Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple is America's semiconductor problem

semiconductor-digest.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 246 posts

Re: Apple is America's semiconductor problem

#171

Post by franga2000 »

voidfunc wrote: post #166
threeseed wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is a market failure more than an Apple failure Arguably it's a Microsoft failure more than anything. If they had delivered a version of Windows for ARM capable of seamlessly emulating x86 code with no compromises and released it a decade ago the world would likely be different.

Why would Microsoft build something almost no customers were asking for? Even now ARM is niche.

ARM tends to have better performance per watt, leading to improved battery life and thinner/lighter devices at the same performance and price point. Are you sure nobody is asking for it?

Re: Apple is America's semiconductor problem

#172

Post by PetitPrince »

everettp wrote: post #168
voidfunc wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would Microsoft build something almost no customers were asking for? Even now ARM is niche.

What? Per Wikipedia: "With over 230 billion ARM chips produced, as of 2022, ARM is the most widely used family of instruction set architectures."[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_architecture_family

Niche in the laptop and desktop caategory I assume?

Re: Apple is America's semiconductor problem

#173

Post by refurb »

blackeyeblitzar wrote: post #45
peppertree wrote: post #21

Apple is a proxy of what people want. The Soviet has already tried top down supply chain management and it did not work.

When companies are so big that their value is measured in the trillions I think the line between the two is blurry. These companies are managed top down internally after all, so they’re just a smaller “Soviet” situation.

It's not similar at all.

The Soviet situation is top down planning based on what "should" be produced. Actual consumer demand isn't important. The Soviet union would decide some years that industrial equipment was the priority, then years later consumer goods.

Apple is bottoms-up (through customer and market data), with the leadership approving recommendations from the bottom based on what the consumer wants.

Re: Apple is America's semiconductor problem

#174

Post by refurb »

duxup wrote: post #17
jmclnx wrote: post #2

The article makes sense to me. Apple has such a large marketing clout, they are able to set the prices. So prices are so low, they can only be made using boarderline slave labor.

> Apple has such a large marketing clout I think their products are genuinely competitive. It's not just marketing.

Agreed.

I wasn't that impressed with Android long ago, but decided to give it another look last year when I helped a family member buy a top of the line phone.

Android is still not comparable.

Of course, it all depends on what the end user is looking for, but at least for overall quality of Apple phones is higher both in hardware and software.

Re: Apple is America's semiconductor problem

#175

Post by SkiFire13 »

ankit219 wrote: post #107

A weird article. Apple was not the first or the only company to look to East Asia for cheap manufacturing, elctronic equipments, chips, or cheap labor. The trend was started and accelerated by motor companies and hardware just followed suit. Then, some other points are just...there. Apple is America's semiconductor problem because Apple is so big it purchases things in bulk and gets discounts - like every other big c…

> because no one else had the designs ready

Do you have a source for this?

Re: Apple is America's semiconductor problem

#176

Post by [deleted] »

PetitPrince wrote: post #172
everettp wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? Per Wikipedia: "With over 230 billion ARM chips produced, as of 2022, ARM is the most widely used family of instruction set architectures."[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_architecture_family

Niche in the laptop and desktop caategory I assume?

[deleted]

Re: Apple is America's semiconductor problem

#177

Post by trhway »

ankit219 wrote: post #107

A weird article. Apple was not the first or the only company to look to East Asia for cheap manufacturing, elctronic equipments, chips, or cheap labor. The trend was started and accelerated by motor companies and hardware just followed suit. Then, some other points are just...there. Apple is America's semiconductor problem because Apple is so big it purchases things in bulk and gets discounts - like every other big c…

> Apple is America's semiconductor problem

It isn't Apple who is the problem here, it is Intel who refused to manufacture ARM chips for Apple. So Apple didn't have much choice as there aren't much fabs around to choose from. Now Intel, sore looser, is competing for CHIPS money against TSMC/Apple (and Intel will definitely get and waste a lot of those CHIPS money thus making the problem even worse). The article, which looks like a hit-piece, is written by a think-tank funded by Omidyar who is pushing for CHIPS and seems to be connected with Intel a bit here and a bit there. Did somebody say "submarine"?

Re: Apple is America's semiconductor problem

#178

Post by h0l0cube »

voidfunc wrote: post #166
threeseed wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is a market failure more than an Apple failure Arguably it's a Microsoft failure more than anything. If they had delivered a version of Windows for ARM capable of seamlessly emulating x86 code with no compromises and released it a decade ago the world would likely be different.

Why would Microsoft build something almost no customers were asking for? Even now ARM is niche.

I'll assume you mean niche in the desktop space.

So there's a catch 22 here. ARM was niche on desktop because no-one made the first move. That is, until Apple launched the M1, which is exactly the failure of imagination of Microsoft that GP is talking about. Though a quick google shows they did indeed investigate this avenue in 2016 for Windows 10, though they obviously didn't commit to it:

> On December 7, 2016, Microsoft announced that, as part of a partnership with Qualcomm, it planned to introduce support for running Win32 software on ARM architecture with a 32-bit x86 processor emulator, in 2017. Terry Myerson stated that this move would enable the production of Qualcomm Snapdragon-based Windows devices with cellular connectivity and improved power efficiency over Intel-compatible devices, and still capable of running the majority of existing Windows software (unlike the previous Windows RT, which was restricted to Windows Store apps). Microsoft is initially targeting this project towards laptops.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_10#Features_in_develop...

Re: Apple is America's semiconductor problem

#180

Post by cryptica »

In this case, people are the problem for being suggestible and buying Apple obsessively. I've worked for 3 different tech companies which bought and forced me to use an expensive company-supplied MacBook, in spite of the fact that their software project ran in production on Linux which is free. The problem is that people are brainwashed.
Post reply on HN