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is there a possibility that Apple starts gaining such a lead that none of the others are able to catch up. Could we all be running Apple hardware in say 7 years

is there a possibility that Apple starts gaining such a lead that none of the others are able to catch up. Could we all be running Apple hardware in say 7 years because the rest never could match the performance of Apple silicon, due to the late start? like what are the odds of qualcomm today matching the A12 in 5 years even?

kyriakos 6y ago
Highly doubt it - even though apple is a giant you can't underestimate everyone else who are also massive giants. Qualcomm until now may had no real reason to step out of its incremental performance increases with every generation since almost everyone on Android camp uses its SoC's for their flagships anyway. Similar to how Intel has been slowly pushing small gradual upgrades to their to CPU's until AMD managed to do something better and now we see Intel pushing more cores than before to catch up.
- bilal4hmed 6y ago
  Im truly ignorant on this. Who is Qualcomms competition ? given that all android phones are running just their chips, whats their incentive to catch up to Apple when they can just waddle along their current path.
  - kyriakos 6y ago
    Apple taking over the arm laptop market is now their competition. Qualcomm was to gain big if Windows on ARM took off and chewed off a part of the x86 marketshare, but as the author of the parent comment suggested there's a chance apple could leapfrog everyone and they won't be able to catch up meaning less windows devices. qualcomm would be at loss.
    - bilal4hmed 6y ago
      thank you for explaining. Im also the original commentator lol. I still worry about us entering in to a monoculture.
      - kyriakos 6y ago
        Sorry missed that :)
  - mappu 6y ago
    > Who is Qualcomms competition ? given that all android phones are running just their chips Mediatek, Samsung, HiSilicon (Huawei) are the high-end competition that produce competitive smartphone SoCs with the latest ARM cores. Rockchip and Allwinner are the low-mid-end competition that produce a huge volume of low cost smartphone SoCs. For smartphones, since anyone can license an A76 (or better) core from ARM themselves, Qualcomm's key moat is really in their modem IP - where the competition is Huawei, Unisoc, and whoever ends up purchasing Intel's out-to-pasture 5G division. Amlogic, Broadcom (Raspberry Pi), Cavium (Servers + NAS appliances), Renesas (Automotive), NVIDIA, Ampere (Servers), and now Amazon (Graviton2) are all major ARM SoC manufacturers somewhat outside the direct Android smartphone space.
- scarface74 6y ago
  And it still doesn’t. The high end Android market is minuscule. You can see how little it threw at creating competitive processors for wearables because the market just wasn’t there compared to Apple.
  - kyriakos 6y ago
    That's not true at all, just Samsung Galaxy top model sells about half as much as Apple sells iPhones and that's in USA where iOS has the highest market share. If you add other brands to the mix you can't call high end android sales miniscule. Look at https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.androidcentral.com/samsung-galaxy-s10-sales-strong-first-quarter-phone-shipments-decline%3famp https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.androidcentral.com/samsung-...
    - scarface74 6y ago
      That article says 2 million phones. Do you really think Apple ships only 4 million phones in the US? It also only includes the XR.
      - kyriakos 6y ago
        It talks about 1 quarter and one model from each brand.
        scarface74 6y ago
        That’s the issue. Samsung sells a lot of low end crap under the Galaxy brand also. If they didn’t, their ASP wouldn’t be so low. https://www.gizchina.com/2020/06/14/the-average-selling-price-of-samsung-phones-has-risen-to-its-highest-level-in-6-years/ https://www.gizchina.com/2020/06/14/the-average-selling-pric... The article is bragging that the ASP of all Samsung phones is $292. That’s $100 lower than the lowest cost iPhone. Apple also captures 66% Of mobile profits. https://www.counterpointresearch.com/apple-continues-lead-global-handset-industry-profit-share/ https://www.counterpointresearch.com/apple-continues-lead-gl...
imtringued 6y ago
Low because there is no demand for high end processors.

kyriakos 6y ago

Highly doubt it - even though apple is a giant you can't underestimate everyone else who are also massive giants. Qualcomm until now may had no real reason to step out of its incremental performance increases with every generation since almost everyone on Android camp uses its SoC's for their flagships anyway. Similar to how Intel has been slowly pushing small gradual upgrades to their to CPU's until AMD managed to do something better and now we see Intel pushing more cores than before to catch up.

bilal4hmed 6y ago
Im truly ignorant on this. Who is Qualcomms competition ? given that all android phones are running just their chips, whats their incentive to catch up to Apple when they can just waddle along their current path.
- kyriakos 6y ago
  Apple taking over the arm laptop market is now their competition. Qualcomm was to gain big if Windows on ARM took off and chewed off a part of the x86 marketshare, but as the author of the parent comment suggested there's a chance apple could leapfrog everyone and they won't be able to catch up meaning less windows devices. qualcomm would be at loss.
  - bilal4hmed 6y ago
    thank you for explaining. Im also the original commentator lol. I still worry about us entering in to a monoculture.
    - kyriakos 6y ago
      Sorry missed that :)
- mappu 6y ago
  > Who is Qualcomms competition ? given that all android phones are running just their chips Mediatek, Samsung, HiSilicon (Huawei) are the high-end competition that produce competitive smartphone SoCs with the latest ARM cores. Rockchip and Allwinner are the low-mid-end competition that produce a huge volume of low cost smartphone SoCs. For smartphones, since anyone can license an A76 (or better) core from ARM themselves, Qualcomm's key moat is really in their modem IP - where the competition is Huawei, Unisoc, and whoever ends up purchasing Intel's out-to-pasture 5G division. Amlogic, Broadcom (Raspberry Pi), Cavium (Servers + NAS appliances), Renesas (Automotive), NVIDIA, Ampere (Servers), and now Amazon (Graviton2) are all major ARM SoC manufacturers somewhat outside the direct Android smartphone space.
scarface74 6y ago
And it still doesn’t. The high end Android market is minuscule. You can see how little it threw at creating competitive processors for wearables because the market just wasn’t there compared to Apple.
- kyriakos 6y ago
  That's not true at all, just Samsung Galaxy top model sells about half as much as Apple sells iPhones and that's in USA where iOS has the highest market share. If you add other brands to the mix you can't call high end android sales miniscule. Look at https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.androidcentral.com/samsung-galaxy-s10-sales-strong-first-quarter-phone-shipments-decline%3famp https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.androidcentral.com/samsung-...
  - scarface74 6y ago
    That article says 2 million phones. Do you really think Apple ships only 4 million phones in the US? It also only includes the XR.
    - kyriakos 6y ago
      It talks about 1 quarter and one model from each brand.
      - scarface74 6y ago
        That’s the issue. Samsung sells a lot of low end crap under the Galaxy brand also. If they didn’t, their ASP wouldn’t be so low. https://www.gizchina.com/2020/06/14/the-average-selling-price-of-samsung-phones-has-risen-to-its-highest-level-in-6-years/ https://www.gizchina.com/2020/06/14/the-average-selling-pric... The article is bragging that the ASP of all Samsung phones is $292. That’s $100 lower than the lowest cost iPhone. Apple also captures 66% Of mobile profits. https://www.counterpointresearch.com/apple-continues-lead-global-handset-industry-profit-share/ https://www.counterpointresearch.com/apple-continues-lead-gl...

imtringued 6y ago

Low because there is no demand for high end processors.