Dave
Member
"It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future." Yogi Berra
Posts: 4,098
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Post by Dave on Dec 25, 2020 2:38:04 GMT -8
Merry Christmas to one and all!
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Dave
Member
"It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future." Yogi Berra
Posts: 4,098
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Post by Dave on Dec 25, 2020 4:20:24 GMT -8
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benoir
fire starter
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Posts: 1,318
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Post by benoir on Dec 25, 2020 6:19:28 GMT -8
Apple Has Reportedly Ordered TSMC's 3nm Process for Future iPhone, MacBook Silicon China
Digging around I realise I don’t quite know what the process size refers to exactly. Although I do know that 3nm is very small. My first Mac was an LCII. It had a Motorola 68030 processor running at 16MGz. I assume that was something like an 800nm process. In 28 years the process has shrunk from 800nm to 3nm. Remarkable. Macs with Apple silicone at 3nm process will be incredible. and for those that do the Christmas thing.. merry Christmas... Edit......oops added an errant ‘ e’ to ‘silicon’. That would more ‘augment’ a Mac in an aesthetic manner..... my bad!
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Post by aaplcrazie on Dec 25, 2020 12:57:34 GMT -8
🌲🎉🌲🎉 To all fellow AFB'ers
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mark
fire starter
Posts: 1,552
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Post by mark on Dec 25, 2020 13:54:55 GMT -8
I can't really see it. Number one, I definitely can't see Apple making a $75k vehicle. Apple likes to be in the higher margin high-end segment of their businesses (think $250 earbuds and $549 over-the-ear headphones). That's how they end up with their very respectable overall margins. If a Tesla model S is the high-end, typically $70-110k, then the Apple iCar would probably be $100-150k and would only capture a very small segment of the auto market. Number two, I don't see Apple investing the $10+B necessary to assemble vehicles, and still have to use myriad suppliers of dubious quality for the many components that go into building a car. And number two, part b, I certainly don't see Apple going vertical for vehicle components ... can you just imagine an Apple division that makes suspensions? that makes actuators for electric windows? that makes all those little things that go into a vehicle? No way can I see that happening.
What I perhaps CAN see, is Apple selling a $10-50k system (depending on options, and desired battery capacity) that comprise almost all the electronics (and probably also power systems for electric-only cars) in a vehicle, and all the control systems in a vehicle, and all the infotainment/telematics systems in a vehicle. And I can see Apple selling the monthly services for all those subsystems.
The other thing I can perhaps see is Apple partnering with an existing automaker to provide all the things mentioned above. This is probably the most likely outcome if it ever actually happens. I could even see something similar to the deal made with AT&T when the iPhone was launched, a period of exclusivity in return for the automaker taking some risk on something so new and different.
Finally, those analyst estimates seem to be totally ignoring the service revenue possibilities. Maybe Apple has decided to sell the car components "at cost" and earn all their money from ongoing service revenue? I doubt it, but it is a possibility, and the analysts should definitely not ignore the service revenue aspect of all this.
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4aapl
Moderator
Posts: 3,629
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Post by 4aapl on Dec 25, 2020 14:28:40 GMT -8
I can't really see it. Number one, I definitely can't see Apple making a $75k vehicle. Apple likes to be in the higher margin high-end segment of their businesses (think $250 earbuds and $549 over-the-ear headphones). That's how they end up with their very respectable overall margins. If a Tesla model S is the high-end, typically $70-110k, then the Apple iCar would probably be $100-150k and would only capture a very small segment of the auto market. Number two, I don't see Apple investing the $10+B necessary to assemble vehicles, and still have to use myriad suppliers of dubious quality for the many components that go into building a car. And number two, part b, I certainly don't see Apple going vertical for vehicle components ... can you just imagine an Apple division that makes suspensions? that makes actuators for electric windows? that makes all those little things that go into a vehicle? No way can I see that happening. What I perhaps CAN see, is Apple selling a $10-50k system (depending on options, and desired battery capacity) that comprise almost all the electronics (and probably also power systems for electric-only cars) in a vehicle, and all the control systems in a vehicle, and all the infotainment/telematics systems in a vehicle. And I can see Apple selling the monthly services for all those subsystems. The other thing I can perhaps see is Apple partnering with an existing automaker to provide all the things mentioned above. This is probably the most likely outcome if it ever actually happens. I could even see something similar to the deal made with AT&T when the iPhone was launched, a period of exclusivity in return for the automaker taking some risk on something so new and different. Finally, those analyst estimates seem to be totally ignoring the service revenue possibilities. Maybe Apple has decided to sell the car components "at cost" and earn all their money from ongoing service revenue? I doubt it, but it is a possibility, and the analysts should definitely not ignore the service revenue aspect of all this. I agree, I think it makes more sense for Apple to make an add-on item that can work across many types of cars, even if it needs a professional install. That also makes it easier to hit certain markets where self-driving would be key, like taxis that stay in SF and don't go above 35mph, if then proving that it works well in that case is important. Two problems are being able to tie into everything while still looking and being sleek, and getting car companies to give up on their separate goals in that area and let someone else do it. Are there good GPS systems out there? And how do they look, 5 or 10 years later? In looking at recent reviews of used Land Cruisers and their Lexus counterparts, that is one of the sore points. And their GPS nav looks the same as what is now clunky in a similarly aged Lexus RX series, which the in-laws used to have so I used it a bit. Tesla might keep up to date with over the air updates, but that's a lot for every individual car company to deal with. It makes sense for a couple companies to specialized in the automated systems. OTOH, if Apple were to make the whole car (which I don't really think they will do), the margins seem like a small thing to focus on at this point. The R&D expenses must be so high, especially if they made a product with limited units. It's hard to even guess at, though I think Tesla did pretty well here of having higher priced lower production vehicles first. But, if Rod's numbers were anywhere close to accurate and Apple was making 10% off of a $100k car (so $10k), I could see them just adding on $5-10k to do much better and give some big wiggle room. Maybe that would be in the form of upgrades like it is with memory, where the margins increase greatly as the customer doubles the ram. But it only has to be such low margins if you focus on the race to the bottom on the cost side, instead of focusing on the luxury and higher end side even if it means lower production numbers. It just all depends. But it's speculative enough that we really don't know what Apple is after, nor what they will (or will not) eventually make. There's lots of time for guesses and unsubstantiated rumors. Happy Holidays!
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Dave
Member
"It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future." Yogi Berra
Posts: 4,098
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Post by Dave on Dec 26, 2020 2:46:00 GMT -8
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