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Apple leans its weight heavily on controversial smartphone changes and defines trends for the rest of the industry, even when it's not the first company to do s
by usui 2y ago
Apple leans its weight heavily on controversial smartphone changes and defines trends for the rest of the industry, even when it's not the first company to do so. When it removed the headphone jack, introduced the screen notch, or added a camera bump, everyone followed afterward despite the grumbling.
So keeping that in mind, regarding the modem, I remember prior comments about it being near-impossible or extremely difficult for Apple to cut out Qualcomm because of the decentralized network of mobile towers, operators, proprietary information, legacy cruft, edge cases, hardware and geographical testing, etc., which Qualcomm handles as part of its value-add. If Apple starts spearheading changes in how phone modems work, could we imagine mobile towers playing along and converging? Or is it more entrenched than that?
Prior discussion
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41287977 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41287977
- Analemma_ 2y agoI don't think anyone thought it was literally impossible, just really, really hard and with a ton of corner cases and micro-optimizations necessary. But remember, they've been at this for a long time now: they bought Intel's modem business in 2019 and Intel presumably had several years worth of work on it before that. I guess this is the year when they've ground out enough of the bugs to at least ship it on a non-flagship device.
- hot_gril 2y agoThe other phonemakers didn't grumble about the jack because they realized they could pull the same scam
- phyrex 2y agoOh please. They all made fun of it and THEN switched a year later
- hot_gril 2y agoTakes a year to make whatever their copy of AirPods was
- DrBenCarson 2y agoSure but they also leaned heavily into the “we still have an aux jack hurr hurr hurr” while they figured out how to copy Apple
- hot_gril 2y agoI'm wondering if Samsung was 90% working on their earbuds and 10% hoping they'd see people switch from iPhone (which turns out didn't happen)
- ZeroTalent 2y agoExcept they are all pretty bad compared to AirPods. I didn't believe it myself until I tried them. I thought it was bs, overpriced crap that "Apple people" buy. I was ignorant on this matter. Apple has something there. The new AirPods Pro Gen 2 are mind-blowing, in a way that most people will probably like, and this is coming from a guy subscribed to /r/audiophile
- TheSpiceIsLife 2y agoDo they fit my ears yet?
- ZeroTalent 2y agoThat's the problem for me too. Either too big or too small. Need to buy 3rd party silicone inserts.
- Tade0 2y agoNot all though. Sony retains the jack, screen without cutouts and the SD slot.
- pests 2y agoThey really did themselves dirty calling it a notch, drawing attention to the loss of space. They should have used something like "extra screen ears" - implying you are getting some extra space around the sensors.
- hot_gril 2y agoDid Apple themselves actually call it that? On the debut, I think they only called it the "true depth camera system" https://youtu.be/aEoVcYQ8caM?si=bf2Xxv7VeFPONVyO&t=482 https://youtu.be/aEoVcYQ8caM?si=bf2Xxv7VeFPONVyO&t=482 Scanning through, it was pretty silly how much the iPhone X was about mocapped emojis.
- fennecfoxy 2y agoI mean Apple wasn't the first to drop the jack either, there were other brands that had.
- dathinab 2y ago> extremely difficult for Apple to cut out Qualcomm it was extremely difficult, they have been working on this since at least ~6 years, maybe longer and involved buying intel 5G modem business it also is lacking UWB which either Apple has given up on or is bringing back with future revisions of their modem
- xattt 2y agoMy best guess is that it’s for differentiation. For example, the SE never had Qi when the rest of the lineup did.
- philistine 2y agoMy iPhone SE 2 right next to me is charging on its Qi puck right now. The SE have never had Magsafe, which allows a phone to be charged aligned with magnets.
- GeekyBear 2y ago> extremely difficult for Apple to cut out Qualcomm 4G and above are open standards, and Samsung, Huawei and MediaTek have all previously created their own cellular modem implementations. It's not easy, but if your market share is big enough, you come out ahead.
- ksec 2y ago>If Apple starts spearheading changes in how phone modems work, could we imagine mobile towers playing along and converging? Or is it more entrenched than that? Do You mean Telco Equipment vendor converging? Well first thing is that 4g / 5G or 3GPP is an open standard so anyone could implement it. Second is that there are only a few Telco Equipment vendor left already. There will still be insane amount of testing required to be done even if everyone were to use the same equipment. The amount of variables such as spectrum, regulations requirements, physical space and density as well as weather difference.
- m463 2y agoUnfortunately, the worst example they set is the locked-down device + an app store.
- praisewhitey 2y agoNot seeing examples of comments claiming it being "near-impossible" in your linked discussion. Most of those comments are just grumbling about eSIMs.