Paywalled
* Cough * https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome
I'm reluctant to install an addon that has access to all my web browsing for this.
Apple’s failure to build a key part for its new iPhones
41–50 of 188 posts
Re: Apple’s failure to build a key part for its new iPhones
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
This. The standard is also truly horrible to read. It's not really designed to be read, as much as it is an after-the-fact description of what somebody has already done. To the point that testing against a very wide variety of base-stations (and the multitudinous variety of configuration options in those base-stations) is mandatory.
Which is presumably hard to impossible without flying around the world with test chips and physically being in those places, as I guess only a handful of carriers can and will reveal all their config settings and software stacks in practice. The more I think about this modem development problem the harder it seems to get. No wonder Apple have struggled and nobody else even seems to try. The amount of tribal knowledge…
> Which is presumably hard to impossible without flying around the world with test chips and physically being in those places
We had people driving around with our phones logging to a laptop. They basically drove all over the country, trying to cover as much land as possible, and the phone(s) would then attempt to connect to different base stations.
The logs from this would be sent back to the developers to investigate failures, and somewhat often a bug would only manifest itself on a single cell tower.
Qualcomm has presuably done this work for most of the world, and has subsequently become the benchmark that telcoms calibrate against before deploying cell towers, leading to a more uniform protocol landscape.
If Apple hopes to create a new in-house modem chip, they will either need to calibrate it against Qualcomm, or do the gruntwork of travelling the world. In either case, i'm betting that just using Qualcomm chips regardless of the price will be better from an economic perspective.
Furthermore, everything GSM is covered by patents of the "big 5" (Motorola, Nokia, Siemens, Ericsson, I forgot the 5th), which at least at the time had free use of the others patents regarding GSM, but *everybody* else implementing GSM hardware and/or software must pay license fees. Qualcomm and Nokia had a big fight over this 3-4 years ago.
Re: Apple’s failure to build a key part for its new iPhones
#43Spectacular and catastrophic business destroying world ending no good knee to the furniture corner poke your eye and step on a rusty nail failure I must say.
Re: Apple’s failure to build a key part for its new iPhones
#44Paywalled
Reminder: If you have Apple News (or get it bundled with Apple One), it includes access to the Wall Street Journal among many other paywalled sources. On iOS you can use the share sheet to open the URL in news and it will auto-open it. Otherwise you can search for the title. I do wish this feature was better integrated, and using the share sheet to open with any app including News seems always confusing - you're neve…
Super top tip. While I have a shortcut that sends these articles to archive.today, I have Apple One and have long wanted to view them without feeling like I was stealing.
Thank you!
Re: Apple’s failure to build a key part for its new iPhones
#45What’s the fundamental reason why SOTA modems are more challenging than microprocessors for Apple? Intuitively I would’ve guessed the opposite was true.
>Intuitively I would’ve guessed the opposite was true.
It wouldn't be intuitive if people actually have some basic understanding of how modern wireless network works. Unfortunately even those who work on Hardware, CPU design and embedding programming dont understand that. Let alone 99.99999999% of HN.
Re: Apple’s failure to build a key part for its new iPhones
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
This. The standard is also truly horrible to read. It's not really designed to be read, as much as it is an after-the-fact description of what somebody has already done. To the point that testing against a very wide variety of base-stations (and the multitudinous variety of configuration options in those base-stations) is mandatory.
Which is presumably hard to impossible without flying around the world with test chips and physically being in those places, as I guess only a handful of carriers can and will reveal all their config settings and software stacks in practice. The more I think about this modem development problem the harder it seems to get. No wonder Apple have struggled and nobody else even seems to try. The amount of tribal knowledge…
Well Huawei seems to have succeeded
Re: Apple’s failure to build a key part for its new iPhones
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which is presumably hard to impossible without flying around the world with test chips and physically being in those places, as I guess only a handful of carriers can and will reveal all their config settings and software stacks in practice. The more I think about this modem development problem the harder it seems to get. No wonder Apple have struggled and nobody else even seems to try. The amount of tribal knowledge…
Well Huawei seems to have succeeded
Huawei invented most of 5G technology and could tailor the 5G standards to their implementations. Which is also why they were first to market with carrier equipment [1] and had the first CPU with an on-chip 5G modem [2].
[1] https://www.wired.com/story/huawei-5g-polar-codes-data-break...
Re: Apple’s failure to build a key part for its new iPhones
#48Paywalled
Reminder: If you have Apple News (or get it bundled with Apple One), it includes access to the Wall Street Journal among many other paywalled sources. On iOS you can use the share sheet to open the URL in news and it will auto-open it. Otherwise you can search for the title. I do wish this feature was better integrated, and using the share sheet to open with any app including News seems always confusing - you're neve…
Great tip, thanks!
Re: Apple’s failure to build a key part for its new iPhones
#49"Spectacular failure" is a bit hyperbolic to me. They are taking steps to move away from Qualcomm, and it seems their first real go at it resulted in a lackluster product. It's not like Apple actually shipped their phones with that lackluster chip, they decided "hey, didn't work out this go-around". I'm sure they'll get there in another year or so.
> I'm sure they'll get there in another year or so. Unlikely, if you read the article.
"Don't be snarky."
"Please don't comment on whether someone read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that.""
Re: Apple’s failure to build a key part for its new iPhones
#50What’s the fundamental reason why SOTA modems are more challenging than microprocessors for Apple? Intuitively I would’ve guessed the opposite was true.
>Intuitively I would’ve guessed the opposite was true. It wouldn't be intuitive if people actually have some basic understanding of how modern wireless network works. Unfortunately even those who work on Hardware, CPU design and embedding programming dont understand that. Let alone 99.99999999% of HN.
So, what's the answer?