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Bye, Bye for now Apple, it has been fun!
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I work in tv news, due to the extreme cost of replacing gear, we still run in a 32bit era, Mac Pro and Final Cut Pro 7, the problem is that the iphones in 2024 are incompatible with the mac pro from 2010.. Same company Apple, but my 2 yr old Samsung can send files to the Mac Pro, no issues..
Apple has taken this walled garden approach a little too seriously, and it has consequences, you asked not to mention Mr Cook, but he is the guy in charge, and his decisions affect millions of users.. There can be no justification, NONE, other than pure incompetence to explain the abandoned Post Purchase in favour of BTO..
There is zero economic benefit to BTO, and if there is, would love to know, how it is better than Post Purchase upgrading.. There is a place for both systems, Air and Pro [from professional].
If Apple is all about making money, and that is why the board hired Mr Cook, then why kill the golden goose? Why abandon software such as Aperture, Final Cut, Logic, starve these apps of development, remove any possibility of upgrading income?
There is a problem in Apple, highlighted by the Ultra watch patent issue, how could a trillion Dollar company take a $100 watch to market without checking that all the dots dotted, all the t's crossed?
I don't envy Mr Cook, who goes to bed, wondering if tomorrow there will be an Apple Inc... He is but 1 second away from being the CEO of a company that has no stock, China could decide, we are tired of Mr Cook, take over the factories, nationalize the manufacturing sector in Mainline China, then what? Rely on the income from itunes??
Apple has gone down a path that is fraught with peril, so far in 30 pages, no one has been able to explain why SOC is the problem, Apple own the tech, they paid for the R and D of systems on a chip, if they wanted it to be post purchase compatible, this would have been designed for, that it was not, it not a fault of design, but a choice made to make upgrade impossible? For what logical reason?
Why are the airs and the pro laptops functionally the same, why have 2 ranges that are the same? Something is wrong? Seriously faults exist within the INC....
Apple has taken this walled garden approach a little too seriously, and it has consequences, you asked not to mention Mr Cook, but he is the guy in charge, and his decisions affect millions of users.. There can be no justification, NONE, other than pure incompetence to explain the abandoned Post Purchase in favour of BTO..
There is zero economic benefit to BTO, and if there is, would love to know, how it is better than Post Purchase upgrading.. There is a place for both systems, Air and Pro [from professional].
If Apple is all about making money, and that is why the board hired Mr Cook, then why kill the golden goose? Why abandon software such as Aperture, Final Cut, Logic, starve these apps of development, remove any possibility of upgrading income?
There is a problem in Apple, highlighted by the Ultra watch patent issue, how could a trillion Dollar company take a $100 watch to market without checking that all the dots dotted, all the t's crossed?
I don't envy Mr Cook, who goes to bed, wondering if tomorrow there will be an Apple Inc... He is but 1 second away from being the CEO of a company that has no stock, China could decide, we are tired of Mr Cook, take over the factories, nationalize the manufacturing sector in Mainline China, then what? Rely on the income from itunes??
Apple has gone down a path that is fraught with peril, so far in 30 pages, no one has been able to explain why SOC is the problem, Apple own the tech, they paid for the R and D of systems on a chip, if they wanted it to be post purchase compatible, this would have been designed for, that it was not, it not a fault of design, but a choice made to make upgrade impossible? For what logical reason?
Why are the airs and the pro laptops functionally the same, why have 2 ranges that are the same? Something is wrong? Seriously faults exist within the INC....
I do not speak for you. You are free to voice your opinion.
I agree with a lot of what you said. However, I think you are looking at it from the wrong perspective. What if your goal was not to make users happy but that is a side effect. What if your goal was to get as much profit as fast as possible without regard for the consequences?
You mention China and the possibility of nationalization and I bet that right there is the thought that keeps a lot of CEO's losing sleep.
The problem boils down to greed. It is really the biggest problem with capitalism unchecked. Greed is good as the famous line in the 80's movie Wallstreet. Greed to an extent is good as it motivates people to take risk and innovate but unchecked greed begins the process of it's own destruction from within.
Until corporations around the world start to balance real ethics(not just nice sounding talking points) and do their best to make as much profit as they can within reason and balance of the customers and workers this will continue to be a world wide problem and it will increase income inequality and become a flash point soon. Communism and Capitalism are at war again. Neither system is inherently good or bad and both have great potential to uplift mankind. Unfortunately too often greed corrupts both systems and the good they can create becomes destroyed by the actions of a few elite groups in control. Then it is simply about maintaining power and not upholding the positive values of either system. Quality of life and standard of living has to be the measurement of the value of a society. Capitalism by nature encourages more creative thinking and innovation as a system but without at least some socialist ideals capitalism would not work and I think the same is true of Communism. Neither system alone works by itself in the best of worlds without any corruption or greed but if you borrow the best positive elements of both into a hybrid systems with human rights as a foundation we might actually get somewhere and stop fighting each other over nothing and work together to solve the worlds issues.
You name a company that doesn't engage in at least some of what Apple does? Upselling, using cheapest labor and manufacturing possible, making components non user upgradable(think of ram in most modern windows laptops), and on and on. Most companies that have brands are now just distributors. No company actually makes anything anymore it is all subcontracted to the cheapest factory in the world and shipped to the end country. It is a rather upsetting trend. Globalization was said to revolutionize the world and raise everyone's standard of living. Instead it has exploited various regions around the world of resources and labor and destroying the industrial base of many industrialized countries around the world. It has decreased the standard of living for everyone involved and given jobs to those in the worst working conditions and lowest pay and called that a success. They have moved manufacturing to places where there are no laws in terms ecological or environmental standards of how you makes something or dispose of the waste.
Most of the political radicalization around the world can be traced to the increase in globalism which is very different from global trade between countries which is always a good thing.
I doubt Apple or Mr. Cook are having any real sleep issues as if the entire business closed tomorrow he has enough wealth to sit pretty and enjoy the rest of his life. So he is doing whatever will make the company as much money as quickly as possible. If China did what you suggested I am sure Apple would survive just fine and replicate the entire supply chain in Vietnam or another similar east Asian country. It would be a huge hit and would hurt the company for a while no doubt BUT you better believe Cook has a plan b supply chain ready to go if it happens. It won't be as good or as robust or have access to as many experts in the field as China but they would survive and eventually right the ship.
WHAT Cook really wants is not cheap manufacturing or anything like that. The entire made in China deal was to get access to the Chinese market. It is just not now but the growth of the Chinese middle class has a lot of potential and having state sponsored and supported access to Chinese consumer market is the golden apple Mr. Cook is willing to sacrifice anything for it seems.
This is another reason I have sort of given up on Apple. They will only continue to bend to the will of the Chinese government and your privacy and security are going to slowly erode. The CSAM scanning thing was not to help kids but to have an official back door written into the OS for the Chinese government to feel secure using it. Otherwise there is a big push to get rid of Apple and Microsoft and Android software. Any software written by the US is now suspect at least for the government. So I would assume in China Linux and ASOP will be custom made into various OS for the Chinese people and their devices to completely rid themselves of any US software security issues. So the pressure on Apple to please CCP is probably pretty high. I don't want to use an OS that may be compromised down the road and am not/have not been happy with the entire Made in China direction Apple has gone in. That being said many other computer companies do the same thing just not to the degree Apple does. They may use Chinese manufacturers and have good relationships but they are using components from all over and don't have the volume or money Apple does. So they are not as invested. They could switch to Vietnam for example with little issues while for Apple it won't be that easy. Any decision to significantly change manufacturing outside of China would have huge cost implications for Apple and would only be done if they had NO other choice. All the talk about iPhones made in India is just for show. Sure they will do it and make a small percentage outside of China but you can be sure there are no Indian iPhones in China unless they happen to be with an Indian national. Apple is in on the CCP until the end whatever it will bring. Mark my words.
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Have you watched the latest Cathode Ray Dude upload? He raised a very interesting point, towards the end of the video, about computers, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Apple, everyone is making the same beige box, with the same number of keys, the same size screen, his question, how do you stand out in a market that is basically at the end of the invention pathway?
What does Apple do to make you want to buy an Apple laptop? Across the street, At 1 Microsoft Plaza, the CEO has no sleepless issues, his product is work from home, can be done on a cheap ipad from an yacht, using Starlink, he has no factory to worry about... Hire and fire staff..
Meanwhile, Dell, Hauwei, HP, Lenovo, Sony, all are selling a box , in that box are parts someone else made, all they do is design a way to cluster the parts, to form a functional PC, what makes a Dell better than a Sony? Both have the same internals, as they have to, they run the same OS, Windows..
Where is the innovation? Why do we have only 2 operating systems? Down from many to 2.. the same happened with phones, from many to 3.. Apple, Hauwei and Android.. Where is the innovation? Have we run out of innovation?
it just struck me, we say Apple is behind a wall, but then really so Android a wall, you cannot run iOS apps on a Samsung, nor can you run Android Apps on iOS, not natively.. Maybe through emulation,hacking, jailbreaking..
We have really 2 prisons, we are in one or both, but they are separate and not compatible.. Now we are seeing the real issues come to bare fruit, the Apple Watch run on Android.. Or Samsung Fit on iphones..
For bascially 1/4 of this 21st century, we had a very strange situation, we had Apple selling the same product as Dell/HP, both intels, both running the same identical hardware, the only difference was the code, the OS, how Apple wrote.. Dell/HP/Sony, wrote not a single line of code for their computers, they relied on Microsoft, Apple wrote for the most part a better code..
Something changed, Apple grew tired of being just another Dell in a pretty dress, it wanted control, it wanted more, and so Silicon, now Apple is trying to sell products that are not just Dell's in a pretty dress, but separate , innovation yes, but now what???
What does Apple do for the next 25 years? You have whole departments of highly skilled well educated highly paid folks that have to produce something, something that will make Apple better than Dell/HP et al, so how, what do you do? How do you innovate?
The System on a chip, brilliant, all for it, it is innovation, the idea of taking two chips and bodging them to make a faster chip, poor, 0% for effort, -10% for cheating, that is nothing to be proud about...
In the day, Apple tried so hard to rise about the crowd, invented/improved the ports we used, FireWire, brilliant, then later improved video editing with FCPX, magnetic timeline, but that was over a decade ago, since then nothing....
Apple I think through neglect or mismanagement, ended up with 2 products that are functionally the same, air and pro laptops, and what now?
So far Apple has resisted the urge to merge the ipad and the laptop, but damn they are so close, there I was in the istore, ipad+keyboard, cover, pencil, about to spend more than the macbook air, I was torn between the air and the ipad/keyboard/pencil, I was what am I buying? The ipad+keyboard looks like, functionally is a macbook of some degree, runs a different OS, maybe even a better one, then there is the pro..
We see this all the time with cars, cars have the same engines, seats, etc, what do you as a car designer do to make your car the one to buy? you add features, such as cup holders, a vacuum cleaner, folding seats, an ice maker.. within 90 days, everyone has cars with this, what next? Soon every car in the class has all the same toys.. then what?
Touchscreen macbooks? But what is a macbook with a touchscreen better than an ipad with a detachable keyboard???
Is the whole rental for FCPm for Ipad a bit of a problem? Why go that route? For what? I am sure that it costs more to host the code on the server than Apple is making from the income of the rental? Why not make it cross platform, for Android/Win11?
The walls are going to crumble, Apple cannot keep android/microsoft out forever.. Do we want a single OS for every device????
What does Apple do to make you want to buy an Apple laptop? Across the street, At 1 Microsoft Plaza, the CEO has no sleepless issues, his product is work from home, can be done on a cheap ipad from an yacht, using Starlink, he has no factory to worry about... Hire and fire staff..
Meanwhile, Dell, Hauwei, HP, Lenovo, Sony, all are selling a box , in that box are parts someone else made, all they do is design a way to cluster the parts, to form a functional PC, what makes a Dell better than a Sony? Both have the same internals, as they have to, they run the same OS, Windows..
Where is the innovation? Why do we have only 2 operating systems? Down from many to 2.. the same happened with phones, from many to 3.. Apple, Hauwei and Android.. Where is the innovation? Have we run out of innovation?
it just struck me, we say Apple is behind a wall, but then really so Android a wall, you cannot run iOS apps on a Samsung, nor can you run Android Apps on iOS, not natively.. Maybe through emulation,hacking, jailbreaking..
We have really 2 prisons, we are in one or both, but they are separate and not compatible.. Now we are seeing the real issues come to bare fruit, the Apple Watch run on Android.. Or Samsung Fit on iphones..
For bascially 1/4 of this 21st century, we had a very strange situation, we had Apple selling the same product as Dell/HP, both intels, both running the same identical hardware, the only difference was the code, the OS, how Apple wrote.. Dell/HP/Sony, wrote not a single line of code for their computers, they relied on Microsoft, Apple wrote for the most part a better code..
Something changed, Apple grew tired of being just another Dell in a pretty dress, it wanted control, it wanted more, and so Silicon, now Apple is trying to sell products that are not just Dell's in a pretty dress, but separate , innovation yes, but now what???
What does Apple do for the next 25 years? You have whole departments of highly skilled well educated highly paid folks that have to produce something, something that will make Apple better than Dell/HP et al, so how, what do you do? How do you innovate?
The System on a chip, brilliant, all for it, it is innovation, the idea of taking two chips and bodging them to make a faster chip, poor, 0% for effort, -10% for cheating, that is nothing to be proud about...
In the day, Apple tried so hard to rise about the crowd, invented/improved the ports we used, FireWire, brilliant, then later improved video editing with FCPX, magnetic timeline, but that was over a decade ago, since then nothing....
Apple I think through neglect or mismanagement, ended up with 2 products that are functionally the same, air and pro laptops, and what now?
So far Apple has resisted the urge to merge the ipad and the laptop, but damn they are so close, there I was in the istore, ipad+keyboard, cover, pencil, about to spend more than the macbook air, I was torn between the air and the ipad/keyboard/pencil, I was what am I buying? The ipad+keyboard looks like, functionally is a macbook of some degree, runs a different OS, maybe even a better one, then there is the pro..
We see this all the time with cars, cars have the same engines, seats, etc, what do you as a car designer do to make your car the one to buy? you add features, such as cup holders, a vacuum cleaner, folding seats, an ice maker.. within 90 days, everyone has cars with this, what next? Soon every car in the class has all the same toys.. then what?
Touchscreen macbooks? But what is a macbook with a touchscreen better than an ipad with a detachable keyboard???
Is the whole rental for FCPm for Ipad a bit of a problem? Why go that route? For what? I am sure that it costs more to host the code on the server than Apple is making from the income of the rental? Why not make it cross platform, for Android/Win11?
The walls are going to crumble, Apple cannot keep android/microsoft out forever.. Do we want a single OS for every device????
An innovation that the Raspberry Foundation made ten years before Apple.
In one capital aspect: Yet can a Macbook run software that does not pay royalties to Apple. Yet...
That's the downside of the SoC, at least with how apple is using it. They're using the same chipset for the Air and Pro, other then with some GPU core differences.
That's the problem they're facing, what does the iPad do that the Mac's can't and vice versa. I think overall iPad sales are in a downward spiral. Apple didn't help themselves by not releasing a new model, but what can they do? Faster processor, more ram, different screen? They're a mature product and there's nothing that will generate a spike in sails AFAIK
The ipad should be like a costco hotdog, a loss leader, there to bring you into the eco-system, get you hooked on iPad OS, you need upgrades, keyboards, dongles, hard drives, then a phone, a watch, a mac laptop, do a deal with Sony or BlackMagic, sell a couple of video editing/audio gear, folks then buy FCP, logic, plug ins through the app store...Income income income..
The best top specced all in warts and all, no more than $499... So what if Apple takes a bath on ipads, they would make it up in accessories, dongles, etc...
This is where Apple should have taken the macbook pro, and the ipad pro, they have shown enough in the keynotes, how great the products are, then to sell at a extremely high price, price that many simply cannot afford... Charge for upgrades, OS upgrades, extra features.. Final Cut Pro and Final Cut Pro Express..
I bought my 1st mac knowing I could upgrade, I was naive to not fully understand the 32bit, but when I did, I was truly devastated, it was a huge blow, then 64bit, then BTO, and the cost to BTO from the lowest, it was stupid expensive, then in 2022, I needed a new mac laptop, costs and the lack of upgrading what was the point of a 3rd pro...
But the ipads to run fcp for ipads, stupid expensive, so no income from me there...
What on earth makes you think Apple need a loss leader? And if they did, it is hardly going to be that an iPad would serve the purpose. These devices are about at the end of their developmental life, and beyond most user's purpose. Plus, how irate are buyers going to be when they discover that to add to their cheap iPad, a keyboard costs more, a pencil about the same, and a cover, almost half as much.
Apple isn't a discount supermarket.
And besides which, it's a long, long time since Phil Schiller (I think) pointed out that everyone else in the business 'does cheap', and that isn't the market Apple have any desire to serve.
As indeed, we can see.
I get that some may be thinking how well their own use case could be met with a particular product configured a particular way, and that's great because out there somewhere, there's a product for almost every one of those use cases. Heck, you can even buy a good, general purpose/not spectacular Windows 11 laptop for about $200 maybe less. That's a bargain.
But Apple aren't going to chase that market with anything more than AirPods and AirTags. Could they make a killing if they did? No, because that's not how they work, not the kind of product they make, not the kind of product they want to put their name on, and in a market where they stand out as the best at what they do (and they do stand out for that). switching to 'doing it cheap' would appear to be a panic reaction that would shock and destabilize their investors and customers alike.
After the Apple II, they have staked their entire operating model on exclusive product, and it's made them a great deal of money, and an enviable reputation. It means they can't and wouldn't want to try to make everything everyone might want - and it isn't their job to try. It's your job to find the actual product that best suits your needs or wants - finding the manufacturer you want and then expecting them to build something for you is not how just about any market works. And when it does, it costs way more.
There is nothing stopping Mr Cook et al from going what I suggested, that will of course never happen, Mr Cook and the board/shareholders lack that sort of mindset...
Maybe the ipads are priced too high, for what they are... I wonder just how many NOS there are floating around in warehouses, that are shipping from China to all parts of the rock, sit in warehouses, would I buy a 4 yr old NOS ipad? Yes if it allowed me to run fcp for ipad for a couple of years.. Even older laptops...
You make it, it sits on a shelf, in a box, along with hundreds of other boxes, on a pallet, rotting, and for what? Do what Walmart does, declare it a total loss, then flog the ipad for $100, you make profit twice.. on the loss, and on the sale..
I would really love to replace the ipad mini 2, with something that runs fcp for ipad, but the ipad pro is cost prohibitive, and really for what reason are ipads so expensive? If you made the ipads a lot less expensive, folks would be encouraged to invest in the accessories, I would, and rent software.. but at R29 000, there is just no way I can ever hope to save up for this... A pity as if it was R12 000, maybe then over a couple months, save and buy accessories, not everyone is super wealthy or can afford to buy on terms..
Maybe the ipads are priced too high, for what they are... I wonder just how many NOS there are floating around in warehouses, that are shipping from China to all parts of the rock, sit in warehouses, would I buy a 4 yr old NOS ipad? Yes if it allowed me to run fcp for ipad for a couple of years.. Even older laptops...
You make it, it sits on a shelf, in a box, along with hundreds of other boxes, on a pallet, rotting, and for what? Do what Walmart does, declare it a total loss, then flog the ipad for $100, you make profit twice.. on the loss, and on the sale..
I would really love to replace the ipad mini 2, with something that runs fcp for ipad, but the ipad pro is cost prohibitive, and really for what reason are ipads so expensive? If you made the ipads a lot less expensive, folks would be encouraged to invest in the accessories, I would, and rent software.. but at R29 000, there is just no way I can ever hope to save up for this... A pity as if it was R12 000, maybe then over a couple months, save and buy accessories, not everyone is super wealthy or can afford to buy on terms..
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Loss leaders are employed to bring customers into the store, soo that loss is offset by the consumer buying other items. The dominant forces in a given consumer market have no need to employee a loss leader, i.e., selling a product below the cost of manufacturing or acquisition.
Apple is the dominant force in tablet market and so there is no real incentive to make the ipad a loss leader. Its not that Cook is kowtowing to the board, its just bad business.
There's another term - Predatory Pricing, and its illegal and if Apple suddenly cut the price, the competitors of the iPad would be crying foul and stating that apple is using its market position to drive them out
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Maybe if Apple made toasters and Samsung made toasters, then Apple used to sell toasters, 2 slice for $999, and the 4 slice for $1999, then decided to sell the 2 slice for $199 when Samsung had been selling toasters 2 slice for 229.. fair enough...
No one can say the ipad is the same as a samsung tablet, that is like saying an mini van is the same as a school bus. So no, ipads are in no way related to a samsung tablet, if both ran a common OS, maybe you could say closely related...
Are Apple and others competing in the screen that has an OS market? You could argue what about phones, laptops/ desktops? Maybe phones--but no, from the cheap $2 to the $2000, there is no competition, Apple does not make a cheap phone.. Maybe Samsung prevented this, and Apple selling cheap $99 ipads and $199 ipad pro's is about market balancing? Why is Apple not selling a cheap phone for $99? After all they are made in the same factory, using mostly the same parts..
No one can say the ipad is the same as a samsung tablet, that is like saying an mini van is the same as a school bus. So no, ipads are in no way related to a samsung tablet, if both ran a common OS, maybe you could say closely related...
Are Apple and others competing in the screen that has an OS market? You could argue what about phones, laptops/ desktops? Maybe phones--but no, from the cheap $2 to the $2000, there is no competition, Apple does not make a cheap phone.. Maybe Samsung prevented this, and Apple selling cheap $99 ipads and $199 ipad pro's is about market balancing? Why is Apple not selling a cheap phone for $99? After all they are made in the same factory, using mostly the same parts..
Op-ed: Why an all-smiles China visit from Apple's Tim Cook isn't good business
Apple CEO Tim Cook's visit to China is in a long line of Western business leader treks to China in search of favor and foothold. It won't work anymore.
www.msn.com
Tim needs China, China does not need Tim, and Tim knows that within 90 seconds Apple is wiped out, Tim has no back up plan that would not prevent the death of Apple... That is exactly what I have been saying, Tim knows Apple is built in a foundation of quicksand, Apple is 100% reliant on China for every aspect bar the software..
What does Tim do? Where does he go? Um, now, is BTO a bright idea?
What does Tim do? Where does he go? Um, now, is BTO a bright idea?
I'm not getting your logic. Apple sells a tablet, called the iPad, it does tablety things. Samsung sells a tablet and it does tablety things. They're not the same thing, as one uses android and the other uses iOS.
Using your logic, then Apple and Samsung are not competing in the phone market either, because the iPhone is different then Samsung's Galaxy.
In both markets, Apple and Samsung are direct competitors.
As for your toaster argument, I'm sorry you completely lost me
That's like saying is honda is competing against Ford in the truck market because Honda opted for a completely different build then how trucks are typically made. Its a truck vying for the same consumers, and in the tablet arena, Samsung is competing for the consumers who are buying the iPad
I wonder why Apple was compared to Google and Meta? Those two are mainly software companies.Op-ed: Why an all-smiles China visit from Apple's Tim Cook isn't good business
Apple CEO Tim Cook's visit to China is in a long line of Western business leader treks to China in search of favor and foothold. It won't work anymore.www.msn.com
It makes sense that Apple focuses on keeping a good relationship with China. At least in my opinion.
They have built a much larger technological center, than the US has. Europe is not worthy of consideration in this respect.
The Chinese tech companies and Apple are also investing in R&D. Could the US start high tech manufacturing?
Perhaps, but not at such a scale.
Another advantage for China as a manufacturer, is the geographical and demographic location, on the eurasian continent.
Still, it is always interesting to read news like this. And it is going to be interesting to see how Apple presents itself in WWDC. I hope it will be not as bad as last year.
And the one lets you access its file system and just download photos and music and the other one does not.
I think most people will disagree
If you google "galaxy tab vs ipad" you get results like this, i.e., which tablet should I buy, reviews comparing the samsung to the iPad, etc.
Both are tablets and as such they are direct competitors. With that said, iPad does an infinitely better job with the hardware, the OS, software and services. Its a far superior product by a long shot but a tablet is a tablet and both Apple and Samsung produce tablets and both are vying for similar customers.
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Perhaps the main reason that most if not all of Apple's products are assembled in China is the fact that Taiwan is in very close proximity and Taiwan is where the bulk of the SoC are fabricated. Currently it does not make much sense to ship all those chips halfway around the world.
I would be more worried about China invading Taiwan and turning TSMC into a state run entity. That would ruin Apple more than manufacturing not happening in China.
Also the fact that TSMC is investing in a huge state of the art fabrication plant in Arizona says all we need to know. Both Apple and TSMC see the need to shield themselves from whatever nefarious actions China might happen to do. Of course (big surprise) finding labor to build the plant has proved to be troublesome. I would no be surprised to see TSMC split off into another entity that is basically TSMC America.
I am sure Intel has some ideas about this...lol.
I would be more worried about China invading Taiwan and turning TSMC into a state run entity. That would ruin Apple more than manufacturing not happening in China.
Also the fact that TSMC is investing in a huge state of the art fabrication plant in Arizona says all we need to know. Both Apple and TSMC see the need to shield themselves from whatever nefarious actions China might happen to do. Of course (big surprise) finding labor to build the plant has proved to be troublesome. I would no be surprised to see TSMC split off into another entity that is basically TSMC America.
I am sure Intel has some ideas about this...lol.
It seemed after m series that everyone sort of thought that was it for Intel. I think it is pretty amazing how well they have responded and if we get Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake this year and they stick to their roadmap as they have been it will be very interesting to see what happens.
I am betting on Intel coming out ahead in the end. I would rather put my money into Intel over any other CPU/SOC manufacturer. I also would rather be supporting American semiconductor industry. Intel has not been the best in the past several years or even the past decade but they are fighting back. With geo-political tensions seemingly only getting worse and sort of locked into a worsening trajectory I personally think Apple is in a really bad spot and it seems Mr Cook is hell bent on saving whatever relationship he can with the CCP at any cost instead of cutting losses and diversifying and laying the groundwork for finding qualified people and infrastructure for the job.
I personally feel Apple is doomed in the short term because Tim Cook doesn't seem to realize that the CCP has simply been stealing IP and gaining manufacturing knowledge from Apple. Now Lenovo can make a better engineered laptop than Apple. Now the CCP would like to replace Apple with a Chinese Technology firm, Huawei, Lenovo, etc. The CCP is in direct competition with Apple and not a friend. Once they find Apple no longer useful and have gotten as much information as they need they will destroy Apple with a 1000 cuts until it is a shell of itself and they can eclipse Apple with better hardware at a better price. I don't know how they plan to compete on the software side but they will eventually get there.
Windows OEM's that are now using China to Manufacture their devices are not as heavily invested and can easily go to Vietnam or India or continue to use China until it becomes a geo-political problem.
Samsung is heavily invested in Vietnam now and it seems they can get good quality and decent production costs similar to China.
We may as well write TSMC off now. We may have 3 years or less before Taiwan becomes a part of the CCP. America will not risk full scale war with China over Taiwan and China will invade. America and Taiwan will put up a good initial resistance but the CCP will overwhelm them and continue a constant barrage until escalation becomes the only choice at which point the US/Nato/UN would have to weigh the consequences of full scale thermonuclear war and I don't think anyone is willing to go that far over Taiwan. So I don't see a resolution where China doesn't take over Taiwan unless they have an incompetent military invasion or do not commit 100%. The CCP has a lot of internal pressure due to domestic politics to do something that will improve the slumping economy. An Invasion of Taiwan could potentially boost the Chinese economy, boost nationalistic pride and favor of the CCP(extremely valuable on it's own), and gain TSMC and nationalize it over night. All the most cutting edge tech goes to China. There is a big risk for China but huge pay offs that seem worth the risk.
Americans are funny. How much do we hate the fact that Cuba is a communist dictatorship right next door. What would we do if Mexico became a communist nation? Anyone remember the Cuban missile crisis? How about Iraq? We have Invaded or attempted to invade and overthrow countries we deem as a serious threat or are a threat due to their proximity. Same thing is true for the Chinese and Russians. So we really don't have a moral high ground here. China, right or wrong has always seem Taiwan as a province of China and sees a Democratic Western aligned nation very close to it's border with huge strategic significance and you can see why they are dead set on claiming it as their territory. Like the Ukrainian's, it would be a disaster for Taiwan and it would turn Taiwan a thriving Democratic nation into another Hong Kong. I think America should fight for Taiwan. However, my point is to be able to understand how serious the CCP is and why this flash point is inevitable and any American company aligned with China when the **** hits the fan is going to be seriously screwed. What is Apple going to do if war breaks out in Taiwan? What if CCP just takes over and shuts down the entire production line in the interest of Chinese national security? What could Apple do? America would not be sympathetic in the time of war to Apple.
So I personally have been warning about this scenario for at least a decade. If I saw this coming, then no doubt Tim and Apple already know how this could play out. I don't see how what they are doing now makes any sense? They should be preparing for the worst now. Apple also with the chips act and American production making a small come back to embrace that, get some tax payer funding and start manufacturing in the USA. They have the money to do it. They would have a lot of problems and lose money for several years but in the end they could be successful while bringing thousands of good jobs back to the USA. They could use this as a marketing tool and use American nationalism as a selling point. I think they would do well. But they have to consider the vast consumer market in China closed.
All these greedy Western corporations need to wake up and realize they can't play both sides anymore. They either need to go all in on the Western market and produce in Western/Democratic nations or suffer their fate. The Chinese will force their hands at a certain point. The Chinese built up their industrial base not to compete with the West but to undercut it it to the point Western industrial businesses could not compete and would go out of business. The Chinese built their industrial base at enormous cost not to "Service" the west but to REPLACE it.
Think about the billions of dollars Apple has made off the back of China? I am sure President Xi is very aware of this and one of the main priorities is to reverse this situation.
Maybe I am wrong and nothing of what I said will happen. I hope so. But it seems like things are all heading in a certain direction and I don't see how that direction changes???
Yeah I am awaiting with popcorn in hand once the Chinese basically finally tell the western countries to go f-off.
It is a losing long term business plan to rely on cheap labor; eventually all cheap labor is going to dry up. And yes I agree manufacturing in the US is basically dead. COVID really painted the true colors of how screwed the Unites States will be if/when China decides to drop the axe.
It is a losing long term business plan to rely on cheap labor; eventually all cheap labor is going to dry up. And yes I agree manufacturing in the US is basically dead. COVID really painted the true colors of how screwed the Unites States will be if/when China decides to drop the axe.
Circling back here...
Big update!
I'm on Sonoma now (and Windows 11)
The juice was worth the squeeze, as my Hack is now running 4K/120HZ.
On macOS I have to choose 4K/120HZ/SDR or 4K/60HZ/HDR, whereas in Windows I get 4K/120/HDR, no issues.
With this new OLED I got, I just have to have my high refresh rate.. and once I was getting it on Windows 11, I just had to do what it took to get it on the macOS side also.
I tried everything to get it working right in Monterey, then moved up to Ventura where it got better, but the support for HDMI 2.1 on both ends just seemed to work better in Sonoma. This is clearly something Apple has worked on and improved as their own hardware has come along in this direction as well.
So -- alas... my Hack has moved to Sonoma.
Everything still works natively save for WiFi, which I knew going in.
There are apparently fixes for that via OCLP (I have an old native Broadcom card that Apple dropped support for in Sonoma), but I haven't yet bothered with that as I'm always plugged into Ethernet with this machine, and I don't actually use Continuity Camera or AirDrop (all that's been lost).
Still - the completionist in me will want to tackle WiFi eventually I think, but for now I'm just enjoy the glory of 4k/120/OLED
ASi is nice, don't get me wrong, but this 'ol girl still screams for all of my usages!
Plus -- she's a dual booting Swiss army knife that allows me to get my gaming fix in on the same hardware.
I love how I've been able to keep the same case, PSU, Motherboard, CPU and RAM ticking along for 7 years now with progressive NVMe and GPU upgrades. This is how desktop computing should be
i7 8700
32GB RAM
2TB NVMe SN770 for macOS
2TB NVMe SN580 for Win11
2TB SATA SSD for Time Machine
RX 6600 XT (6750 XT coming next week to test out NootRX!)
Big update!
I'm on Sonoma now (and Windows 11)
The juice was worth the squeeze, as my Hack is now running 4K/120HZ.
On macOS I have to choose 4K/120HZ/SDR or 4K/60HZ/HDR, whereas in Windows I get 4K/120/HDR, no issues.
With this new OLED I got, I just have to have my high refresh rate.. and once I was getting it on Windows 11, I just had to do what it took to get it on the macOS side also.
I tried everything to get it working right in Monterey, then moved up to Ventura where it got better, but the support for HDMI 2.1 on both ends just seemed to work better in Sonoma. This is clearly something Apple has worked on and improved as their own hardware has come along in this direction as well.
So -- alas... my Hack has moved to Sonoma.
Everything still works natively save for WiFi, which I knew going in.
There are apparently fixes for that via OCLP (I have an old native Broadcom card that Apple dropped support for in Sonoma), but I haven't yet bothered with that as I'm always plugged into Ethernet with this machine, and I don't actually use Continuity Camera or AirDrop (all that's been lost).
Still - the completionist in me will want to tackle WiFi eventually I think, but for now I'm just enjoy the glory of 4k/120/OLED
ASi is nice, don't get me wrong, but this 'ol girl still screams for all of my usages!
Plus -- she's a dual booting Swiss army knife that allows me to get my gaming fix in on the same hardware.
I love how I've been able to keep the same case, PSU, Motherboard, CPU and RAM ticking along for 7 years now with progressive NVMe and GPU upgrades. This is how desktop computing should be
i7 8700
32GB RAM
2TB NVMe SN770 for macOS
2TB NVMe SN580 for Win11
2TB SATA SSD for Time Machine
RX 6600 XT (6750 XT coming next week to test out NootRX!)
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Some people first choose the operating system and then choose the device. Others will not care so much about the operating system and look at both iPads and Android tablets to make a purchasing decision. I don't think we know anything about the relative sizes of these two groups.