Apple Silicon biggest rival might be Google

[Gudi]

Actually NBC has a streaming service called Peacock

Like I said, they all see the success of the one company who tries to make their customers happy, instead of serving some other corporate interest. Everyone wants to be like Apple and Netflix. Only Apple doesn't wait for Apple to show them the way.

 

[maflynn]

Only Apple doesn't wait for Apple to show them the way.

As much as I like Apple, they rarely are the one's blazing into unknown territory. Most of their success are not from new products that never existed, but improved existing ones.

So to put another way, Apple does wait.

No knock on apple for this approach, as they've been wildly successful, but you can't say that Apple has been one inventing new technology and the one blazing the trail - (for the most part).
mouse/gui interfaces - xerox
iPod - mp3 players existed
iPhone - wince phones
tablets (newton is probably an area where apple did blaze a trail),
Apple Tv - (chrome cast, roku etc)

Again I'm not down on apple, but the romanticized version of apple inventing everything is incorrect. Their M.O., has been taking an existing product, and changing/configuring/improving it a way no one thought of. For instance the iPod - it wasn't the first, MP3 players littered the market, few if any used hard drives, or even a screen and I think none included an app to legally buy and upload music (iTunes). This was a revolutionary move on Apple's part, their phone as well. Hell they were not even the first to have an app store on the iPhone.

Edit reason: clarification

 

[Gudi]

Most of their success are not from new products that never existed, but improved existing ones.

I'm sick and tired of explaining what an innovation is. Just so you know, the Brothers Wright did not built a new aircraft motor or design a new wing profile. They were not the first to fly and yet they invented the aircraft.

 

[Kimmo]

Is Google a technology company? Of course it is.

Does Google make the occasional technological innovation? Sure.

Support Google's use of tracking cookies and the censorious way it runs its AdSense network? No, thank you.

 

[BigPotatoLobbyist]

No.

Google's Tensor SoC is a repackaged Samsung Exynos chip with a custom NPU. This custom NPU is faster than Android NPUs but is still significantly slower than the NPUs in the A14, A15, and A16.

Google does not have the scale to design SoCs that can rival Apple Silicon. They do not make enough hardware themselves. They rely on third party vendors.

The true Apple Silicon rival in the next few years is Qualcomm with Nuvia. After that, perhaps Nvidia, AMD, Intel or a Chinese tech giant will challenge Apple Silicon.

Correct.
The latest Tensor chip won't even be competitive with Qualcomm's 8 Gen 1 + nor the 8 Gen 2, owing to both the inferior process node (a good 30-40% efficiency hit from Samsung 5/4NM to TSMC N4) and the newer IP onboard, especially with the 8 Gen 2 coming soon.

As for laptops, same thing. Nuvia's custom cores will prove superior to Arm's reference designs on peak performance and perf/watt for most of the curve (most likely, else they wouldn't use them, though exact details remain to be seen) and should be fabricated on a relatively performant process like N4. If Google got serious about process (via Samsung fixing their issues) it wouldn't ameliorate their lackluster timing with Arm IP - and even the most recent IP would still offer an inferior performance & likely performance/watt profile to Apple's Silicon.

The Google TPU is great but not that big a deal currently, certainly not when others have similar to offer and massive margins on efficiency, performance, GPU prowess. Qualcomm have an NPU/TPU, too via Hexagon and it's already used by various Android apps. The CPU's efficiency and general performance is still *the* big deal for now and will remain important in the future, at least at these margins of tradeoffs.