codebases and engineering processes should be pretty robust to architecture changes at this point. NeXT went from 68030 to Intel/SPARC/others, and then to PowerPC with Mac OS X. OS X went from PowerPC to Intel. And large chunks of it are shared with iOS on ARM already. (Fun fact: even classic Mac OS was running on Intel at one point before the 680x0-to-PowerPC transition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_project) So there's good reason to think that they could pull this off.
    - rusk 8y ago
      That’s an awful lot of hope
    - charlesism 8y ago
      I have very little confidence it will be a smooth transition this time. Apple now is not the same people, and not the same culture as it was then. I don't see them sweating the details over Mac hardware.
jasonmp85 8y ago
Their design pipeline may be years deep. It's entirely possible they expected Intel to have completely exhausted their bowels from their bed-shitting by now and Intel has surprised them by continuing to soil the sheets. I'd bet anything Apple believed there'd have been a process shrink by now and they'd be able to get more cores in the same case design. Maybe Apple's been torpedoed but it's Intel doing the torpedoing.
- gaius 8y ago
  Or maybe where Jobs would have been obsessing over every detail Cook is content to have delivered an animated poop emoji and never used any other feature anyway
- alpaca128 8y ago
  It is irrelevant what may have happened between Apple and Intel. Apple decided to put a CPU into a case that can't handle its heat. We can safely assume Apple knew full well about this and still threw the thing onto the market acting as if nothing was wrong. The question is if they seriously didn't expect the customers to notice or just don't care.

by 394549 8y ago

amrrs 8y ago

I think the comment that they can't build top-notch hardware isn't entirely true. Airpods really made an impression. We also need to count the fact that the entire PC laptop market is in some kind of limbo. Few tried touch and then hybrid then detachable. At least Apple is still kicking in the game I'd say.

williamdclt 8y ago
I might miss something, but what's so great about the airpods? Mediocre sound quality (literally my 8 bucks earpods have a better sound) and leaking so much sound it's obnoxious (if you're disturbed by music in the subway, look around: it's probably someone with Apple earplugs). I don't think they were the first to make bluetooth earplugs? Is it the miniaturisation? The touch-sensitive thing?
- aksss 8y ago
  They look incredibly stupid as well. Style fail.
  - raverbashing 8y ago
    To me that's the biggest factor. Makes people look a lot more pretentious, in my opinion
- rusk 8y ago
  The fact that they make you look like an ignoramous?
- philjohn 8y ago
  Yeah, your 8 buck earpods in no way sound better, quit with the hyperbole. Maybe they sound better to you. Yep, they may not have been the first, but once again, they come in and have a bunch of refinements that just make them stand out. I've had bluetooth headphones before, and from pairing to loss of sync when moving more than a couple of metres away, AirPods beat them hands down.
  - rusk 8y ago
    > your 8 buck earpods in no way sound better Of course they do! Any wired solution will outperform even the best Bluetooth one.
    - empthought 8y ago
      In the common case for Apple users (listening to iTunes), the AirPods will have the same quality as wired headphones, since they play back with the same codec/bitrate either way (256kbps AAC). Now if they're wired headphones with gold-plated connectors, that's a whole different ballgame.
      - 394549 8y ago
        > In the common case for Apple users (listening to iTunes), the AirPods will have the same quality as wired headphones, since they play back with the same codec/bitrate either way (256kbps AAC). Are they literally piping the AAC-encoded bitstream as it appears in the iTune files straight to the AirPods with no manipulation? Because if they're decoding then re-encoding (e.g. decoding the file to raw to pass to the OS, then re-encoding to sent to the AirPods), there will be quality loss even if both codecs are exactly the same, since you'll have generation loss.
        rusk 8y ago
        > they're decoding then re-encoding That’s what’s happening. It’s not like Bluetooth uses the AAC codec, it must be decoded and reencoded. I’ve done a direct comparison and the deifference is clearly audible.
- et2o 8y ago
  They just... work really well. Sound quality is good enough, mic quality is pretty good, the battery lasts forever and then they also recharge extremely quickly in the carrying case, they pair without any trouble to my phone and mac, etc. At least in my past experience you have to mess around with bluetooth headphones constantly to get them to work. With AirPods, you hardly need to.
gergles 8y ago
AirPods were actually completely rushed to market and were hand-soldered according to teardowns. There were tons of supply chain constraints and bugs. I don't feel like this is the best example for your argument.

close04 8y ago

They are re-living their 2003-2004 period when the IBM PPC G5 CPU was way too hot and power hungry to put in the PowerBook and it needed water cooling in the PowerMac. Back then their solution was to switch to Intel CPUs. Now it's probably going to be to switch to in-house designed ARM CPUs.

rusk 8y ago
> in-house designed ARM CPUs. What could possibly go wrong!
- lostlogin 8y ago
  A lot. But imagine what could go right. The thing I most want is battery life, but I hope that isn’t squandered by translating it to thinness.
  - rusk 8y ago
    > imagine what could go right .
- edbaskerville 8y ago
  Many things could go wrong, but the Apple codebases and engineering processes should be pretty robust to architecture changes at this point. NeXT went from 68030 to Intel/SPARC/others, and then to PowerPC with Mac OS X. OS X went from PowerPC to Intel. And large chunks of it are shared with iOS on ARM already. (Fun fact: even classic Mac OS was running on Intel at one point before the 680x0-to-PowerPC transition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_project) So there's good reason to think that they could pull this off.
  - rusk 8y ago
    That’s an awful lot of hope
  - charlesism 8y ago
    I have very little confidence it will be a smooth transition this time. Apple now is not the same people, and not the same culture as it was then. I don't see them sweating the details over Mac hardware.

jasonmp85 8y ago

Their design pipeline may be years deep. It's entirely possible they expected Intel to have completely exhausted their bowels from their bed-shitting by now and Intel has surprised them by continuing to soil the sheets. I'd bet anything Apple believed there'd have been a process shrink by now and they'd be able to get more cores in the same case design. Maybe Apple's been torpedoed but it's Intel doing the torpedoing.

gaius 8y ago
Or maybe where Jobs would have been obsessing over every detail Cook is content to have delivered an animated poop emoji and never used any other feature anyway
alpaca128 8y ago
It is irrelevant what may have happened between Apple and Intel. Apple decided to put a CPU into a case that can't handle its heat. We can safely assume Apple knew full well about this and still threw the thing onto the market acting as if nothing was wrong. The question is if they seriously didn't expect the customers to notice or just don't care.