9 ms·

Apple said Qualcomm’s tech was no good, but privately it was ‘the best’

167 points by wallflower 8y ago

solarkraft 8y ago
TL;DR: Apple argued in court that Qualcomm wasn't licensing their patents fairly, something they agreed to do by helping shape standards based on them. They did this through "creating evidence" by negotiating and selecting for favorable (but non-equivalent) patent deals as examples.
- eridius 8y ago
  I find it odd that the article is implying that the only reason for Apple to negotiate for cheap patent licenses elsewhere is to artificially portray Qualcomm as overcharging, when surely it's in Apple's interest in general to negotiate favorable patent licensing deals. Even if Apple's sole goal was to prove that they could license a much larger portfolio of patents for much less as a way of demonstrating that Qualcomm is overcharging, the fact that this was their goal doesn't make them wrong. "I'm going to prove you're overcharging by demonstrating that I can license other patents cheaply. Look, I licensed other patents cheaply!" is actually a pretty good argument that Qualcomm is overcharging.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - grigjd3 8y ago
    The difference is the supporting documents found by Qualcomm during discovery. Internal Apple documents stated that Apple was actively trying to portray Qualcomm's patents as inferior by going to other providers.
    - eridius 8y ago
      Where does it say that? I've read the article twice now, and nowhere does it say that Apple internal memos tried to say Qualcomm's patents were somehow inferior. What it said was they intentionally licensed less-expensive patents to try and make Qualcomm's look more expensive, but that's the argument I already addressed.
      - tooltalk 8y ago
        That's exactly what the FTC did during their trial. The FTC lined up QCOM's competitors and had them testify that QCOM's patents were insignificant/inferior compared to their own patent portfolio. I'm fairly sure that this repertoire was in Apple lawyer's play too.
        eridius 8y ago
        I can't seem to find an article talking about what you just described. Though I'm not sure what the FTC did even matters since we're talking about Apple, not the FTC.
  - tooltalk 8y ago
    No. the problem here wasn't that Apple was a tough negotiator, but that it also lied to regulators around the world that QCOM violated their FRAND obligation by overcharging. The FTC obviously had no such proof that QCOM was "overcharging" or breached their FRAND obligation, so instead they used the euphemism like "elevated fee" to describe QCOM's licensing practice. In other regulatory investigation, QCOM wasn't even allowed full access to Apple's false testimony (eg, rebates for exclusivity or Apple's switch to Intel), much less representation to respond to its accusation.
atomical 8y ago
https://outline.com/R8j34 https://outline.com/R8j34
selectodude 8y ago
For all the posturing, Apple was nerfing Qualcomm's chipsets in the iPhone X to bring them to feature parity with Intel's garbage.
- mwfunk 8y ago
  How so? I hadn't heard about this.
  - synaesthesisx 8y ago
    Apple had given Intel modems a shot, and then users started complaining about performance differences. In some cases the Qualcomm modems would outperform the Intel ones by over 70%, especially in situations with low/weak signal. To maintain consistency and avoid outrage they tried to intentionally nerf the Qualcomm modem performance in these situations (since the Intel ones were lagging behind significantly). https://www.theverge.com/2017/4/11/15255318/qualcomm-sues-apple-iphone-countersue-intel https://www.theverge.com/2017/4/11/15255318/qualcomm-sues-ap...
    - selectodude 8y ago
      Furthermore, the iPhone X was intentionally only made with two antennas, even though the Qualcomm X16 supported 4x4 MIMO and thus gigabit LTE because Intel's modem at the time didn't support that. Once Intel could do it, they released the iPhone Xs which is the same body but with the correct antenna support.
throwaway_234 8y ago
https://outline.com/R8j349 https://outline.com/R8j349
- totololo 8y ago
  Wow thanks!
Apreche 8y ago
It's both, just like representative democracy.
sgjohnson 8y ago
The current patent system is utterly broken. Patents should have a validity of 2-3 years maximum.
- paul7986 8y ago
  Indeed it is utterly broken as up until March 2013 it was first to invent allowing the little guys/girls to get their fair share. Upload a demo video of their creation on YouTube and boom you were protected if there was no prior art. Now it's first to file so if your an inventor inventing you better have the thousands of dollars to run to the patent office before some rich lazy tool steals your blood, sweat and tears. Overall the tech companies helped/lobbied to get this terrible law passed!
  - sjwright 8y ago
    Does that mean unpatented prior art no longer applies at all to new patents?
    - jacobolus 8y ago
      Anything which is published before your filing date is prior art. Something sitting in your garage that only you and your drinking buddies know about or something your coworkers have been chatting about on a whiteboard at the office is not prior art. This also means that if you want a patent you need to file a provisional application before publishing your work anywhere (e.g. the other commenter’s YouTube example). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provisional_application https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provisional_application Having a first-to-invent patent system makes patent disputes into complicated messy legal fights about when different people first encountered an idea. First-to-file leaves much less ambiguity.
      - lostmyoldone 8y ago
        Less ambiguity is not automatically an improvement. I'm not convinced that the lowered ambiguity of first to file is a net win. Even with the availability of provisional applications, the 12 month limit on priority date, and the relative stringency required to avoid challenges to the priority date, doesn't seem to tip the scales significantly towards encouraging the creation of what we think of as inventions while simultaneously simplifying possible court proceedings, or lowering ambiguity as you put it.
Lowkeyloki 8y ago
One of the comments on the site proper mentions that in light of the actions of the larger tech companies of the past decade, the commentor feels like they were unfairly harsh in their judgement of Bill Gates in the 1990s. That's such a dangerous conclusion that's used in politics from time to time. Just because X is worse than Y, it doesn't mean that Y wasn't also bad. Y is only better by comparison. It's as objectively bad as it ever was. Strive for better instead of simply settling for not as bad.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- HNthrow22 8y ago
  How is it dangerous? How are you able to equate "I was unfairly harsh in my judgement of X" with "X wasn't bad"? That doesn't follow, it's simply a comparison. Gates and MS anti-trust violations are now standard operating procedure for today's tech giants, the behavior of MS in the 90s looks incredibly harmless when compared to the wildly irresponsible socially dangerous behavior of tech giants today. We seemed to have just collectively forgotten about anti-trust and decided that the natural monopoly of tech services will be the new status quo. But anti-trust is nothing compared to the perils and social consequences of the 'move fast and break things' approach of technology and software today. The Boeing 737max is one recent example, but we're just starting to unravel the social and cultural costs of allowing companies with unprecedented power to shape human behavior and public opinions, dictate what is and is acceptable speech for their platform in the name of quarterly growth. Seems like a reasonable comment and insight to me.
  - soup10 8y ago
    It's strange that ms got busted partly for their handling of internet explorer, but at least on windows there was never any restrictions on what 3rd party software was allowed and no obligation to pay Microsoft a 30% tax on sales. Meanwhile Apple has 50 pages of App Store Review guidelines, routinely rejects apps for political reasons. And collects taxes on everything.
synaesthesisx 8y ago
This is the very reason why I had loaded up on significant amounts of Qualcomm stock earlier this year. Apple pretty much had no choice but to settle a deal with them or get screwed on 5G. I have no doubt that Apple will likely attempt to sever their dependency on Qualcomm when they make eventually make their own modems (they've made incredible strides with their SoC's under Johny Srouji), but it will still be at least a few years before that will even be a reasonable option. The complexity of engineering that goes into a high-performance modem is nothing to sneeze at, especially when Qualcomm owns a significant portion of 5G-related patents. Even Intel threw in the towel upon the realization that the capital expenditure wouldn't be worth it, and it would be impossible to compete with Qualcomm profitably (Intel stock actually jumped up accordingly). Qualcomm will continue to collect licensing/royalties from other manufacturers like Huawei as well, and is in an excellent position frankly.
- wyldfire 8y ago
  > The complexity of engineering that goes into a high-performance modem is nothing to sneeze at For Apple to make a 5G modem that's competitive on power and area with Qualcomm's will be a significant feat. But Apple's got some really good design teams and I'm sure they'll figure it out eventually.
- WrtCdEvrydy 8y ago
  > when they make eventually make their own modems As a former person who was aware of Blackberry Mobility's Modem Firmware division by working within it.... LOL!
  - brmgb 8y ago
    Apple has an extremely competent team of chip designer, decades of experience in manufacturing and plenty of money to snatch top talents. If they want to be serious about modem design and it seems they want to, they will most likely succeed.
    - WrtCdEvrydy 8y ago
      > extremely competent team of chip designer > decades of experience in manufacturing > plenty of money to snatch top talents You understand that Blackberry created their own mobile driver because the 850 released in 1999 predated chip companies providing firmware, right?
axaxs 8y ago
These statements aren't exactly mutually exclusive. Most folks in the industry generally accept QCOM is the best, but also that they are no good. They're borderline patent trolls. While they do some good, the market would've advanced much faster without them.
- systemBuilder 8y ago
  By market, who are you talking about? The Europeans? Seriously? The Asians? With TD-OFDMA? Seriously? Intel? Intel has never been a successful network company. they bought every goddamn Network product (through acquisitions) they ever sold in the marketplace.
  - trevyn 8y ago
    When one company dominates a technology, it reduces incentives for other companies to join or be founded to address that space. If Qualcomm did not exist, there would be a market vacuum of that size, and it is impossible to predict how that vacuum would end up being filled decades later. The hope is that there would have been an entrant with similar technological prowess, but more humane business practices. (I have personally worked with Qualcomm in the past on both technical and business fronts. Their technology can be very good, but their business side can be straight up offensive in their anti-competitive and predatory demands. I would love to be deposed on this topic.)
jchw 8y ago
At least on paper, Apple's work on ARM chips is truly incredible. I recognize that it's not gonna happen but I would kill for a dev board with an A12X, and I doubt I'm alone. (There wouldn't be much of a point to one in practice, but I bet it would make a very formidable low power desktop.)
- TheCoreh 8y ago
  > I bet it would make a very formidable low power desktop Perhaps if Apple really transitions to ARM on the Mac Line, that might be a reality in a couple years. I'm not sure they would want to replace x86 for the 'Pro' Desktop machines, but I don't think an ARM Mac Mini is out of the question.
  - Abishek_Muthian 8y ago
    ARM for Mac depends upon the Software ecosystem. Though much of enthusiast tools are ARM compatible, in the Linux/ARM scene; professional software are long way from it. Unlike a dev board, Mac caters to professional audience. Apart from iOS apps, Several professional x86 software needs to be ported to ARM before ARM Mac becomes a reality.
    - matwood 8y ago
      > Apart from iOS apps, Several professional x86 software needs to be ported to ARM before ARM Mac becomes a reality. While this is true, the iPad Pro is the key. If Apple can continue to get pro apps ported to the pro they will have many already moved to ARM by the time a full machine comes out. See many Adobe apps already out or in progress.
    - philliphaydon 8y ago
      > professional audience Who?
    - jakobegger 8y ago
      If Apple decides to switch to ARM chips, they will have some form of virtualisation technology that'll allow unported apps to run. Sure, performance won't be as good as native, but it'll be good enough to introduce ARM Macs. If they don't have a way to emulate x86 chips, I don't see them introducing ARM Macs.
asr 8y ago
This article is conflating two separate things: Apple said it should pay less for Qualcomm’s PATENTS. It always liked and never really said bad things about Qualcomm’s MODEMS. Patents != modems. Also, the article quotes “Adam Mossoff, a law professor at George Mason University” without disclosing that Qualcomm funds GMU exactly so it will get favorable press like this.[1] I expect better from WaPo. [1] https://cpip.gmu.edu/about/supporters/ https://cpip.gmu.edu/about/supporters/
- wyldfire 8y ago
  The FTC would have you believe that Qualcomm leveraged its patent portfolio in order to unload low quality chips. If that were true, then it would seem to be harming the marketplace. But in reality the chips are market leaders because they deliver superior performance/value, not because of patent leverage. Obtw it's very likely that Apple applied leverage to convince FTC to bring their suit.
  - comex 8y ago
    > The FTC would have you believe that Qualcomm leveraged its patent portfolio in order to unload low quality chips. Citation needed. If anything, it's the reverse: the FTC complained that Qualcomm leveraged its chips in order to get inflated royalties for a low quality patent portfolio. From the original complaint: > a. Qualcomm withholds its baseband processors unless a customer accepts a license to standard-essential patents on terms preferred by Qualcomm, including elevated royalties that the customer must pay when using competitors’ processors (“no license-no chips”). (Edit: The "elevated royalties" part does imply Qualcomm was also trying to prevent its customers from purchasing its competitors' chips, but the way it allegedly negotiated the agreements with those royalties was by threatening to withhold its own chips. If Qualcomm's chips were low quality, a customer wouldn't have much to fear from such a threat. That is very much not the allegation.)
- systemBuilder 8y ago
  Yeah I know you don't really understand how things work. The patents only tell about half the story in the modem design. the part that Qualcomm leaves out of the patents and they leave out of the standards that's the part they put into the modems. It's why Intel's modems are garbage.
winter_blue 8y ago
I have a couple of phones, and the iPhone X has by far the worst Wifi connectivity. My Moto X4 and an older iPhone 6 Plus can both connect to WiFi through walls and other barriers. My iPhone X's loses its WiFi connectivity almost as soon as I leave my room. Even GPS accuracy is unacceptably horrid (making it useless for driving) on the X compared to my old 6 Plus. It's saying something because my iPhone X is the most I've ever spent on a phone. With AppleCare NYC sales tax, the 256GB iPhone X cost me ~$1,450. Approximately what I paid for my MacBook. I don't why the X's connectivity is so poor, buy my best guess is they changed the WiFi/network chip away from Qualcomm.
- systemBuilder 8y ago
  Yes ^^
- npunt 8y ago
  Wifi/bluetooth chip is entirely different from the cell modem and on the iPhone X isn't made by Intel. See: https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iPhone+X+Teardown/98975 https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iPhone+X+Teardown/98975
tooltalk 8y ago
I was actually quite disappointed that they settled at the last minute, as we no longer have access to juicy legal discovery that would have revealed Apple's rotten legal strategies and bad-faith practices. Now it's slowly becoming apparent that Apple fabricated evidences and tricked Qualcomm into legal troubles with regulators (eg, rebates for exclusivity) -- which is why QCOM stopped paying Apple rebates. I don't think Apple is giving up its unscrupulous practices, however, and I'm pretty sure they are setting themselves up for the next battle years from now (Apple is now a direct licensee). In hindsight, QCOM should have taken lessons from Samsung's battle with Apple years back. There were so many red flags from the moment the FTC approved antitrust investigation of QCOM just days ahead of a new administration with 2 of the 5 commissioners missing, against the vehement dissent from the interim chair. I just have to wonder what's in their new licensing/business agreement -- if QCOM had to make concessions like it did before and it's another legal or regulatory minefield.
- robertAngst 8y ago
  I know Apple gets lots of support from HN, but the company has serious ethics problems. While fans brush it off as 'marketing', they would not give Google such a pass. And... lets not forget, the FBI did break into their device. They don't win the privacy game when their device failed to be secure.
  - ceejayoz 8y ago
    > They don't win the privacy game when their device failed to be secure. If given the choice between hanging out with the guy who committed an accidental homicide and a serial killer, I know which one I'd pick.
    - tooltalk 8y ago
      serial killer?
reilly3000 8y ago
I wonder what all of this is like from an engineer’s perspective. I imagine a lot of internal resources were aimed at the problem. There must have been a tremendous amount of pressure to ship something that was ultimately thwarted by the quality of Qualcomm’s product. I’m no hardware engineer, and I’m sure some of the particulars are private... but there is probably a remarkable story there.
systemBuilder 8y ago
I worked for Qualcomm on 802.20. This was their first OFDMA system, complete in 2007 but polished for release at a disastrous time - 2009 - and all the patents were eventually fed into LTE. LTE, being a European standard, was 4 years late and 80% as good ... The company in 2002 used a large compute farm to simulate the entire network stack (57 cells, hundreds of users) and to prototype changes to improve sector throughput. My group built the network emulator and tested TCP performance. They tested and simulated the crap out of their designs. Once the hardware was all built then they drive through the canyons of San Diego which is the second-worst wireless environment on Earth (Hong Kong #1 worst) to tune it so that it works well. Then they charge "too much." The Europeans slap something together, producing networks very sensitive to site planning to work AT ALL, and then they charge a lot more for the network hardware changing data networks the way a young girl changes her shoe color every other day... You have a choice when it comes to wireless network hardware and software. Qualcomm stuff is Rock solid. No other company does half of the design and field proving the Qualcomm does with their Network equipment.
- msh 8y ago
  I think your negativity to Europeans needs some references to back it up.
  - kingosticks 8y ago
    Absolutely any references at all would be a start. As is, this is just a rant.
- omnimus 8y ago
  Seems like you are not a fan od The Europeans.
  - yetihehe 8y ago
    As The European working on replacing firmware from another nation (with a little reverse engineering here and there) I can totally understand that attitude. When you make something really polished with best practices or somethng trully innovative, seeing what rushed underpaid/overmanaged programmers do to code evokes only disgust. Specific examples would be several hours of talking.
devoply 8y ago
It's too expensive. Says a company with hundreds of billions in the bank.
- megaremote 8y ago
  What does one have to do with the other? Nothing at all.
  - Nasrudith 8y ago
    Well it points out that they certainly aren't suffering from ability and don't need to try to skimp on the licensing. There are limits but it points out that trying to keep the price down wasn't necessary. Now the true definition of 'overpriced' in this context is 'can they have some alternative that can do a better or cheaper'? Both will try to maximize their own profits and it is possible Apple made a penny wise pound foolish plan to try to cut costs.
totololo 8y ago
Aggressive paywall for me... Can't even read a single line!
- jshevek 8y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19704410 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19704410
  - totololo 8y ago
    Wow thanks!
mcculley 8y ago
Is this whole patent mess the reason one cannot buy a MacBook Pro with an builtin LTE modem? I'm baffled that they don't supply such an option.
rudiv 8y ago
I wonder if there's a r/applecirclejerks subreddit.
benologist 8y ago
Apple only pocket hundreds in profit per phone so it makes sense Tim would freak out about paying Qualcomm less than $10. Withholding royalties till you can pay less is as unnecessary as downplaying hardware issues and avoiding taxes.
adolph 8y ago
One could say that something is the best (relatively) and that something is no good (absolute) without contradicting oneself, right?

167 points by wallflower 8y ago

TL;DR: Apple argued in court that Qualcomm wasn't licensing their patents fairly, something they agreed to do by helping shape standards based on them. They did this through "creating evidence" by negotiating and selecting for favorable (but non-equivalent) patent deals as examples.

eridius 8y ago
I find it odd that the article is implying that the only reason for Apple to negotiate for cheap patent licenses elsewhere is to artificially portray Qualcomm as overcharging, when surely it's in Apple's interest in general to negotiate favorable patent licensing deals. Even if Apple's sole goal was to prove that they could license a much larger portfolio of patents for much less as a way of demonstrating that Qualcomm is overcharging, the fact that this was their goal doesn't make them wrong. "I'm going to prove you're overcharging by demonstrating that I can license other patents cheaply. Look, I licensed other patents cheaply!" is actually a pretty good argument that Qualcomm is overcharging.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- grigjd3 8y ago
  The difference is the supporting documents found by Qualcomm during discovery. Internal Apple documents stated that Apple was actively trying to portray Qualcomm's patents as inferior by going to other providers.
  - eridius 8y ago
    Where does it say that? I've read the article twice now, and nowhere does it say that Apple internal memos tried to say Qualcomm's patents were somehow inferior. What it said was they intentionally licensed less-expensive patents to try and make Qualcomm's look more expensive, but that's the argument I already addressed.
    - tooltalk 8y ago
      That's exactly what the FTC did during their trial. The FTC lined up QCOM's competitors and had them testify that QCOM's patents were insignificant/inferior compared to their own patent portfolio. I'm fairly sure that this repertoire was in Apple lawyer's play too.
      - eridius 8y ago
        I can't seem to find an article talking about what you just described. Though I'm not sure what the FTC did even matters since we're talking about Apple, not the FTC.
- tooltalk 8y ago
  No. the problem here wasn't that Apple was a tough negotiator, but that it also lied to regulators around the world that QCOM violated their FRAND obligation by overcharging. The FTC obviously had no such proof that QCOM was "overcharging" or breached their FRAND obligation, so instead they used the euphemism like "elevated fee" to describe QCOM's licensing practice. In other regulatory investigation, QCOM wasn't even allowed full access to Apple's false testimony (eg, rebates for exclusivity or Apple's switch to Intel), much less representation to respond to its accusation.

atomical 8y ago

https://outline.com/R8j34 https://outline.com/R8j34

selectodude 8y ago

For all the posturing, Apple was nerfing Qualcomm's chipsets in the iPhone X to bring them to feature parity with Intel's garbage.

mwfunk 8y ago
How so? I hadn't heard about this.
- synaesthesisx 8y ago
  Apple had given Intel modems a shot, and then users started complaining about performance differences. In some cases the Qualcomm modems would outperform the Intel ones by over 70%, especially in situations with low/weak signal. To maintain consistency and avoid outrage they tried to intentionally nerf the Qualcomm modem performance in these situations (since the Intel ones were lagging behind significantly). https://www.theverge.com/2017/4/11/15255318/qualcomm-sues-apple-iphone-countersue-intel https://www.theverge.com/2017/4/11/15255318/qualcomm-sues-ap...
  - selectodude 8y ago
    Furthermore, the iPhone X was intentionally only made with two antennas, even though the Qualcomm X16 supported 4x4 MIMO and thus gigabit LTE because Intel's modem at the time didn't support that. Once Intel could do it, they released the iPhone Xs which is the same body but with the correct antenna support.

throwaway_234 8y ago

https://outline.com/R8j349 https://outline.com/R8j349

totololo 8y ago
Wow thanks!

Apreche 8y ago

It's both, just like representative democracy.

sgjohnson 8y ago

The current patent system is utterly broken. Patents should have a validity of 2-3 years maximum.

paul7986 8y ago
Indeed it is utterly broken as up until March 2013 it was first to invent allowing the little guys/girls to get their fair share. Upload a demo video of their creation on YouTube and boom you were protected if there was no prior art. Now it's first to file so if your an inventor inventing you better have the thousands of dollars to run to the patent office before some rich lazy tool steals your blood, sweat and tears. Overall the tech companies helped/lobbied to get this terrible law passed!
- sjwright 8y ago
  Does that mean unpatented prior art no longer applies at all to new patents?
  - jacobolus 8y ago
    Anything which is published before your filing date is prior art. Something sitting in your garage that only you and your drinking buddies know about or something your coworkers have been chatting about on a whiteboard at the office is not prior art. This also means that if you want a patent you need to file a provisional application before publishing your work anywhere (e.g. the other commenter’s YouTube example). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provisional_application https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provisional_application Having a first-to-invent patent system makes patent disputes into complicated messy legal fights about when different people first encountered an idea. First-to-file leaves much less ambiguity.
    - lostmyoldone 8y ago
      Less ambiguity is not automatically an improvement. I'm not convinced that the lowered ambiguity of first to file is a net win. Even with the availability of provisional applications, the 12 month limit on priority date, and the relative stringency required to avoid challenges to the priority date, doesn't seem to tip the scales significantly towards encouraging the creation of what we think of as inventions while simultaneously simplifying possible court proceedings, or lowering ambiguity as you put it.

Lowkeyloki 8y ago

One of the comments on the site proper mentions that in light of the actions of the larger tech companies of the past decade, the commentor feels like they were unfairly harsh in their judgement of Bill Gates in the 1990s. That's such a dangerous conclusion that's used in politics from time to time. Just because X is worse than Y, it doesn't mean that Y wasn't also bad. Y is only better by comparison. It's as objectively bad as it ever was. Strive for better instead of simply settling for not as bad.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
HNthrow22 8y ago
How is it dangerous? How are you able to equate "I was unfairly harsh in my judgement of X" with "X wasn't bad"? That doesn't follow, it's simply a comparison. Gates and MS anti-trust violations are now standard operating procedure for today's tech giants, the behavior of MS in the 90s looks incredibly harmless when compared to the wildly irresponsible socially dangerous behavior of tech giants today. We seemed to have just collectively forgotten about anti-trust and decided that the natural monopoly of tech services will be the new status quo. But anti-trust is nothing compared to the perils and social consequences of the 'move fast and break things' approach of technology and software today. The Boeing 737max is one recent example, but we're just starting to unravel the social and cultural costs of allowing companies with unprecedented power to shape human behavior and public opinions, dictate what is and is acceptable speech for their platform in the name of quarterly growth. Seems like a reasonable comment and insight to me.
- soup10 8y ago
  It's strange that ms got busted partly for their handling of internet explorer, but at least on windows there was never any restrictions on what 3rd party software was allowed and no obligation to pay Microsoft a 30% tax on sales. Meanwhile Apple has 50 pages of App Store Review guidelines, routinely rejects apps for political reasons. And collects taxes on everything.

synaesthesisx 8y ago

This is the very reason why I had loaded up on significant amounts of Qualcomm stock earlier this year. Apple pretty much had no choice but to settle a deal with them or get screwed on 5G. I have no doubt that Apple will likely attempt to sever their dependency on Qualcomm when they make eventually make their own modems (they've made incredible strides with their SoC's under Johny Srouji), but it will still be at least a few years before that will even be a reasonable option. The complexity of engineering that goes into a high-performance modem is nothing to sneeze at, especially when Qualcomm owns a significant portion of 5G-related patents. Even Intel threw in the towel upon the realization that the capital expenditure wouldn't be worth it, and it would be impossible to compete with Qualcomm profitably (Intel stock actually jumped up accordingly). Qualcomm will continue to collect licensing/royalties from other manufacturers like Huawei as well, and is in an excellent position frankly.

wyldfire 8y ago
> The complexity of engineering that goes into a high-performance modem is nothing to sneeze at For Apple to make a 5G modem that's competitive on power and area with Qualcomm's will be a significant feat. But Apple's got some really good design teams and I'm sure they'll figure it out eventually.
WrtCdEvrydy 8y ago
> when they make eventually make their own modems As a former person who was aware of Blackberry Mobility's Modem Firmware division by working within it.... LOL!
- brmgb 8y ago
  Apple has an extremely competent team of chip designer, decades of experience in manufacturing and plenty of money to snatch top talents. If they want to be serious about modem design and it seems they want to, they will most likely succeed.
  - WrtCdEvrydy 8y ago
    > extremely competent team of chip designer > decades of experience in manufacturing > plenty of money to snatch top talents You understand that Blackberry created their own mobile driver because the 850 released in 1999 predated chip companies providing firmware, right?

axaxs 8y ago

These statements aren't exactly mutually exclusive. Most folks in the industry generally accept QCOM is the best, but also that they are no good. They're borderline patent trolls. While they do some good, the market would've advanced much faster without them.

systemBuilder 8y ago
By market, who are you talking about? The Europeans? Seriously? The Asians? With TD-OFDMA? Seriously? Intel? Intel has never been a successful network company. they bought every goddamn Network product (through acquisitions) they ever sold in the marketplace.
- trevyn 8y ago
  When one company dominates a technology, it reduces incentives for other companies to join or be founded to address that space. If Qualcomm did not exist, there would be a market vacuum of that size, and it is impossible to predict how that vacuum would end up being filled decades later. The hope is that there would have been an entrant with similar technological prowess, but more humane business practices. (I have personally worked with Qualcomm in the past on both technical and business fronts. Their technology can be very good, but their business side can be straight up offensive in their anti-competitive and predatory demands. I would love to be deposed on this topic.)

jchw 8y ago

At least on paper, Apple's work on ARM chips is truly incredible. I recognize that it's not gonna happen but I would kill for a dev board with an A12X, and I doubt I'm alone. (There wouldn't be much of a point to one in practice, but I bet it would make a very formidable low power desktop.)

TheCoreh 8y ago
> I bet it would make a very formidable low power desktop Perhaps if Apple really transitions to ARM on the Mac Line, that might be a reality in a couple years. I'm not sure they would want to replace x86 for the 'Pro' Desktop machines, but I don't think an ARM Mac Mini is out of the question.
- Abishek_Muthian 8y ago
  ARM for Mac depends upon the Software ecosystem. Though much of enthusiast tools are ARM compatible, in the Linux/ARM scene; professional software are long way from it. Unlike a dev board, Mac caters to professional audience. Apart from iOS apps, Several professional x86 software needs to be ported to ARM before ARM Mac becomes a reality.
  - matwood 8y ago
    > Apart from iOS apps, Several professional x86 software needs to be ported to ARM before ARM Mac becomes a reality. While this is true, the iPad Pro is the key. If Apple can continue to get pro apps ported to the pro they will have many already moved to ARM by the time a full machine comes out. See many Adobe apps already out or in progress.
  - philliphaydon 8y ago
    > professional audience Who?
  - jakobegger 8y ago
    If Apple decides to switch to ARM chips, they will have some form of virtualisation technology that'll allow unported apps to run. Sure, performance won't be as good as native, but it'll be good enough to introduce ARM Macs. If they don't have a way to emulate x86 chips, I don't see them introducing ARM Macs.

asr 8y ago

This article is conflating two separate things: Apple said it should pay less for Qualcomm’s PATENTS. It always liked and never really said bad things about Qualcomm’s MODEMS. Patents != modems. Also, the article quotes “Adam Mossoff, a law professor at George Mason University” without disclosing that Qualcomm funds GMU exactly so it will get favorable press like this.[1] I expect better from WaPo. [1] https://cpip.gmu.edu/about/supporters/ https://cpip.gmu.edu/about/supporters/

wyldfire 8y ago
The FTC would have you believe that Qualcomm leveraged its patent portfolio in order to unload low quality chips. If that were true, then it would seem to be harming the marketplace. But in reality the chips are market leaders because they deliver superior performance/value, not because of patent leverage. Obtw it's very likely that Apple applied leverage to convince FTC to bring their suit.
- comex 8y ago
  > The FTC would have you believe that Qualcomm leveraged its patent portfolio in order to unload low quality chips. Citation needed. If anything, it's the reverse: the FTC complained that Qualcomm leveraged its chips in order to get inflated royalties for a low quality patent portfolio. From the original complaint: > a. Qualcomm withholds its baseband processors unless a customer accepts a license to standard-essential patents on terms preferred by Qualcomm, including elevated royalties that the customer must pay when using competitors’ processors (“no license-no chips”). (Edit: The "elevated royalties" part does imply Qualcomm was also trying to prevent its customers from purchasing its competitors' chips, but the way it allegedly negotiated the agreements with those royalties was by threatening to withhold its own chips. If Qualcomm's chips were low quality, a customer wouldn't have much to fear from such a threat. That is very much not the allegation.)
systemBuilder 8y ago
Yeah I know you don't really understand how things work. The patents only tell about half the story in the modem design. the part that Qualcomm leaves out of the patents and they leave out of the standards that's the part they put into the modems. It's why Intel's modems are garbage.

winter_blue 8y ago

I have a couple of phones, and the iPhone X has by far the worst Wifi connectivity. My Moto X4 and an older iPhone 6 Plus can both connect to WiFi through walls and other barriers. My iPhone X's loses its WiFi connectivity almost as soon as I leave my room. Even GPS accuracy is unacceptably horrid (making it useless for driving) on the X compared to my old 6 Plus. It's saying something because my iPhone X is the most I've ever spent on a phone. With AppleCare NYC sales tax, the 256GB iPhone X cost me ~$1,450. Approximately what I paid for my MacBook. I don't why the X's connectivity is so poor, buy my best guess is they changed the WiFi/network chip away from Qualcomm.

systemBuilder 8y ago
Yes ^^
npunt 8y ago
Wifi/bluetooth chip is entirely different from the cell modem and on the iPhone X isn't made by Intel. See: https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iPhone+X+Teardown/98975 https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iPhone+X+Teardown/98975

tooltalk 8y ago

I was actually quite disappointed that they settled at the last minute, as we no longer have access to juicy legal discovery that would have revealed Apple's rotten legal strategies and bad-faith practices. Now it's slowly becoming apparent that Apple fabricated evidences and tricked Qualcomm into legal troubles with regulators (eg, rebates for exclusivity) -- which is why QCOM stopped paying Apple rebates. I don't think Apple is giving up its unscrupulous practices, however, and I'm pretty sure they are setting themselves up for the next battle years from now (Apple is now a direct licensee). In hindsight, QCOM should have taken lessons from Samsung's battle with Apple years back. There were so many red flags from the moment the FTC approved antitrust investigation of QCOM just days ahead of a new administration with 2 of the 5 commissioners missing, against the vehement dissent from the interim chair. I just have to wonder what's in their new licensing/business agreement -- if QCOM had to make concessions like it did before and it's another legal or regulatory minefield.

robertAngst 8y ago
I know Apple gets lots of support from HN, but the company has serious ethics problems. While fans brush it off as 'marketing', they would not give Google such a pass. And... lets not forget, the FBI did break into their device. They don't win the privacy game when their device failed to be secure.
- ceejayoz 8y ago
  > They don't win the privacy game when their device failed to be secure. If given the choice between hanging out with the guy who committed an accidental homicide and a serial killer, I know which one I'd pick.
  - tooltalk 8y ago
    serial killer?

reilly3000 8y ago

I wonder what all of this is like from an engineer’s perspective. I imagine a lot of internal resources were aimed at the problem. There must have been a tremendous amount of pressure to ship something that was ultimately thwarted by the quality of Qualcomm’s product. I’m no hardware engineer, and I’m sure some of the particulars are private... but there is probably a remarkable story there.

systemBuilder 8y ago

I worked for Qualcomm on 802.20. This was their first OFDMA system, complete in 2007 but polished for release at a disastrous time - 2009 - and all the patents were eventually fed into LTE. LTE, being a European standard, was 4 years late and 80% as good ... The company in 2002 used a large compute farm to simulate the entire network stack (57 cells, hundreds of users) and to prototype changes to improve sector throughput. My group built the network emulator and tested TCP performance. They tested and simulated the crap out of their designs. Once the hardware was all built then they drive through the canyons of San Diego which is the second-worst wireless environment on Earth (Hong Kong #1 worst) to tune it so that it works well. Then they charge "too much." The Europeans slap something together, producing networks very sensitive to site planning to work AT ALL, and then they charge a lot more for the network hardware changing data networks the way a young girl changes her shoe color every other day... You have a choice when it comes to wireless network hardware and software. Qualcomm stuff is Rock solid. No other company does half of the design and field proving the Qualcomm does with their Network equipment.

msh 8y ago
I think your negativity to Europeans needs some references to back it up.
- kingosticks 8y ago
  Absolutely any references at all would be a start. As is, this is just a rant.
omnimus 8y ago
Seems like you are not a fan od The Europeans.
- yetihehe 8y ago
  As The European working on replacing firmware from another nation (with a little reverse engineering here and there) I can totally understand that attitude. When you make something really polished with best practices or somethng trully innovative, seeing what rushed underpaid/overmanaged programmers do to code evokes only disgust. Specific examples would be several hours of talking.

devoply 8y ago

It's too expensive. Says a company with hundreds of billions in the bank.

megaremote 8y ago
What does one have to do with the other? Nothing at all.
- Nasrudith 8y ago
  Well it points out that they certainly aren't suffering from ability and don't need to try to skimp on the licensing. There are limits but it points out that trying to keep the price down wasn't necessary. Now the true definition of 'overpriced' in this context is 'can they have some alternative that can do a better or cheaper'? Both will try to maximize their own profits and it is possible Apple made a penny wise pound foolish plan to try to cut costs.

totololo 8y ago

Aggressive paywall for me... Can't even read a single line!

jshevek 8y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19704410 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19704410
- totololo 8y ago
  Wow thanks!

mcculley 8y ago

Is this whole patent mess the reason one cannot buy a MacBook Pro with an builtin LTE modem? I'm baffled that they don't supply such an option.

rudiv 8y ago

I wonder if there's a r/applecirclejerks subreddit.

benologist 8y ago

Apple only pocket hundreds in profit per phone so it makes sense Tim would freak out about paying Qualcomm less than $10. Withholding royalties till you can pay less is as unnecessary as downplaying hardware issues and avoiding taxes.

adolph 8y ago

One could say that something is the best (relatively) and that something is no good (absolute) without contradicting oneself, right?