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Every time a new MacBook Pro is released, I check to see if they have figured out how to put a modem in it like they manage to with watches, phones, and tablets
by mcculley 3y ago
Every time a new MacBook Pro is released, I check to see if they have figured out how to put a modem in it like they manage to with watches, phones, and tablets. This is an obvious example where the market is failing.
The best explanation I heard is that the Apple deal with Qualcomm pays Qualcomm a royalty as a function of the price of the device and Apple does not want to give that much money to Qualcomm and/or raise the price of a MacBook Pro that much. Does anyone have any evidence on this topic?
- baggy_trough 3y agoThe absence of a modem in MacBook Pros does not mean the market is failing.
- mcculley 3y agoNo matter how much I am willing to pay, I cannot buy what I want. That is a market failure.
- fkyoureadthedoc 3y agoFrom one specific company though, you just don't want one from Dell
- mcculley 3y agoThe choices are Windows with a modem or macOS without.
- baggy_trough 3y agoThat is not what a market failure is.
- lostlogin 3y agoWell it’s not a success, so what it is?
- baggy_trough 3y agoIt might very well be a success if most people don't care about modems and/or it would be cost prohibitive to provide the option.
- mcculley 3y agoYes, my theory is that the Qualcomm monopoly makes it cost prohibitive. The question I asked is if anyone has evidence for this.
- bradknowles 3y agoOne person does not a market failure make. In order to be a market failure, a whole shitload of people have to want the feature in question, and yet although it could easily be made to happen, the feature is still not delivered. That's a market failure. Give us a reasoned and researched piece of evidence as to how large this potential market is. Like, how many people would actually buy it, as opposed to all the people who say they'd buy it but then don't actually put up the cash when the feature is delivered.
- mcculley 3y agoA market does not require a “shitload”. I am certain that I am not the only person who would buy a MacBook Pro with the connectivity of a Dell.
- fkyoureadthedoc 3y agoYou're certainly not the only person, but who are you to say that there's enough of you to offset the cost? They might very well have determined that they won't make enough money to do it, in which case the market is working perfectly well.
- jononomo 3y agoI bet you could get what you want if you are willing to pay $10 billion.
- Veliladon 3y agoThey literally have one click pairing to the Wifi hotspot on an iPhone or iPad logged in to the same iCloud account. Everyone has a phone. Why increase the BOM?
- layer8 3y agoBy that logic, iPads wouldn’t need a cellular variant either.
- Eric_WVGG 3y agoThis is correct. Tethering is flaky. I was trying to tether my iPad to my iPhone just last night, eventually gave up and just read my book on my iPhone instead. If I depended on tethering for actually getting my work done I'd have an aneurism.
- justcradd 3y ago[dead]
- josefresco 3y agoAs someone who has, and still does attempt work via iOS tethering it is in fact a complete dumpster fire. Frequent disconnects which force me to constantly revisit the Settings app to disable & reenable is a nightmare. At this point, after many years of the same level behavior, I suspect the disfunction is on purpose (probably a back room deal with cell phone providers)
- Loic 3y agoHotspot with the iPhone?
- mcculley 3y agoI use Hotspot with the iPhone. I would rather have a modem in the laptop, like I can get from Dell.
- justcradd 3y ago[dead]
- turtlebits 3y agoIm sure they can, but then you start getting into product fragmentation.
- mrtksn 3y agoWhen you put a modem in a device, it becomes something completely different in the eyes of the taxman in some countries and taxes increase drastically.
- hef19898 3y agoAlso import taxes. And, above all, cost savings.
- lostlogin 3y agoIt’s an option on iPads, surely Apple has the ability to work out a way of making this work? Apparently not.
- mrtksn 3y agoSure, they can have multiple versions. However, having multiple versions means multiple designs and production lines and paperwork and regulation complience etc. so Apple probably decided that it's not worth the investment. It's very unlikely that they were not able to, they could have done it the same we they did with other Apple devices that have a modem.
- giobox 3y agoThere have been leaked prototypes with integrated cellular, FWIW: https://www.macrumors.com/2011/08/14/photos-of-a-prototype-macbook-pro-with-integrated-3g-cellular-data/ https://www.macrumors.com/2011/08/14/photos-of-a-prototype-m...
- mcculley 3y agoWow. That this is from 2011 is telling.
- kylehotchkiss 3y agoI have to imagine part of this is how expensive data in US still is - 5g infra could likely support this but there's no way AT&T or Verizon will give a reasonable amount of data for $25/month which is the most I'd imagine somebody would want to pay for a device specific data plan
- mcculley 3y agoI currently pay a lot for data services for my devices. I am willing to pay a lot more for better connectivity. I travel a lot. Just yesterday I was in a situation where tethering to my phone was a hassle.
- woah 3y agoI think this is the answer. Mobile OSes have been designed from the ground up to conserve data. Desktop OSes are a free for all. When a user takes the active step of tethering, they know what they are getting into. If mobile data was built right into the computer you’d probably see headlines like “MacBook causes $2000 in data overages”
- revicon 3y agoApple really really really wants to make more money from software subscriptions rather than hardware. They have a much better chance to do this in their walled garden environment of iPhones and iPads rather than on OSX where they face competition from other vendors. They have no incentive to make it easier to be mobile on your macbook when they would much rather you be on your iPhone and iPad instead. Someday they would really love for macbooks to go away and for everyone to use iOS for everything as they will own the entire environment and competition is much less.
- codeflo 3y agoSomehow I doubt it. If that were the case, we'd see a lot more effort to make the iPads true productivity devices, and a lot less effort to modernize Mac hardware.
- Synaesthesia 3y agoThey make almost all their profits from hardware, and use good software as a strategy to sell more hardware.
- revicon 3y agoApple's gross margin percentage for its services segment (App Store, Apple Music, AppleCare, Apple Pay, iCloud storage services, AppleCare warranties, Apple Music, Apple Arcade, Apple TV+, and the Apple Card) is almost twice that of the products segment. In 2021, the gross margin percentage for the services segment was nearly 70% as compared to the 35% gross margin percentage from the products segment. https://www.globaldata.com/data-insights/technology-media-and-telecom/apples-gross-margin-percentage https://www.globaldata.com/data-insights/technology-media-an...
- Synaesthesia 3y agoYes but it's a small fraction of the profit they make from their hardware sales.
- mcculley 3y ago
- mcculley 3y agoI am amused by some of the responses to this. I am traveling right now and needed to stop at a rest area and deal with some email. I just tried to tether my MacBook Pro to my iPhone and once again got “Failed to enable Personal Hotspot”. Those who keep defending Apple’s choices because tethering is “flawless” seem to live in a different universe.
- makeitdouble 3y agoIt might feel less "magic" that what Apple promises, but doing regular hotspot through wifi might work better. I do it a lot with a pixel phone and it's pretty reliable.
- mcculley 3y agoI am unsure of the distinction you are making. In the case I described, I was trying to connect my MacBook Pro to my iPhone 11 Pro via WiFi. After I wrote the above comment, I tried a couple more times and it eventually connected.
- makeitdouble 3y agoFor me by default the MacBook would bridge the phone connection through bluetooth. And I think there's still some custom stuff happening when choosing the phone in the wi-fi dropdown when the mac identifies that the phone is on the same account and connects without password prompt. In the iPhone days I "force" connected to the phone hotspot through the standard password required procedure and it did better than the other more convenient options.
- nier 3y agoApple would also need to get the software ready. Numerous services would need switches for controlling download and sync behavior when connecting over cellular to conserve data usage.
- theGnuMe 3y agoThe already have low data mode on iPhones.