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Don’t forget that Qualcomm purchased Nuvia (ex Apple chip designers) last year. Will they be playing catch-up with apple’s CPUs? Maybe. But maybe there’s a co

Don’t forget that Qualcomm purchased Nuvia (ex Apple chip designers) last year. Will they be playing catch-up with apple’s CPUs? Maybe. But maybe there’s a connectivity/ communications and Qualcomm can play to its strengths - e.g. laptops with 5G? Laptops running android? I don’t know. https://www.qualcomm.com/news/releases/2021/03/16/qualcomm-completes-acquisition-nuvia https://www.qualcomm.com/news/releases/2021/03/16/qualcomm-c...

cft 4y ago
Good point. Why doesn't every Apple M1 laptop have an eSIM and a 5G transiever?
- egsmi0 4y ago
  I have no idea why Apple laptops don’t have cellular but whatever the reason is, I’m pretty sure it’s not because of the BOM cost of the components.
- mfer 4y ago
  Where is there market demand for that functionality in a laptop?
  - kube-system 4y ago
    Commercial customers in the field. But this is also a market segment with basically zero Mac users. And small enough of a market that it's way off Apple's radar.
    - ChadNauseam 4y ago
      As someone with a spotty internet connection and who likes to work at coffee shops with annoying login prompts, I'd really appreciate a product like that. I can get a data-only sim from Google Fi for free so it'd be an easy purchase for me. (I have no idea why my internet connection is so bad. I pay for 20Mb/s, and half the time it's like 200Mb/s and the other half I don't have internet at all.)
      - sidpatil 4y ago
        > I pay for 20Mb/s Are you paying for 20MB/s or for up to 20MB/s?
- teaearlgraycold 4y ago
  Apple doesn’t want you to be able to purchase a device that bridges the gap between a MacBook and an iPad. That way more people need to buy both.
- n8cpdx 4y ago
  Tethering to iPhone is extremely easy, what’s the point? You don’t even have to set it up, the system just suggests it as an option in the Wi-Fi menu.
  - kube-system 4y ago
    And then they sell two devices.
    - vinay427 4y ago
      On the other hand, from a user's perspective only one SIM card and data allotment is needed. I much prefer two devices that I would own anyway over two SIM cards with (in most cases) separate monthly subscriptions or data packs.
    - cft 4y ago
      People won't stop buying phones because their laptops are 5G enabled. The laptop's eSIM would be on the same plan as the phone. It would help carriers to push more expensive plans with much bigger data caps, which is easy with 5G. To the point of eating some home broadband market share- I imagine some people canceling their home broadband like they've cancelled their phone landlines, which initially seemed unthinkable.
      - kube-system 4y ago
        Of course they won't stop buying phones, but specifically Apple's phones work very nicely with MacOS.
  - Tagbert 4y ago
    Qualcomm modem license is relatively expensive for a laptop. I suspect that, once Apple is ready to launch their own modem, they will include that in their laptops, too.
  - QuikAccount 4y ago
    What if I don't have an iPhone?
- philistine 4y ago
  Qualcomm charges you a device price tax for each modem you install in a device. So Apple is understandably uninterested in paying Qualcomm that much. When Apple moves to its own modems, expect to see them appear in Macbooks.
wmf 4y ago
I think Qualcomm's strength in cellular is what's killing them in laptops. Force-bundling a 5G modem with a weak CPU results in unbalanced laptops that are too expensive for their performance.
cwizou 4y ago
They did, but late 2023 is still a very short timeframe (less than 3 years) to get a custom arm64 CPU architecture, ready to ship. Pre armv8, Qualcomm had strong custom cores, but Krait (their armv8 custom implementation) didn't exactly perform well compared to basic Cortexes from ARM (a problem that wasn't unique to Qualcomm, to be fair), and Qualcomm moved to using those generic ARM cores on most of their lineup. Qualcomm reportedly did get some TMSC volume at 5/6nm that would correspond to that timeframe, but the timing would be extremely optimistic considering how long of a lead time you need, even if the Nuvia acquisition solved all their problems.
- NoahKAndrews 4y ago
  Slight correction: Krait was the name for the excellent ARMv7 core design. The underwhelming ARMv8 replacement was named Kryo. Confusingly, they (at least for a while) kept the Kryo branding even after they switched to lightly-customized versions of cores designed by ARM.
  - cwizou 4y ago
    You're right, I misremembered here. The renaming part btw was quite awful of them, they had a hard time acknowledging that they went back to Cortex based cores and I remember their press release trying to imply they didn't. They were quite hammering the fact they had a custom arch pre v8, and the turnaround was difficult for them to admit.
  - LinAGKar 4y ago
    Not just for a while, they're still calling them Kryo, even after moving to ARMv9

cft 4y ago

Good point. Why doesn't every Apple M1 laptop have an eSIM and a 5G transiever?

egsmi0 4y ago
I have no idea why Apple laptops don’t have cellular but whatever the reason is, I’m pretty sure it’s not because of the BOM cost of the components.
mfer 4y ago
Where is there market demand for that functionality in a laptop?
- kube-system 4y ago
  Commercial customers in the field. But this is also a market segment with basically zero Mac users. And small enough of a market that it's way off Apple's radar.
  - ChadNauseam 4y ago
    As someone with a spotty internet connection and who likes to work at coffee shops with annoying login prompts, I'd really appreciate a product like that. I can get a data-only sim from Google Fi for free so it'd be an easy purchase for me. (I have no idea why my internet connection is so bad. I pay for 20Mb/s, and half the time it's like 200Mb/s and the other half I don't have internet at all.)
    - sidpatil 4y ago
      > I pay for 20Mb/s Are you paying for 20MB/s or for up to 20MB/s?
teaearlgraycold 4y ago
Apple doesn’t want you to be able to purchase a device that bridges the gap between a MacBook and an iPad. That way more people need to buy both.
n8cpdx 4y ago
Tethering to iPhone is extremely easy, what’s the point? You don’t even have to set it up, the system just suggests it as an option in the Wi-Fi menu.
- kube-system 4y ago
  And then they sell two devices.
  - vinay427 4y ago
    On the other hand, from a user's perspective only one SIM card and data allotment is needed. I much prefer two devices that I would own anyway over two SIM cards with (in most cases) separate monthly subscriptions or data packs.
  - cft 4y ago
    People won't stop buying phones because their laptops are 5G enabled. The laptop's eSIM would be on the same plan as the phone. It would help carriers to push more expensive plans with much bigger data caps, which is easy with 5G. To the point of eating some home broadband market share- I imagine some people canceling their home broadband like they've cancelled their phone landlines, which initially seemed unthinkable.
    - kube-system 4y ago
      Of course they won't stop buying phones, but specifically Apple's phones work very nicely with MacOS.
- Tagbert 4y ago
  Qualcomm modem license is relatively expensive for a laptop. I suspect that, once Apple is ready to launch their own modem, they will include that in their laptops, too.
- QuikAccount 4y ago
  What if I don't have an iPhone?
philistine 4y ago
Qualcomm charges you a device price tax for each modem you install in a device. So Apple is understandably uninterested in paying Qualcomm that much. When Apple moves to its own modems, expect to see them appear in Macbooks.

wmf 4y ago

I think Qualcomm's strength in cellular is what's killing them in laptops. Force-bundling a 5G modem with a weak CPU results in unbalanced laptops that are too expensive for their performance.

cwizou 4y ago

They did, but late 2023 is still a very short timeframe (less than 3 years) to get a custom arm64 CPU architecture, ready to ship. Pre armv8, Qualcomm had strong custom cores, but Krait (their armv8 custom implementation) didn't exactly perform well compared to basic Cortexes from ARM (a problem that wasn't unique to Qualcomm, to be fair), and Qualcomm moved to using those generic ARM cores on most of their lineup. Qualcomm reportedly did get some TMSC volume at 5/6nm that would correspond to that timeframe, but the timing would be extremely optimistic considering how long of a lead time you need, even if the Nuvia acquisition solved all their problems.

NoahKAndrews 4y ago
Slight correction: Krait was the name for the excellent ARMv7 core design. The underwhelming ARMv8 replacement was named Kryo. Confusingly, they (at least for a while) kept the Kryo branding even after they switched to lightly-customized versions of cores designed by ARM.
- cwizou 4y ago
  You're right, I misremembered here. The renaming part btw was quite awful of them, they had a hard time acknowledging that they went back to Cortex based cores and I remember their press release trying to imply they didn't. They were quite hammering the fact they had a custom arch pre v8, and the turnaround was difficult for them to admit.
- LinAGKar 4y ago
  Not just for a while, they're still calling them Kryo, even after moving to ARMv9