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Apple boss Tim Cook says prices to rise due to memory chip costs

bbc.com

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Re: Apple boss Tim Cook says prices to rise due to memory chip costs

#111

Post by kilroy123 »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #47
cm2187 wrote: post #22

There was a very interesting podcast that went into all the details of the AI supply chain shortage [1] The key takeaway for smartphones isn't so much that iphones will cost $150-200 more, which apple customers have shown they can stomach. But that cheap $200 chinese smartphones will need have to hike prices by about the same amount, which will decimate that market. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDG_Hx3BSUE

Or they'll start making cheap phones with <=2GB of RAM again and people will have to write software that uses memory efficiently (the horror).

This is low-key a dream of mine. That we _start_ hyper-optimizing code to use less RAM and resources overall.

Re: Apple boss Tim Cook says prices to rise due to memory chip costs

#112

Post by kilroy123 »

theturtletalks wrote: post #75
ThePhysicist wrote: post #12

Apple RAM prices always had quite a bit of margin though, I think they charged around 4x the going market rate per GB (that said you can't fully compare their RAM to a loose DIMM stick). I was planning to pick up a new Mac Studio this autumn, now I'll have to see if I can afford it, though I have been spending 1,000 USD on LLM subscriptions in some months so I guess even a 10,000 USD Studio Mac amortizes quite fast i…

I would wait until the next Mac Studio. Rumors are it will have 768GB max memory and with the M6 Max chip, even faster prefill. I feel like it’s the endgame.

Yeah for like $25,000+

Re: Apple boss Tim Cook says prices to rise due to memory chip costs

#113

Post by jurgenburgen »

IshKebab wrote: post #102
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So write a WhatsApp client for your phone and convince the EU to make them interoperate with you.

Unfortunately that EU WhatsApp interoperation thing isn't really what we wanted. I assumed it would mean that you would be able to communicate with WhatsApp contacts using a non-WhatsApp app (kind of like Pidgin back in the day). Meta obviously don't want that and they've done a sneaky thing to make it useless: if you connect a third party app to WhatsApp, from that third party app you can only chat with other WhatsA…

That’s pretty screwed up. So even if I setup e.g. Telegram as an allowed app in my WhatsApp account, I can’t communicate with friends on Telegram because they haven’t (why would they, they don’t even have WhatsApp) configured their WhatsApp to use Telegram?

Re: Apple boss Tim Cook says prices to rise due to memory chip costs

#114

Post by stein1946 »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #47
cm2187 wrote: post #22

There was a very interesting podcast that went into all the details of the AI supply chain shortage [1] The key takeaway for smartphones isn't so much that iphones will cost $150-200 more, which apple customers have shown they can stomach. But that cheap $200 chinese smartphones will need have to hike prices by about the same amount, which will decimate that market. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDG_Hx3BSUE

Or they'll start making cheap phones with <=2GB of RAM again and people will have to write software that uses memory efficiently (the horror).

How much cheaper will a phone with 2gb vs one with 4gb? What changes in the supply chain?

Re: Apple boss Tim Cook says prices to rise due to memory chip costs

#115

Post by lynguist »

esperent wrote: post #18
ThePhysicist wrote: post #12

Apple RAM prices always had quite a bit of margin though, I think they charged around 4x the going market rate per GB (that said you can't fully compare their RAM to a loose DIMM stick). I was planning to pick up a new Mac Studio this autumn, now I'll have to see if I can afford it, though I have been spending 1,000 USD on LLM subscriptions in some months so I guess even a 10,000 USD Studio Mac amortizes quite fast i…

> you can't fully compare their RAM to a loose DIMM stick Why?

https://macmagazine.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/18-tea...

This image shows it best.

The memory is on the same package as the SoC. (It's not on the motherboard.)

Re: Apple boss Tim Cook says prices to rise due to memory chip costs

#116

Post by lynguist »

kg wrote: post #52
esperent wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you can't fully compare their RAM to a loose DIMM stick Why?

IIRC modern Apple devices integrate the memory into the whole SoC instead of making it separate on the board and replaceable. It's definitely not swappable like a DIMM or CAMM module would be. Can't find a photo of a decapped M4 chip to prove it, though...

Check my sibling comment for a photo link (M1); or here:

https://macmagazine.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/18-tea...

Re: Apple boss Tim Cook says prices to rise due to memory chip costs

#117

Post by IshKebab »

jurgenburgen wrote: post #113
IshKebab wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately that EU WhatsApp interoperation thing isn't really what we wanted. I assumed it would mean that you would be able to communicate with WhatsApp contacts using a non-WhatsApp app (kind of like Pidgin back in the day). Meta obviously don't want that and they've done a sneaky thing to make it useless: if you connect a third party app to WhatsApp, from that third party app you can only chat with other WhatsA…

That’s pretty screwed up. So even if I setup e.g. Telegram as an allowed app in my WhatsApp account, I can’t communicate with friends on Telegram because they haven’t (why would they, they don’t even have WhatsApp) configured their WhatsApp to use Telegram?

You can communicate with your Telegram friends using WhatsApp. You can't (in practice) communicate with your WhatsApp friends using Telegram.

Re: Apple boss Tim Cook says prices to rise due to memory chip costs

#118

Post by petre »

anon373839 wrote: post #33
herodoturtle wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you please expand on this? Aren’t prices sky rocketing precisely because of excess demand? And they’d collapse in turn if demand disappeared. My understanding of economics is entry level so please forgive my ignorance. I’m just curious what you mean.

> Aren’t prices sky rocketing precisely because of excess demand? Not exactly. The RAM crisis was sparked by OpenAI contracting with multiple vendors to take vast quantities of raw, unfinished wafers off the market. Wafers which OpenAI had no use for -- they just wanted to starve competitors. This is different from an "AI is so popular that manufacturers can't keep up with demand" story. OpenAI and Anthropic are the…

It basically Silver Thursday all over again but with RAM. I wish they crash and burn like the Hunt brothers did, Altman goes the way of Sam Bankman-Fried and Micron gets bought by the Chinese. That's what they all deserve.

Re: Apple boss Tim Cook says prices to rise due to memory chip costs

#119

Post by ta8903 »

ChildOfChaos wrote: post #99
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing stopping it from running arbitrary applications, those applications just wouldn't be Android apps. Which is just as well because 99% of Android apps are just a bloated skin over a web page anyway. I can't actually think of the last time that I wanted to (rather than was forced to) use a non-messaging non-browser app on my phone.

Because you need these apps to do almost anything. I went to a music festival last weekend, ticket has to be on the ticketmaster app which is android or iOS, the official app for the festival has timings and updates for the event which are very important else you will miss stuff that is announced, even safety warnings. My train tickets were on the app, I needed it to book the Uber as well. 20% off drinks and food if…

Are you sure you can't do those thing through websites? You can definitely order an Uber with the browser on your phone, for instance.

Re: Apple boss Tim Cook says prices to rise due to memory chip costs

#120

Post by steve1977 »

alt227 wrote: post #78
steve1977 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's called native applications and has been around since before the days of web app wrappers. Just stop using Electron and you're halfway there already.

Still dont see the point of using electron for mobile apps. Just make a webapp and be done with it without having to jump through the app store hoops.

Yeah it's worst of both worlds really.
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