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Somewhat ironic commentary considering they were just as unable to ship the CrunchPad. And what did ship (the JooJoo) got completely panned in the reviews. Rea

by tghw 16y ago

Somewhat ironic commentary considering they were just as unable to ship the CrunchPad. And what did ship (the JooJoo) got completely panned in the reviews. Really the issue is that hardware is hard to get right and requires a lot of resources, resources that Apple has and many other companies do not.

taylorbuley 16y ago
Right on. Seems like polishing the prototype isn't the only hard part. Operations/supply/etc. are not trivial processes.
whakojacko 16y ago
"Really the issue is that hardware is hard to get right and requires a lot of resources, resources that Apple has and many other companies do not." More than just that, Apple also has the considerable advantage of owning almost all of their stack. They make their own chips to power their hardware which runs their OS which uses their applications and their infrastructure. Apple has aggressively taken control of the entire top to bottom stack (eg App Store reviews, acquiring PA Semi) like nobody else has been willing and/or able to.
- martythemaniak 16y ago
  Samsung makes their processor.
  - whakojacko 16y ago
    Samsung manufactures their processor. But the design of the A4 was done in-house by Apple. Edit: It does appear that Samsung helped design it, thanks for the correction HN :) I think my overall point still stands though
    - patrickaljord 16y ago
      A4 is just a customized version of the latest ARM.
      - whakojacko 16y ago
        Sure, but basically every mobile processor "is just a customized version" of some ARM design. My point is that Apple goes out of their way to control the design/performance instead of taking an off the shelf TI/Qualcomm/NVIDIA etc chip
        detst 16y ago
        But the context of this discussion is that getting to market with hardware is hard. "[C]ontrol[ing] the design/performance" is only going to make that more difficult, not easier, than going off-the-self.
        akgerber 16y ago
        Qualcomm's recent apps processors are in-house designs by an ex-IBM team. I believe Nvidia's are, as well.
    - martythemaniak 16y ago
      "The Cortex-A8 core used in the A4 is thought to use performance enhancements developed by chip designer Intrinsity (which was subsequently acquired by Apple)[10] in collaboration with Samsung.[11] The resulting core, dubbed "Hummingbird".. is also used in Samsung's S5PC110A01 SoC." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_A4 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_A4 The Samsung Galaxy S has the S5PC110 processor. This processor combines a 45 nm 1 GHz ARM Cortex A8 based CPU core with a PowerVR SGX 540 GPU made by Imagination Technologies which supports OpenGL ES 1.1/2.0[21] and is capable of up to 20 million triangles per second.[3] The CPU core, code-named "Hummingbird", was co-developed by Samsung and Intrinsity.[22] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Galaxy_S#Processor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Galaxy_S#Processor I guess you also consider added a wing and a skirt to a Civic "original design", with the car merely "manufactured" by Honda.
      - whakojacko 16y ago
        point taken, edit added
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
- MaysonL 16y ago
  They don't own their whole stack, but they do control it - especially the critical stuff - to a larger extent than other verndors. They've done this by making large bets on component manufacturers: first on flash memory, now on displays or touchscreens (or both).
rje 16y ago
But shouldn't companies like Motorola, Samsung, Palm, et al have those resources at their disposal? They are consumer electronics companies, after all.
- mburns 16y ago
  Sony is almost exactly 1/10th the size of Apple (in terms of Market Cap). Don't underestimate just how much weight Apple is throwing around these days. Sonly also doesn't fab their own processors for mobile devices like Apple now does.
  - masklinn 16y ago
    > Sony is almost exactly 1/10th the size of Apple (in terms of Market Cap). Sony is also 130% the size of Apple in terms of revenue, 180% the size of Apple in terms of assets and 340% the size of Apple in terms of employees headcount. > Sonly also doesn't fab their own processors for mobile devices like Apple now does. Apple does not fab their own processors (for mobile devices or otherwise), and — up to the A4 anyway — don't have that much input into them (the A4 is almost of-the-shelf, we'll have to see for the A5 but so far there's been no great works there)
    - cosmicray 16y ago
      > Sony is also 130% the size of Apple in terms of revenue, 180% the size of Apple in terms of assets and 340% the size of Apple in terms of employees headcount. Which suggests that Sony makes ~39% of the revenue per employee that Apple does.
      - masklinn 16y ago
        Sure, Apple is one of the most efficient companies in the world at making money. Apple also has $14bn net income while Sony has $-500m.
- muhfuhkuh 16y ago
  They are big, no doubt. But they aren't as innovative as they once were. Palm is HP now, and HP is squarely in the commodity hardware business. You can't outstyle a boutique marketing haute couture when you sell K-mart seconds. I mean, even Nokia had to capitulate to stay competitive in the smartphone market, ceding control to a not-even-second-place Phone 7 software stack with an app store ecosystem that literally has to bribe hot developers to port over their stuff let alone have a fiercely competitive market like App Store or Android Marketplace.

by tghw 16y ago

taylorbuley 16y ago

Right on. Seems like polishing the prototype isn't the only hard part. Operations/supply/etc. are not trivial processes.

whakojacko 16y ago

"Really the issue is that hardware is hard to get right and requires a lot of resources, resources that Apple has and many other companies do not." More than just that, Apple also has the considerable advantage of owning almost all of their stack. They make their own chips to power their hardware which runs their OS which uses their applications and their infrastructure. Apple has aggressively taken control of the entire top to bottom stack (eg App Store reviews, acquiring PA Semi) like nobody else has been willing and/or able to.

martythemaniak 16y ago
Samsung makes their processor.
- whakojacko 16y ago
  Samsung manufactures their processor. But the design of the A4 was done in-house by Apple. Edit: It does appear that Samsung helped design it, thanks for the correction HN :) I think my overall point still stands though
  - patrickaljord 16y ago
    A4 is just a customized version of the latest ARM.
    - whakojacko 16y ago
      Sure, but basically every mobile processor "is just a customized version" of some ARM design. My point is that Apple goes out of their way to control the design/performance instead of taking an off the shelf TI/Qualcomm/NVIDIA etc chip
      - detst 16y ago
        But the context of this discussion is that getting to market with hardware is hard. "[C]ontrol[ing] the design/performance" is only going to make that more difficult, not easier, than going off-the-self.
      - akgerber 16y ago
        Qualcomm's recent apps processors are in-house designs by an ex-IBM team. I believe Nvidia's are, as well.
  - martythemaniak 16y ago
    "The Cortex-A8 core used in the A4 is thought to use performance enhancements developed by chip designer Intrinsity (which was subsequently acquired by Apple)[10] in collaboration with Samsung.[11] The resulting core, dubbed "Hummingbird".. is also used in Samsung's S5PC110A01 SoC." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_A4 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_A4 The Samsung Galaxy S has the S5PC110 processor. This processor combines a 45 nm 1 GHz ARM Cortex A8 based CPU core with a PowerVR SGX 540 GPU made by Imagination Technologies which supports OpenGL ES 1.1/2.0[21] and is capable of up to 20 million triangles per second.[3] The CPU core, code-named "Hummingbird", was co-developed by Samsung and Intrinsity.[22] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Galaxy_S#Processor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Galaxy_S#Processor I guess you also consider added a wing and a skirt to a Civic "original design", with the car merely "manufactured" by Honda.
    - whakojacko 16y ago
      point taken, edit added
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
MaysonL 16y ago
They don't own their whole stack, but they do control it - especially the critical stuff - to a larger extent than other verndors. They've done this by making large bets on component manufacturers: first on flash memory, now on displays or touchscreens (or both).

rje 16y ago

But shouldn't companies like Motorola, Samsung, Palm, et al have those resources at their disposal? They are consumer electronics companies, after all.

mburns 16y ago
Sony is almost exactly 1/10th the size of Apple (in terms of Market Cap). Don't underestimate just how much weight Apple is throwing around these days. Sonly also doesn't fab their own processors for mobile devices like Apple now does.
- masklinn 16y ago
  > Sony is almost exactly 1/10th the size of Apple (in terms of Market Cap). Sony is also 130% the size of Apple in terms of revenue, 180% the size of Apple in terms of assets and 340% the size of Apple in terms of employees headcount. > Sonly also doesn't fab their own processors for mobile devices like Apple now does. Apple does not fab their own processors (for mobile devices or otherwise), and — up to the A4 anyway — don't have that much input into them (the A4 is almost of-the-shelf, we'll have to see for the A5 but so far there's been no great works there)
  - cosmicray 16y ago
    > Sony is also 130% the size of Apple in terms of revenue, 180% the size of Apple in terms of assets and 340% the size of Apple in terms of employees headcount. Which suggests that Sony makes ~39% of the revenue per employee that Apple does.
    - masklinn 16y ago
      Sure, Apple is one of the most efficient companies in the world at making money. Apple also has $14bn net income while Sony has $-500m.
muhfuhkuh 16y ago
They are big, no doubt. But they aren't as innovative as they once were. Palm is HP now, and HP is squarely in the commodity hardware business. You can't outstyle a boutique marketing haute couture when you sell K-mart seconds. I mean, even Nokia had to capitulate to stay competitive in the smartphone market, ceding control to a not-even-second-place Phone 7 software stack with an app store ecosystem that literally has to bribe hot developers to port over their stuff let alone have a fiercely competitive market like App Store or Android Marketplace.