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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

#71

Post by AnonC »

I read somewhere (don’t recall where) that Apple typically enters into contracts for RAM on a six-monthly basis and avoids longer term ones. Even in the current situation since last year, it has avoided getting into multi-year contracts like the AI companies have.

It’s certainly possible that the AI companies and their prospects may get a true reality check and then memory prices could cool down in a year or two. If that happens (I personally believe there is a good enough probability), then Apple will come out looking prescient for not getting locked into long term costly contracts.

It remains to be seen for how long the investors in the AI companies are willing to wait for total market capture and/or growing profits.

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

#73

Post by a-french-anon »

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).

You underestimate how poorly optimized Android (both the OS and ecosystem) is.

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

#74

Post by mrweasel »

frollogaston wrote: post #49
jl6 wrote: post #21

There’s probably a big marketing opportunity for anyone who can make more memory-efficient alternatives to some of the bloated apps that have normalized the need for >16GB RAM in a desktop computer. Alongside dark mode, apps should have a “slim mode” that turns off some of the more wasteful features in order to run on older/smaller hardware.

I feel like the market of apps and websites has usually been irrational about bloat because developers tend to have beefy machines. It required a beefy machine just to use Twitter without lag, and now X is the same. In the 2000s it was excessive Flash instead, or Java for apps. Some sites like Google were able to measure the user-engagement cost of slowness and chose to optimize, but they're exceptional. I doubt most…

Same for phone. I don't think anyone tests their websites on older devices anymore. Many sites have become useless, because it assumes that you have a massive screen, a modern GPU and plenty of memory. There's no point in having a video as a background, or load an excessive amount of Javascript, just to show me a news feed.

No one cares anymore, and I doubt that any hardware supply bottlenecks will improve that. It's not something that anyone care to measure.

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

#75

Post by theturtletalks »

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.

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

#76

Post by AnthonyMouse »

a-french-anon wrote: post #73
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

You underestimate how poorly optimized Android (both the OS and ecosystem) is.

Why does it need to be Android? Make a phone that will send text messages and run a web browser and all the people who just need a phone will buy it to save $200.

Also, when software is poorly optimized that implies it is possible to optimize it.

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

#77

Post by [deleted] »

yreg wrote: post #39
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…

The funny thing is that currently Apple's RAM upgrades are cheaper than the loose dimm sticks. I've just got a new MBP this month, because I expect the prices to rise significantly with the new macbooks in the fall.

[deleted]

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

#78

Post by alt227 »

steve1977 wrote: post #36
jl6 wrote: post #21

There’s probably a big marketing opportunity for anyone who can make more memory-efficient alternatives to some of the bloated apps that have normalized the need for >16GB RAM in a desktop computer. Alongside dark mode, apps should have a “slim mode” that turns off some of the more wasteful features in order to run on older/smaller hardware.

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.

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

#79

Post by y2244 »

cm2187 wrote: post #48
teiferer wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Plenty of younger people are already reverting to more primitive phones That's an effect that has always been claimed (younger generations rejecting new tech and going offline/low-tech/anti-...) but it's never been more than a minor very temporary fad. In the mid to long term, younger people are always at the forefront of tech adoption and it would be very surprising if it was different this time.

I can't tell the difference between a 5 years old smartphone model and the latest generation.

That's why Apple changed the lense layout and introduced new colours in latest iPhone!

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

#80

Post by alt227 »

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…

I think you are splitting hairs. Both arguments boil down to 'AI companies are taking all the chips'. It doesnt really matter why, the result and reasons are the same.
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