4 ms·

This is Apple's opportunity to become a hardware giant. I hope they don't mess this up.

by jbirer 6y ago

qayxc 6y ago
> This is Apple's opportunity to become a hardware giant. You meant this as a joke, didn't you? Just in case you didn't: Apple already is a, if not the hardware giant - it became the first trillion-dollar company a year ago and just passed the $2 trillion mark in August.
- jbirer 6y ago
  Trillion dolar company =/= hardware giant. On the server,datacenter and large scale CPU processing scenes you don't see much Apple hardware. But now it is starting to look like a feasible option. We might see Mac Pro's in the datacenter rooms soon.
  - tonyedgecombe 6y ago
    I don't think they will ever be interested in the datacenter again. Making consumer products is in their DNA, servers isn't.
    - cmrdporcupine 6y ago
      Yep. The XServe was a great product. It just made no financial sense, and with the long tail of the server market being pretty much AWS/GCP/Azure, it makes even less sense for Apple now than then.
  - Frost1x 6y ago
    Maybe were talking about enterprise datacenter giant more than hardware giant? I'm curious what those distributions are since I've worked very little in enterprise scale datacenters, just utilized them with non-Apple hardware. Apple develops and manufacturers a lot of hardware (one of the few positive things I'll plug them for). I would definitely consider them a generic "hardware giant" in that context. Much of this hardware are phones, watches, laptops, and peripherals. I know their server/datacenter market is traditionally pretty slim but don't know what it typically looks like. I know AWS recently announced Mac EC2 instances[1]. The fact EC2 has been so dominant and Apple hardware in EC2 is just now arriving gives much merit that they're not in that much demand in datacenters. I work in research and have only encountered a handful of instances where projects interfaced with Apple hardware (especially in a datacenter) but there's no reason that couldn't shift given Apple's capital and talent pool that already exists. [1] https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/new-use-mac-instances-to-build-test-macos-ios-ipados-tvos-and-watchos-apps/ https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/new-use-mac-instances-to-bu...
  - cmrdporcupine 6y ago
    Apple has taken several kicks at that can over the last couple decades and each time it's been a flop. Not because the hardware wasn't good, but because it's just not the kind of market that makes sense for them and their business model. They're not interested in low-margin commodity bulk product. They're a luxury brand and they make money off of selling personal lifestyle computers. Often good quality, and, yes, the M1 looks fantastic (literally just bought my wife a new M1 MacBook Air) but this is a company that doesn't even really sell a commodity desktop machine. I cannot see them going head to head against SuperMicro. Maybe, _maybe_, they'd license M1 out, but I doubt it.
postalrat 6y ago
TSMC is the hardware giant. Apple is a different industry.
- my123 6y ago
  Design is very important in the hardware industry. By your definition, fabless companies like AMD or NVIDIA aren't HW giants, which is absurd.
neogodless 6y ago
As others mentioned, they really are a hardware company already. Where I disagree with you, though, is why do you want consolidation of expertise into a single silo? I would prefer better competition and consumer choice. As many point out... * With Windows, you are beholden to Microsoft and the control they exert over Windows 10, including stuffing ads into your start menu or even popping up alerts over your taskbar insisting that you try Edge. * With Linux, you have all of the choice, but sometimes a steeper learning curve. Depending on the kinds of gaming you prefer, it's a non-starter. * With Apple, they make all the choices for you, and as long as you are OK with their choices, you're a happy camper. If you don't like their choices (or depending on the kinds of gaming you prefer) it's a non-starter. There's a constant tug-of-war between unity and choice. If there was one central way of making games that worked across operating systems, you might have better choices between Windows, Linux and MacOS, but you'd be stuck with whoever controls the game standard. So back to the central point, I'd be happy for Apple to be a dominant low-level hardware maker... if it wasn't stuck inside their walled garden. I'd much rather have three solid CPU makers (or more) that were compatible with several operating systems, each with support for Unity, Unreal, etc. not to mention things like CUDA.
- 0-_-0 6y ago
  * With Windows, you are beholden to Microsoft and the control they exert over Windows 10, including stuffing ads into your start menu or even popping up alerts over your taskbar insisting that you try Edge. I use Windows 10 and never experienced any of those after turning them off after a fresh install
  - neogodless 6y ago
    Your anecdote does not refute reality. I also (almost exclusively) use Windows 10. The experience is better on Pro, but a laptop with Home repinned Edge to my taskbar with the latest update, and popped up an ad for Edge just above the taskbar, pointing at the newly repinned Edge shortcut. Yes, you can unpin, disable Suggestions, etc and it does improve the experience, but the default behavior is intrusive.
  - mazamats 6y ago

This is Apple's opportunity to become a hardware giant. I hope they don't mess this up.

by jbirer 6y ago

This is Apple's opportunity to become a hardware giant. I hope they don't mess this up.

> This is Apple's opportunity to become a hardware giant. You meant this as a joke, didn't you? Just in case you didn't: Apple already is a, if not the hardware giant - it became the first trillion-dollar company a year ago and just passed the $2 trillion mark in August.

jbirer 6y ago
Trillion dolar company =/= hardware giant. On the server,datacenter and large scale CPU processing scenes you don't see much Apple hardware. But now it is starting to look like a feasible option. We might see Mac Pro's in the datacenter rooms soon.
- tonyedgecombe 6y ago
  I don't think they will ever be interested in the datacenter again. Making consumer products is in their DNA, servers isn't.
  - cmrdporcupine 6y ago
    Yep. The XServe was a great product. It just made no financial sense, and with the long tail of the server market being pretty much AWS/GCP/Azure, it makes even less sense for Apple now than then.
- Frost1x 6y ago
  Maybe were talking about enterprise datacenter giant more than hardware giant? I'm curious what those distributions are since I've worked very little in enterprise scale datacenters, just utilized them with non-Apple hardware. Apple develops and manufacturers a lot of hardware (one of the few positive things I'll plug them for). I would definitely consider them a generic "hardware giant" in that context. Much of this hardware are phones, watches, laptops, and peripherals. I know their server/datacenter market is traditionally pretty slim but don't know what it typically looks like. I know AWS recently announced Mac EC2 instances[1]. The fact EC2 has been so dominant and Apple hardware in EC2 is just now arriving gives much merit that they're not in that much demand in datacenters. I work in research and have only encountered a handful of instances where projects interfaced with Apple hardware (especially in a datacenter) but there's no reason that couldn't shift given Apple's capital and talent pool that already exists. [1] https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/new-use-mac-instances-to-build-test-macos-ios-ipados-tvos-and-watchos-apps/ https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/new-use-mac-instances-to-bu...
- cmrdporcupine 6y ago
  Apple has taken several kicks at that can over the last couple decades and each time it's been a flop. Not because the hardware wasn't good, but because it's just not the kind of market that makes sense for them and their business model. They're not interested in low-margin commodity bulk product. They're a luxury brand and they make money off of selling personal lifestyle computers. Often good quality, and, yes, the M1 looks fantastic (literally just bought my wife a new M1 MacBook Air) but this is a company that doesn't even really sell a commodity desktop machine. I cannot see them going head to head against SuperMicro. Maybe, _maybe_, they'd license M1 out, but I doubt it.

postalrat 6y ago

TSMC is the hardware giant. Apple is a different industry.

my123 6y ago
Design is very important in the hardware industry. By your definition, fabless companies like AMD or NVIDIA aren't HW giants, which is absurd.

neogodless 6y ago

As others mentioned, they really are a hardware company already. Where I disagree with you, though, is why do you want consolidation of expertise into a single silo? I would prefer better competition and consumer choice. As many point out... * With Windows, you are beholden to Microsoft and the control they exert over Windows 10, including stuffing ads into your start menu or even popping up alerts over your taskbar insisting that you try Edge. * With Linux, you have all of the choice, but sometimes a steeper learning curve. Depending on the kinds of gaming you prefer, it's a non-starter. * With Apple, they make all the choices for you, and as long as you are OK with their choices, you're a happy camper. If you don't like their choices (or depending on the kinds of gaming you prefer) it's a non-starter. There's a constant tug-of-war between unity and choice. If there was one central way of making games that worked across operating systems, you might have better choices between Windows, Linux and MacOS, but you'd be stuck with whoever controls the game standard. So back to the central point, I'd be happy for Apple to be a dominant low-level hardware maker... if it wasn't stuck inside their walled garden. I'd much rather have three solid CPU makers (or more) that were compatible with several operating systems, each with support for Unity, Unreal, etc. not to mention things like CUDA.

0-_-0 6y ago
* With Windows, you are beholden to Microsoft and the control they exert over Windows 10, including stuffing ads into your start menu or even popping up alerts over your taskbar insisting that you try Edge. I use Windows 10 and never experienced any of those after turning them off after a fresh install
- neogodless 6y ago
  Your anecdote does not refute reality. I also (almost exclusively) use Windows 10. The experience is better on Pro, but a laptop with Home repinned Edge to my taskbar with the latest update, and popped up an ad for Edge just above the taskbar, pointing at the newly repinned Edge shortcut. Yes, you can unpin, disable Suggestions, etc and it does improve the experience, but the default behavior is intrusive.
- mazamats 6y ago