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jz0309

Contributor
Sep 25, 2018
11,392
30,074
SoCal
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery...

A quick search revealed that google has sold ~7.5M Pixel phones… let’s just assume that they will sell 20M of the new Pixel 6 - making your own chip (SOC, modem?) is an EXTREMELY expensive undertaking and not going to yield a lot of return, if any.

So, I am not sure if I should really believe the article…
At the same token, Google has the money and competition would be a good thing provided they would sell it to others…
 

poorcody

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jul 23, 2013
1,339
1,584
A quick search revealed that google has sold ~7.5M Pixel phones… let’s just assume that they will sell 20M of the new Pixel 6 - making your own chip (SOC, modem?) is an EXTREMELY expensive undertaking and not going to yield a lot of return, if any.

So, I am not sure if I should really believe the article…
At the same token, Google has the money and competition would be a good thing provided they would sell it to others…
Google has been making their own "TPU's" for their servers for a while now, so maybe they are leveraging that investment to branch over to phones, much like Apple did from iPhones to Macs.
 

jz0309

Contributor
Sep 25, 2018
11,392
30,074
SoCal
Google has been making their own "TPU's" for their servers for a while now, so maybe they are leveraging that investment to branch over to phones, much like Apple did from iPhones to Macs.
I correct myself as I've read an interview (in German) with Rick Osterloh who confirms all of that ... and it's now a page 1 article, so, good luck Google! Competition is heating up, that's a good thing.
 

robco74

macrumors 6502a
Nov 22, 2020
509
944
We'll see how it goes. It certainly will take a while to recoup the costs, but I hope they stick with it. I wonder if they plan on scaling down (wearables) and/or up (Chromebooks). Qualcomm rested on their patent laurels for a long time and disappointed major customers, I wonder if their latest announcements and acquisitions are too little, too late. I think Apple has demonstrated to MS and Google that putting their future in the hands of a third party isn't necessarily a good idea.
 

leman

macrumors Core
Oct 14, 2008
19,522
19,679
I think it makes sense. They probably won’t develop a CPU from scratch like Apple did, but they can license ARM cores and combine them with their in-house ML tech (which is already industry-leading). Definitely would give them an edge in regards to on-device AI processing.
 
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