Apple Ramps Up R&D Intensity to Pre-iPhone Levels • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple Ramps Up R&D Intensity to Pre-iPhone Levels

#21

Post by brcmthrowaway » Fri, Jan 19, 2024, 9:07 PM UTC

mustacheemperor wrote: post #14

ayewo wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any photos of these slick vehicles you could point to?

Unfortunately no, and I should mention a cursory search turns up known driverless startups active in Mountain View - so I think unless any other HNster has better evidence, treat me as hearsay. I also shouldn't oversell them, the ones I've seen look 'slick' in that they are similar to other well-polished LIDAR test vehicles that aren't just a bunch of sensors bolted to a roof rack, and they're 'mysterious' in that th…

Probably Ghost Automation

Re: Apple Ramps Up R&D Intensity to Pre-iPhone Levels

#22

Post by 0x457 » Fri, Jan 19, 2024, 9:15 PM UTC

mustacheemperor wrote: post #13

thiago_fm wrote: post #10

Money likely spent on crap. Apple is now a really bloated company that barely innovates, and now with plenty of governments breathing on its neck. Just look at how many IPhone models exists nowadays, Steve Jobs would be shocked to see Apple in 2024.

I don't think he would be shocked to see this comment, though, since it is materially identical to the complaints I remember reading circa 2010 and is as willfully ignorant of the Vision Pro as those complaints were of the iPad, and later the Apple Watch and the AirPods (when 'the FBI will destroy Apple's privacy edge' was the government conflict du jour). I don't mean to come across as standoffish here, it's just, t…

To be fair, AirPods that aren't Max and (maybe) Pro are complete garbage. Any wireless headphones in the same price range and often cheaper is better at every category except integration with Apple ecosystem.

Re: Apple Ramps Up R&D Intensity to Pre-iPhone Levels

#23

Post by TaylorAlexander » Fri, Jan 19, 2024, 9:15 PM UTC

seatac76 wrote: post #2

Wonder what they are cooking ? - AR Glasses would be one but they still feel like a decade away - Whatever happened to the Apple Car? - Apple Watch with more sophisticated medical sensors for sure must be in there. Wonder what else?

I think AR/MR are good candidates for investment for Apple right now. They just launched sales of their Vision Pro today, shipping in two weeks. They are launching an entire new category of product which necessarily requires a broad spectrum of deep engineering investment. The current product is clearly too bulky and expensive for mainstream appeal, so they are going to need to release repeated generational improvements to both cost and size. The ten years from AR glasses is ten years of heavy product investment.

And as others said, there is a lot happening in AI too which would go well with headsets and phones alike.

Re: Apple Ramps Up R&D Intensity to Pre-iPhone Levels

#24

Post by AnthonyMouse » Fri, Jan 19, 2024, 9:16 PM UTC

mustacheemperor wrote: post #13

thiago_fm wrote: post #10

Money likely spent on crap. Apple is now a really bloated company that barely innovates, and now with plenty of governments breathing on its neck. Just look at how many IPhone models exists nowadays, Steve Jobs would be shocked to see Apple in 2024.

I don't think he would be shocked to see this comment, though, since it is materially identical to the complaints I remember reading circa 2010 and is as willfully ignorant of the Vision Pro as those complaints were of the iPad, and later the Apple Watch and the AirPods (when 'the FBI will destroy Apple's privacy edge' was the government conflict du jour). I don't mean to come across as standoffish here, it's just, t…

> as willfully ignorant of the Vision Pro as those complaints were of the iPad, and later the Apple Watch and the AirPods

These are the evidence of the opposite.

Apple's hardware from the 70s and 80s, like the original Macintosh, were something special. NeXTSTEP, the Steve Jobs thing that got rebranded as Mac OS X when Apple bought them, was the first modern OS to be simultaneously good and popular. The iPhone changed what a phone is.

The iPad is an iPhone, but bigger. The watch is an iPhone, but smaller. These are not innovations of the same kind. They're the sort of thing you'd expect out of Facebook or Amazon or any other large mature bureaucratic corporation.

If the Apple II was the 70s and the Macintosh was the 80s and NeXTSTEP was the 90s and the iPhone was the 2000s, name the thing of this caliber they did in the 2010s.

Re: Apple Ramps Up R&D Intensity to Pre-iPhone Levels

#25

Post by sneak » Fri, Jan 19, 2024, 9:17 PM UTC

seatac76 wrote: post #2

Wonder what they are cooking ? - AR Glasses would be one but they still feel like a decade away - Whatever happened to the Apple Car? - Apple Watch with more sophisticated medical sensors for sure must be in there. Wonder what else?

The Apple Silicon project has to have been fantastically expensive.

They now use them in all of the watches, all of the phones, all of the macs, all of the ipads and ipad pros, all of the headphones, and the current and future AR systems (there is also a special Apple Silicon AR coprocessor in the Vision Pro, separate from the Mx CPU/GPU/SoC).

They are designing and iterating like 4 or 5 different custom chips, with many of them incorporating industry-leading GPUs, and having them manufactured at scale (which I’m sure is not a simple handoff but involves additional engineering to support high yield manufacture).

This project alone is larger than most technology companies that have ever existed, and a lot of the staff for it must be extraordinarily compensated to retain them (as evidenced by the fact that a bunch of them recently left to start a new chip company (Nuvia) which was then acquired by Qualcomm for $1.4B).

Re: Apple Ramps Up R&D Intensity to Pre-iPhone Levels

#26

Post by jedberg » Fri, Jan 19, 2024, 9:20 PM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #24

mustacheemperor wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think he would be shocked to see this comment, though, since it is materially identical to the complaints I remember reading circa 2010 and is as willfully ignorant of the Vision Pro as those complaints were of the iPad, and later the Apple Watch and the AirPods (when 'the FBI will destroy Apple's privacy edge' was the government conflict du jour). I don't mean to come across as standoffish here, it's just, t…

> as willfully ignorant of the Vision Pro as those complaints were of the iPad, and later the Apple Watch and the AirPods These are the evidence of the opposite. Apple's hardware from the 70s and 80s, like the original Macintosh, were something special. NeXTSTEP, the Steve Jobs thing that got rebranded as Mac OS X when Apple bought them, was the first modern OS to be simultaneously good and popular. The iPhone change…

> name the thing of this caliber they did in the 2010s.

Well, you had to wait for the 2020s, but Vision Pro. It's an entirely new computer, meant to be your primary device. It's similar to how the Mac came out when PCs already existed, but were just different.

Just wait 10 years until the market realizes it.

Re: Apple Ramps Up R&D Intensity to Pre-iPhone Levels

#27

Post by parl_match » Fri, Jan 19, 2024, 9:21 PM UTC

nerdjon wrote: post #20

master_crab wrote: post #15

I don't think it's anything as sexy as some world-shattering AGI, etc. Remember they are doing a lot of building and research on things other companies already do: cellular modems, microled, etc. This is probably where a large portion of these costs go: the refinement of production ready devices and the manufacturing processes/plant needed is incredibly expensive.

This makes me wonder, sure there is a large investment cost in creating many of those things. But is the Maintence/upgrade cost (particularly for things like the modems) the same or less than the investment to do it in the first place? If they are going to own as much of the internal hardware as they clearly want to, they have to be ready to continue to innovate or risk falling behind. I ask because I legitimately do…

With how much they pay for modems and licensing, I can imagine that they have done forecasts of how much they could save by DIY. Even having a slightly inferior modem product in one low price sku is a huge bargaining chip that could save them billions in the long term.

Re: Apple Ramps Up R&D Intensity to Pre-iPhone Levels

#28

Post by gumby » Fri, Jan 19, 2024, 9:29 PM UTC

mikestew wrote: post #19

thiago_fm wrote: post #10

Money likely spent on crap. Apple is now a really bloated company that barely innovates, and now with plenty of governments breathing on its neck. Just look at how many IPhone models exists nowadays, Steve Jobs would be shocked to see Apple in 2024.

You forgot to mention that the only reason people buy Apple products in the first place is because of marketing. If the sheeple ever wake up, Apple is doomed. Or so I've been hearing for, what, the last decade or more?

Decade? Famously: “No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame.”

Re: Apple Ramps Up R&D Intensity to Pre-iPhone Levels

#29

Post by JumpCrisscross » Fri, Jan 19, 2024, 9:33 PM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #24

mustacheemperor wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think he would be shocked to see this comment, though, since it is materially identical to the complaints I remember reading circa 2010 and is as willfully ignorant of the Vision Pro as those complaints were of the iPad, and later the Apple Watch and the AirPods (when 'the FBI will destroy Apple's privacy edge' was the government conflict du jour). I don't mean to come across as standoffish here, it's just, t…

> as willfully ignorant of the Vision Pro as those complaints were of the iPad, and later the Apple Watch and the AirPods These are the evidence of the opposite. Apple's hardware from the 70s and 80s, like the original Macintosh, were something special. NeXTSTEP, the Steve Jobs thing that got rebranded as Mac OS X when Apple bought them, was the first modern OS to be simultaneously good and popular. The iPhone change…

> name the thing of this caliber they did in the 2010s

AirPods. It’s a category-defining product, and in pure Apple tradition, a refinement of an existing one.

Re: Apple Ramps Up R&D Intensity to Pre-iPhone Levels

#30

Post by AnthonyMouse » Fri, Jan 19, 2024, 9:36 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #29

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> as willfully ignorant of the Vision Pro as those complaints were of the iPad, and later the Apple Watch and the AirPods These are the evidence of the opposite. Apple's hardware from the 70s and 80s, like the original Macintosh, were something special. NeXTSTEP, the Steve Jobs thing that got rebranded as Mac OS X when Apple bought them, was the first modern OS to be simultaneously good and popular. The iPhone change…

> name the thing of this caliber they did in the 2010s AirPods. It’s a category-defining product, and in pure Apple tradition, a refinement of an existing one.

AirPods are earbuds. They're nice earbuds, but it's hardly the next iPhone.