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Apple’s secret sauce is their long-term focus, colored strongly by their many awful experiences being held hostage by CPU manufacturers. They’ve re-architected

Apple’s secret sauce is their long-term focus, colored strongly by their many awful experiences being held hostage by CPU manufacturers. They’ve re-architected their entire software stack on multiple occasions to deal with manufacturing partners who could no longer keep up. For example, it was a big deal when they moved from IBM/Motorola to Intel, and Macs started getting much faster right away. A decade later and Intel is struggling to keep up at the high end, woefully behind in low-power contexts, and Apple is again hamstrung in their plans. So at some point they decided to make their own chips. Well, to design them, and to use their leverage with TMSC to get them made exclusively. It’s true that they have fewer dependencies than a more general-purpose manufacturer like Intel, but don’t discount the many years they’ve spent eating shit while waiting for their “partners” to catch up. In the CPU space, they’ll never do that again.

rodgerd 4y ago
> Apple’s secret sauce is their long-term focus, colored strongly by their many awful experiences being held hostage by CPU manufacturers. This is the key point. There used to be a lot of chip makers and phone vendors in the Android space (hell, even Sony had their own processors for their early phones), both ARM and the odd non-ARM effort. The way that the Android market has collapsed down to essentially "Qualcomm and Samsung" is what's hurting Android, and Qualcomm, in particular, are the reason that things like support lifecycles are such garbage. Google have been completely disinterested in solving this problem in any way, while Apple have.
- hinkley 4y ago
  Apple tried and failed to make a chipset to replace Qualcomm didn't they? I'd love to see them try again. And I feel like that's an area where their particular culture (of looking at vendors that make them resentful and trying to do something about it) might even put them in a place where they're willing to sell those chips or designs to other carriers because fuck Qualcomm.
  - rodgerd 4y ago
    > Apple tried and failed to make a chipset to replace Qualcomm didn't they? I can't remember whether it was sourcing Intel modems or rolling their own, but yeah, either way they fell foul of Qualcomm's nest of patents: Qualcomm's real competitive edge is that they are experts at lobbying to have their patented tech built into government and NGO standards. You don't need to make decent chips or support them for more than a couple of years if it's illegal not to use them.
    - hinkley 4y ago
      Did they end up buying Intel's wireless division off of them? I believe they already had their own, but buying it for the patents (and transferable patent licenses) would be valuable to them. If someone won't give you favorable patent terms but you can buy a company that got better ones... edit: yes, they did (modem division): https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/07/apple-to-acquire-the-majority-of-intels-smartphone-modem-business/ https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/07/apple-to-acquire-the-... One potential avenue here is if Apple, with a cellular modem of their own, just includes the modem in all of their devices and cut out a bunch of SKUs.
  - acdha 4y ago
    I think it’s “tried but it takes a while” — and I’m sure the supply mess of the last couple years broke a lot of schedules. The most recent story I’ve seen has it a year or so out, so it’ll be interesting to see if that pans out or, especially, if Qualcomm comes up with some new legal angle to prevent competition. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-09/apple-plans-to-drop-broadcom-chip-by-2025-to-use-in-house-design https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-09/apple-pla...
    - hinkley 4y ago
      Oh wow, so they're still chipping away at it. I wonder if they'll roll it out on the iphone first or start with ipads and possibly the apple watch if they can get the power draw lower. That might be a good way to increase the battery life of those devices, lowering the gap between regular and low power mode.

rodgerd 4y ago

> Apple’s secret sauce is their long-term focus, colored strongly by their many awful experiences being held hostage by CPU manufacturers. This is the key point. There used to be a lot of chip makers and phone vendors in the Android space (hell, even Sony had their own processors for their early phones), both ARM and the odd non-ARM effort. The way that the Android market has collapsed down to essentially "Qualcomm and Samsung" is what's hurting Android, and Qualcomm, in particular, are the reason that things like support lifecycles are such garbage. Google have been completely disinterested in solving this problem in any way, while Apple have.

hinkley 4y ago
Apple tried and failed to make a chipset to replace Qualcomm didn't they? I'd love to see them try again. And I feel like that's an area where their particular culture (of looking at vendors that make them resentful and trying to do something about it) might even put them in a place where they're willing to sell those chips or designs to other carriers because fuck Qualcomm.
- rodgerd 4y ago
  > Apple tried and failed to make a chipset to replace Qualcomm didn't they? I can't remember whether it was sourcing Intel modems or rolling their own, but yeah, either way they fell foul of Qualcomm's nest of patents: Qualcomm's real competitive edge is that they are experts at lobbying to have their patented tech built into government and NGO standards. You don't need to make decent chips or support them for more than a couple of years if it's illegal not to use them.
  - hinkley 4y ago
    Did they end up buying Intel's wireless division off of them? I believe they already had their own, but buying it for the patents (and transferable patent licenses) would be valuable to them. If someone won't give you favorable patent terms but you can buy a company that got better ones... edit: yes, they did (modem division): https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/07/apple-to-acquire-the-majority-of-intels-smartphone-modem-business/ https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/07/apple-to-acquire-the-... One potential avenue here is if Apple, with a cellular modem of their own, just includes the modem in all of their devices and cut out a bunch of SKUs.
- acdha 4y ago
  I think it’s “tried but it takes a while” — and I’m sure the supply mess of the last couple years broke a lot of schedules. The most recent story I’ve seen has it a year or so out, so it’ll be interesting to see if that pans out or, especially, if Qualcomm comes up with some new legal angle to prevent competition. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-09/apple-plans-to-drop-broadcom-chip-by-2025-to-use-in-house-design https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-09/apple-pla...
  - hinkley 4y ago
    Oh wow, so they're still chipping away at it. I wonder if they'll roll it out on the iphone first or start with ipads and possibly the apple watch if they can get the power draw lower. That might be a good way to increase the battery life of those devices, lowering the gap between regular and low power mode.