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Post by aaplsauce on Feb 3, 2022 21:58:23 GMT -8
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chinacat
Moderator
AAPL Long since 2006
Posts: 4,438
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Post by chinacat on Feb 4, 2022 8:26:45 GMT -8
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4aapl
Moderator
Posts: 3,867
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Post by 4aapl on Feb 4, 2022 12:29:34 GMT -8
It's tempting sometimes to make a trade on these quick moves that seem short-term.
Yesterday, with Amazon down 6%, based on FB being down massive amounts, the question was what is the connection between the two. Mostly retail, with cloud thrown in there, plus some side businesses like streaming. Almost none of that being dependent on ads. Vs a company making nearly all of it's income and revenue on ads.
Coulda Shoulda Woulda. Instead I was taking a break from the busy week.
Nice jump today Amazon, along with taking up the indexes. AAPL isn't seeing much of that at the moment, but rereading SJ's words at the summer MW in '97, just after the MSFT announcement, is a good reminder that it's good to have others succeed too. (Page 128 of "Steve Jobs", by Walter Isaacson) Of course, that same chapter shows he wasn't always 100% upfront. Such is life.
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JDSoCal
Member
Aspiring oligarch
Posts: 4,241
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Post by JDSoCal on Feb 4, 2022 12:30:35 GMT -8
Thought experiment heading into the weekend: What does everyone (objectively) think about the possible threat of Elon Musk's smartphone idea? Obviously right now he is chip limited and can't even make Teslas. But in the future, is this a threat to iPhone?
Objective opinions please, not what you want to happen.
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Post by CdnPhoto on Feb 4, 2022 12:59:06 GMT -8
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4aapl
Moderator
Posts: 3,867
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Post by 4aapl on Feb 4, 2022 13:00:06 GMT -8
Finally got around to reading this article Chinacat posted yesterday: Sometimes I worry about the money Apple spends on certain things. I don't want it to be the "dumb money" that a neighbor brought up, of hearing someone upgrading their front door in a house in Reno, for $80k. Anyways, it turns out the pictures of the store look pretty standard, and the article even calls out that it's a pretty standard "Apple Store" look. But "Cristal" Floors? Crystal? Hmmmm. www.stonecontact.com/bianco-cristal-granite/s4601Ahhh, pretty standard black and white speckled granite. Nice looking! But not to be ignorantly (by me) confused with "Crystal".
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4aapl
Moderator
Posts: 3,867
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Post by 4aapl on Feb 4, 2022 13:17:49 GMT -8
Thought experiment heading into the weekend: What does everyone (objectively) think about the possible threat of Elon Musk's smartphone idea? Obviously right now he is chip limited and can't even make Teslas. But in the future, is this a threat to iPhone? Objective opinions please, not what you want to happen.
Something like this, of skipping traditional cell towers and going to satellites, is an interesting concept. It seems like it would be most useful for data instead of voice, since my understanding is there still is some lag with low orbit satellites. Personally, I don't know about this article. A person here that uses the satellite link, and a friend who used to sell them, have both said they are currently the size of a pizza box, and are very directional. Put on an expensive truck, with self-aiming, and it is possible. But today's version isn't possible for a smart phone. But then the whole site looks a little iffy. It almost seems AI created, like those daily stories of "AAPL lagged the market on Tuesday". It might just be the creator doesn't have english as their first language (see the contact page, or just some of the headings). There's nothing wrong with either of those, but it seemed a little scattershot and leaping to conclusions, or even just leaping other directions. And then on the home page all of the articles are Musk. But there just wasn't a lot of substance. The article was from November. The URL is factslam, so I almost expected the "about" page to say that it was just AI slamming together a bunch of facts to see what it could make. Still, it would be great to have coverage everywhere, and has been rumored a couple times that Apple was going this way to skip all the plan providers. I'd guess that there are 3 reasons to go this way, by Musk, Apple, or anyone. There's price, speed, or coverage. These days the areas of "no coverage" are getting less and less. Speed is getting better. And while many plans are high, at least they haven't continued going up. OTOH, the trick might be to hit a different region than the US. Africa has come up before. If the characteristics of the US market aren't right, that doesn't mean that some other place isn't a good fit for some new but different competition, even if there are some initial costs. In general, for Apple in the past 10-20 years, competition has been good, while helping push them forward. I would expect competition from Musk would be good to have, as long as Apple kept pushing forward.
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chinacat
Moderator
AAPL Long since 2006
Posts: 4,438
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Post by chinacat on Feb 4, 2022 14:06:30 GMT -8
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JDSoCal
Member
Aspiring oligarch
Posts: 4,241
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Post by JDSoCal on Feb 4, 2022 16:01:53 GMT -8
Thought experiment heading into the weekend: What does everyone (objectively) think about the possible threat of Elon Musk's smartphone idea? Obviously right now he is chip limited and can't even make Teslas. But in the future, is this a threat to iPhone? Objective opinions please, not what you want to happen.
Something like this, of skipping traditional cell towers and going to satellites, is an interesting concept. It seems like it would be most useful for data instead of voice, since my understanding is there still is some lag with low orbit satellites. Personally, I don't know about this article. A person here that uses the satellite link, and a friend who used to sell them, have both said they are currently the size of a pizza box, and are very directional. Put on an expensive truck, with self-aiming, and it is possible. But today's version isn't possible for a smart phone. But then the whole site looks a little iffy. It almost seems AI created, like those daily stories of "AAPL lagged the market on Tuesday". It might just be the creator doesn't have english as their first language (see the contact page, or just some of the headings). There's nothing wrong with either of those, but it seemed a little scattershot and leaping to conclusions, or even just leaping other directions. And then on the home page all of the articles are Musk. But there just wasn't a lot of substance. The article was from November. The URL is factslam, so I almost expected the "about" page to say that it was just AI slamming together a bunch of facts to see what it could make. Still, it would be great to have coverage everywhere, and has been rumored a couple times that Apple was going this way to skip all the plan providers. I'd guess that there are 3 reasons to go this way, by Musk, Apple, or anyone. There's price, speed, or coverage. These days the areas of "no coverage" are getting less and less. Speed is getting better. And while many plans are high, at least they haven't continued going up. OTOH, the trick might be to hit a different region than the US. Africa has come up before. If the characteristics of the US market aren't right, that doesn't mean that some other place isn't a good fit for some new but different competition, even if there are some initial costs. In general, for Apple in the past 10-20 years, competition has been good, while helping push them forward. I would expect competition from Musk would be good to have, as long as Apple kept pushing forward. There are other articles about Musk's phone: ELON MUSK Company TESLA TO PARTNER WITH DENT FOR PI PHONE (Marketwatch via Vehement Media 1/22) MUSK NET Elon Musk’s plan to launch a phone network revealed in secret Starlink document (The Sun 2/21) SpaceX plans Starlink phone service, emergency backup, and low-income access (Arstechnica 2/21) I like the idea of the changing color. The fact that he already has a cult going with cars concerns me. We are supposed to be the consumer electronics cult company.
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Post by Lstream on Feb 4, 2022 16:45:46 GMT -8
Starlink customer here. Some thoughts.
1. Offering a VoIP service to Starlink customers is possible. Just like it is possible on other networks. Except Starlink can go places other networks can’t.
2. Starlink needs line of sight. Even a few leaves on a tree will interrupt service
3. Meaning outdoor antennas with a wire leading to network equipment in the house
4. The antenna consumes around 100 watts of power and is quite large. Think pizza box.
5. The network has insufficient capacity to be used in dense urban markets. Target customers are underserved rural locations.
6. The previous four points and likely others rule out Starlink being used to replace or compete with existing cell networks.
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4aapl
Moderator
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Post by 4aapl on Feb 4, 2022 17:19:28 GMT -8
The fact that he already has a cult going with cars concerns me. We are supposed to be the consumer electronics cult company. Apple's cult is a whole lot bigger. What did they say, 1.8B devices. vs what, 200k? But I get what you are saying. Elon has the disrupter image, and a bit of that reality distortion going on, while closer to the small startup that pivots or just keeps releasing updates. In short, he and his companies aren't one to just dismiss. You know they are probably working on it, whether it's a skunkworks setting like Apple, or a 10% of your time like Ebay or Google. Pirate flags? Maybe, but it's different when it's not intra-company. The best bet for Apple is to keep on innovating. Make awesome things that push the limits, and then something that can't compete in certain areas just can't make the jump. 4k FaceTime videos? Major online gaming? Not if there is some lag. But wikipedia has the latency in practice at 20-40 ms, vs a google search has 4g at 36-48 ms, and 5g in real world at 17-26 me (but theoretical at 1ms). We'll see. There would be scale up of capacity, scale down in receiver size and directionality. How many revisions and how many years is that, to be competitive. Wikipedia says 5 ground based installations have been approved, of 32. That could be interesting. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink
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Post by Lstream on Feb 5, 2022 10:03:36 GMT -8
My latency typically ranges between 40 and 80ms.
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JDSoCal
Member
Aspiring oligarch
Posts: 4,241
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Post by JDSoCal on Feb 5, 2022 10:22:48 GMT -8
I appreciate the feedback, but my concern is more about Musk and Tesla's star power pulling people towards his phone, rather than the Starlink details. But it is good to hear how limited that appeal might be, just to ubernerds (like LStream).
But as far as the latency and bandwidth and connectivity issues, can that not be solved by scaling up the number satellites? Musk does own a rocket company. Maybe Tesla will initially sell the roof antennas at a loss as a part of a solar or Tesla charger installation? Surely Teslas themselves will come with antennas? Maybe a free phone with each Tesla just to get them out there? As for the masses who can't own Teslas, you can still own a Tesla phone! Musk obviously has the resources to run other ventures at a loss for an indefinite period.
I'd be lying if I said this does not worry me a little.
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mark
fire starter
Posts: 1,632
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Post by mark on Feb 5, 2022 18:52:37 GMT -8
Starlink customer here. Some thoughts. 1. Offering a VoIP service to Starlink customers is possible. Just like it is possible on other networks. Except Starlink can go places other networks can’t. 2. Starlink needs line of sight. Even a few leaves on a tree will interrupt service 3. Meaning outdoor antennas with a wire leading to network equipment in the house 4. The antenna consumes around 100 watts of power and is quite large. Think pizza box. 5. The network has insufficient capacity to be used in dense urban markets. Target customers are underserved rural locations. 6. The previous four points and likely others rule out Starlink being used to replace or compete with existing cell networks. Exactly correct. Unless someone finds a way around the laws of physics, satellite cellphones will not take over any time soon. The whole line of sight thing alone precludes it. How can I keep my phone in my pocket and talk on bluetooth for example? There's also a reason cells very in size ... in places with heavy usage (urban), you need smaller size cells, lower power, and more reuse of the bandwidth, and in places with less usage, you use larger size cells, higher power, and less reuse of bandwidth. When the antennas are 700+ miles up, you can't really do that very effectively. Not to mention that to reach 700+ miles, the power needs to always be higher. So for a practical satellite cellphone, you also need to increase battery density enough to still get ~1day of usage. This one will likely happen sometime in the next 10-20 years, because EVs, and other battery-powered things, will need it.
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