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https://github.com/AsahiLinux/speakersafetyd#some-background-on-smart-amps https://github.com/AsahiLinux/speakersafetyd#some-background... They do it because i

https://github.com/AsahiLinux/speakersafetyd#some-background-on-smart-amps https://github.com/AsahiLinux/speakersafetyd#some-background... They do it because it lets them drive the speakers much louder than they could do safely with a simple power limiter. Apparently there are amplifier chips which can do that smart regulation internally but Apple decided to do it in software for whatever reason. Maybe they can squeeze out more sound quality with a more complex DSP that way, I doubt it's cost-cutting given their margins.

adgjlsfhk1 2y ago
It's probably a combo of cost-cutting and control. If you use a hardware chip, the chip itself only costs cents, but space is at a premium, and there assembly costs and reduced flexibility (you have to lock in your design well in advance).
- userbinator 2y ago
  Cost-cutting, control, malicious compliance, and more importantly, plausible deniability. Apple has been caught sabotaging third-party repair multiple times and this sort of design is totally in line with that strategy. Making the design overly complex and fragile (and spending extra $$$ in the process), just to make it harder to correctly use, seems to be a common theme. They will of course come up with plausible arguments why their design is "better", but in reality it's only better for them. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36926276 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36926276 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24955071 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24955071
  - kaonwarb 2y ago
    Of all of those reasons, malicious compliance and plausible deniability seem the least likely to me. With and from what, exactly? I get being upset at Apple for e.g. 30% take on in-app purchases. But what exactly would they be trying to do by making it complex to control their speakers?
    - userbinator 2y ago
      But what exactly would they be trying to do by making it complex to control their speakers? Making it harder for alternative OSes to use their hardware without accidentally damaging it, further cementing macOS' position as the only OS to be trusted. It's similar to their war against third-party repair shops by deliberately making it difficult to replace parts, even with genuine ones --- see my second link about the iPhone 12 camera. This is the automotive equivalent of adding sensors and ECU firmware that detects if the engine is using the manufacturer's proprietary oil, and subtly changing the parameters to decrease power and fuel economy, increase emissions, and/or shorten the life of the engine if it isn't. Then blaming third-party repair shops when customers complain.
      - imwillofficial 2y ago
        Considering how well Apple speakers perform for their size, I would say you’re making a huge leap not supported by evidence. They make and sell more speakers than any other company on earth and are routinely praised for their quality to size ratio.
      - josephg 2y ago
        > Making it harder for alternative OSes to use their hardware without accidentally damaging it, further cementing macOS' position as the only OS to be trusted. If apple wanted to kill asahi linux, they wouldn't have had to lift a finger. Its the opposite - Apple engineers have needed to do several small things to keep the door open to easily run 3rd party operating systems on their computers. Remember, a modern mac has essentially identical hardware as an ipad. Apple has locked down the entire boot process and uses digital signatures all through the boot chain. They actively changed how macs boot to make sure things like asahi linux can run on their computers at all. I don't think they deserve special praise for that. But it does make it a stretch to claim their speakers were intentionally designed hurt linux-on-mac. If they wanted to stop asahi linux, they had plenty of much easier, much more effective ways to do so.
        m4rtink 2y ago
        Sounds like "be glad they gave you some bones from the table" instead, you know, the company providing the actual proper means for users to reliably run whatever on the hardware they bought, not just the manufacturers blessed OS. Sometimes I wonder if it really makes sense to spend so much time to do the work Apple should have done in the first place & with no guarantee it will even work after a firmware upgrade or on the next model. Spending the same effort on more open platforms or open hardware efforts might be wiser in the long term.
  - reaperman 2y ago
    > Apparently there are amplifier chips which can do that smart regulation internally but Apple decided to do it in software for whatever reason. > Apple has been caught sabotaging third-party repair multiple times and this sort of design is totally in line with that strategy. Using fewer specialized hardware chips to dynamically regulate speaker temperatures and implementing it in software seems like it would be more repair-friendly, not less. Unless you meant this in some more general sense that doesn't include repair, per se?
  - ruthmarx 2y ago
    > Apple has been caught sabotaging third-party repair multiple times and this sort of design is totally in line with that strategy. Making the design overly complex and fragile (and spending extra $$$ in the process), just to make it harder to correctly use, seems to be a common theme. This, and the nannying nature of their OS is why I could never have a mac as a primary machine. I'm always slightly mind-boggled at the amount of technical people that do. But then I guess many just live in an IDE which works fine.
    - cantony 2y ago
      [dead]
  - JoshTriplett 2y ago
    I've worked with PC laptop manufacturers before, and they do exactly the same thing. In every case, it's either "how can we take really cheap speakers with limited placement options and make them sound decent, to save costs", or "how can we take slightly better speakers and slightly better placement options and make them sound like surround sound so our audio can be a selling point". It doesn't require malice or conspiracy to wind up with a closed proprietary design that makes up for cheap flawed hardware with software workarounds. It's the default if you don't have the opposite as an key value and make a deliberate effort to achieve it.
    - josephg 2y ago
      Yeah - the same thing has been happening for well over a decade with phone cameras. I bought a fancy full frame dslr camera recently and the image quality is incredible. But the sensor on my camera is 30x larger than my phone’s sensor (or something like that). And good lenses are massive - my arms get a workout from shooting. It really puts into relief how weird it is that we get such good quality out of phone cameras. They’re almost as much generative AI images as they are actual photos.
musicale 2y ago
I wish they had a hardware power limiter, because I am pretty sure a buggy Boot Camp audio driver damaged my MacBook Pro speakers by overdriving them. Also I note that it took them more than a decade to fix the bug where left-right balance would drift.
- alpaca128 2y ago
  This was indeed a known problem with the 2016 Macbook Pro, the driver initially liked to destroy the speakers.
  - musicale 2y ago
    Interesting, since that seems to be the case exactly! I wonder if they can repair it?
nicoburns 2y ago
Apple has a very long history of implementing hardware drivers "in software". Steve Wozniak famously did this for a floppy disk drive for one of Apple's early computers. I think it's just a different, integrated, approach to hardware a software development. If you're doing things custom anyway, then why add an extra chip?
- bboygravity 2y ago
  Why add an extra chip? Because: 1. Software is more likely to fail at protection with worse consequences when it does (fire, damaged goods, warranty claims). Not just now, but also the future updates. 2. It eats away at the resources that are intended for the user. In other words: it makes the machine slightly slower for the user, for no good reason to the user. 3. You can do things that are impossible in laptop OS software. It gives redundancy, even if the OS freezes you can still make sure the speaker doesn't overheat. If it's implemented in a seperate chip. Also there is real time ability, etc. 4. It makes the OS and drivers much much simpler, which is important if you want to support other OSes on the same laptop. Advantages, for Apple, to do it in software: 1. Software upgrade is easier and cheaper (assuming they never ever fail). 2. Cheaper. 3. You can keep competing OS'es off of your hardware, because it's too hard to write drivers for your secret sauce closed source drivers that include functionality that is "preventing parts from frying themselves".
TaylorAlexander 2y ago
Certainly I can see the appeal of implementing control in the silicon I own rather than buying a vendor's chip and having to deal with their supply chain, their sales team, their space claim on my board, etc.

adgjlsfhk1 2y ago

It's probably a combo of cost-cutting and control. If you use a hardware chip, the chip itself only costs cents, but space is at a premium, and there assembly costs and reduced flexibility (you have to lock in your design well in advance).

userbinator 2y ago
Cost-cutting, control, malicious compliance, and more importantly, plausible deniability. Apple has been caught sabotaging third-party repair multiple times and this sort of design is totally in line with that strategy. Making the design overly complex and fragile (and spending extra $$$ in the process), just to make it harder to correctly use, seems to be a common theme. They will of course come up with plausible arguments why their design is "better", but in reality it's only better for them. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36926276 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36926276 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24955071 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24955071
- kaonwarb 2y ago
  Of all of those reasons, malicious compliance and plausible deniability seem the least likely to me. With and from what, exactly? I get being upset at Apple for e.g. 30% take on in-app purchases. But what exactly would they be trying to do by making it complex to control their speakers?
  - userbinator 2y ago
    But what exactly would they be trying to do by making it complex to control their speakers? Making it harder for alternative OSes to use their hardware without accidentally damaging it, further cementing macOS' position as the only OS to be trusted. It's similar to their war against third-party repair shops by deliberately making it difficult to replace parts, even with genuine ones --- see my second link about the iPhone 12 camera. This is the automotive equivalent of adding sensors and ECU firmware that detects if the engine is using the manufacturer's proprietary oil, and subtly changing the parameters to decrease power and fuel economy, increase emissions, and/or shorten the life of the engine if it isn't. Then blaming third-party repair shops when customers complain.
    - imwillofficial 2y ago
      Considering how well Apple speakers perform for their size, I would say you’re making a huge leap not supported by evidence. They make and sell more speakers than any other company on earth and are routinely praised for their quality to size ratio.
    - josephg 2y ago
      > Making it harder for alternative OSes to use their hardware without accidentally damaging it, further cementing macOS' position as the only OS to be trusted. If apple wanted to kill asahi linux, they wouldn't have had to lift a finger. Its the opposite - Apple engineers have needed to do several small things to keep the door open to easily run 3rd party operating systems on their computers. Remember, a modern mac has essentially identical hardware as an ipad. Apple has locked down the entire boot process and uses digital signatures all through the boot chain. They actively changed how macs boot to make sure things like asahi linux can run on their computers at all. I don't think they deserve special praise for that. But it does make it a stretch to claim their speakers were intentionally designed hurt linux-on-mac. If they wanted to stop asahi linux, they had plenty of much easier, much more effective ways to do so.
      - m4rtink 2y ago
        Sounds like "be glad they gave you some bones from the table" instead, you know, the company providing the actual proper means for users to reliably run whatever on the hardware they bought, not just the manufacturers blessed OS. Sometimes I wonder if it really makes sense to spend so much time to do the work Apple should have done in the first place & with no guarantee it will even work after a firmware upgrade or on the next model. Spending the same effort on more open platforms or open hardware efforts might be wiser in the long term.
- reaperman 2y ago
  > Apparently there are amplifier chips which can do that smart regulation internally but Apple decided to do it in software for whatever reason. > Apple has been caught sabotaging third-party repair multiple times and this sort of design is totally in line with that strategy. Using fewer specialized hardware chips to dynamically regulate speaker temperatures and implementing it in software seems like it would be more repair-friendly, not less. Unless you meant this in some more general sense that doesn't include repair, per se?
- ruthmarx 2y ago
  > Apple has been caught sabotaging third-party repair multiple times and this sort of design is totally in line with that strategy. Making the design overly complex and fragile (and spending extra $$$ in the process), just to make it harder to correctly use, seems to be a common theme. This, and the nannying nature of their OS is why I could never have a mac as a primary machine. I'm always slightly mind-boggled at the amount of technical people that do. But then I guess many just live in an IDE which works fine.
  - cantony 2y ago
    [dead]
- JoshTriplett 2y ago
  I've worked with PC laptop manufacturers before, and they do exactly the same thing. In every case, it's either "how can we take really cheap speakers with limited placement options and make them sound decent, to save costs", or "how can we take slightly better speakers and slightly better placement options and make them sound like surround sound so our audio can be a selling point". It doesn't require malice or conspiracy to wind up with a closed proprietary design that makes up for cheap flawed hardware with software workarounds. It's the default if you don't have the opposite as an key value and make a deliberate effort to achieve it.
  - josephg 2y ago
    Yeah - the same thing has been happening for well over a decade with phone cameras. I bought a fancy full frame dslr camera recently and the image quality is incredible. But the sensor on my camera is 30x larger than my phone’s sensor (or something like that). And good lenses are massive - my arms get a workout from shooting. It really puts into relief how weird it is that we get such good quality out of phone cameras. They’re almost as much generative AI images as they are actual photos.

musicale 2y ago

I wish they had a hardware power limiter, because I am pretty sure a buggy Boot Camp audio driver damaged my MacBook Pro speakers by overdriving them. Also I note that it took them more than a decade to fix the bug where left-right balance would drift.

alpaca128 2y ago
This was indeed a known problem with the 2016 Macbook Pro, the driver initially liked to destroy the speakers.
- musicale 2y ago
  Interesting, since that seems to be the case exactly! I wonder if they can repair it?

nicoburns 2y ago

Apple has a very long history of implementing hardware drivers "in software". Steve Wozniak famously did this for a floppy disk drive for one of Apple's early computers. I think it's just a different, integrated, approach to hardware a software development. If you're doing things custom anyway, then why add an extra chip?

bboygravity 2y ago
Why add an extra chip? Because: 1. Software is more likely to fail at protection with worse consequences when it does (fire, damaged goods, warranty claims). Not just now, but also the future updates. 2. It eats away at the resources that are intended for the user. In other words: it makes the machine slightly slower for the user, for no good reason to the user. 3. You can do things that are impossible in laptop OS software. It gives redundancy, even if the OS freezes you can still make sure the speaker doesn't overheat. If it's implemented in a seperate chip. Also there is real time ability, etc. 4. It makes the OS and drivers much much simpler, which is important if you want to support other OSes on the same laptop. Advantages, for Apple, to do it in software: 1. Software upgrade is easier and cheaper (assuming they never ever fail). 2. Cheaper. 3. You can keep competing OS'es off of your hardware, because it's too hard to write drivers for your secret sauce closed source drivers that include functionality that is "preventing parts from frying themselves".

TaylorAlexander 2y ago

Certainly I can see the appeal of implementing control in the silicon I own rather than buying a vendor's chip and having to deal with their supply chain, their sales team, their space claim on my board, etc.