Dave
Member
"It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future." Yogi Berra
Posts: 4,102
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Post by Dave on Jul 7, 2023 1:59:52 GMT -8
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Post by CdnPhoto on Jul 7, 2023 3:42:38 GMT -8
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Post by CdnPhoto on Jul 7, 2023 3:46:09 GMT -8
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Dave
Member
"It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future." Yogi Berra
Posts: 4,102
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Post by Dave on Jul 7, 2023 5:08:53 GMT -8
Hopefully Samsungs loss is Apples gain.
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Post by CdnPhoto on Jul 7, 2023 5:26:00 GMT -8
Hopefully Samsungs loss is Apples gain. My worries are that it's the components. The chips that Apple uses.
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bud777
fire starter
Posts: 1,352
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Post by bud777 on Jul 7, 2023 5:35:15 GMT -8
Not to gloat, but after the years of grief that Samsung has caused Apple, I do not feel an excess of sympathy
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Dave
Member
"It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future." Yogi Berra
Posts: 4,102
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Post by Dave on Jul 7, 2023 5:59:42 GMT -8
Hopefully Samsungs loss is Apples gain. My worries are that it's the components. The chips that Apple uses. It is likely the slowdown in China. My guess is that as the housing market here slows there is less need for home appliances and other products that may contain Samsung components. This is a combination of guessing and hoping on my part.
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Post by plcm123 on Jul 7, 2023 6:05:28 GMT -8
Earning report August 3rd.
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4aapl
Moderator
Posts: 3,632
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Post by 4aapl on Jul 7, 2023 6:46:16 GMT -8
Hopefully Samsungs loss is Apples gain. My worries are that it's the components. The chips that Apple uses. The article makes it sound like it's mostly a memory chip oversupply, and that competitors like Micron are also cutting production. Since the profit is about the same as last quarter, and a group of analysts had estimates on this quarter that were nearly right on it, this seems like a longer term issue that is well known. These days I think Apple mostly makes its own memory, built into the processor package. I wish there were still slots in many machines to add memory, even if that additional memory would run at a much lower speed. It just seems like that helps extend the useful life of things, in some manner, like the 2014 mac mini that we have connected to the TV. I just ran an OS update to let it run the AppleTV app, since it wasn't happy with the web page. This unit has had more than enough power to stream from Disney+, Prime, and Netflix, but with only 8 gigs of memory it can sometimes be constrained if I open multiple streaming services while picking out a movie. But the memory sector as a whole seems to go through these high and low times somewhat often. It seems like every 5-7 years, but I haven't watched it that closely. Apple has been happy with 8 gigs as their base config in most systems for a long time now, though adding 32 gigs to my 27" iMac was simple. Some power users with big media can use tons of memory, but it seems that a zone of 8-16 gigs for normal consumers has stuck for a while, potentially even a decade now. And that has to have made a huge dent in demand over the years.
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4aapl
Moderator
Posts: 3,632
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Post by 4aapl on Jul 7, 2023 11:10:27 GMT -8
While the US and most places are dealing with moderate inflation right now, some places have it much worse: Argentina to hold interest rate at 97% as raging inflation easesWe went to the Museum at the Bank of Canada when in Ottawa. School was still in session, so it was a bit busy with field trips trying to not learn. Sadly we only had about 20 minutes there, but the parts that we saw were really well done, and thankfully my kids were finding things interesting. But I heard a docent in the next room talking about a trillion dollar bill, and so was curious. I had heard of the mega inflation in Germany post WWII, due at least partly to reparations ("Lords of Finance"), but hadn't heard that the same thing happened after WWI. And so they had a row of German paper currency in the case, showing how quickly its valuation decreased. We were inundated with info that day, touring the temporary senate building a few minutes later, but she really seemed to have unlimited knowledge on the subject (unlike our senate docent) and it would have been fun to talk to her more. Several of these "inflation runs" have happened over the years. I remember seeing newspaper headlines when it was happening in Mexico. It is different in different places, with comments saying in Argentina people don't get mortgages, and in "The boy who harnessed the wind" it talked about any income going directly into their shelter, like buying bricks and adding on a second room, or eventually drilling a well. FWIW, at a museum in Toronto we saw a more current Million dollar coin, this one somewhere around 16" in diameter, made of 1kg of gold. It was one of 6 or 7 that were made, though the docent said one had been stolen and melted down, never to be recovered. The Fed has helped bring inflation down, not yet to their goal of 2%, but the sub 5% now is much better than the 12-14% it peaked at. I had to pull my son away from a video game at the Bank of Canada museum, where he was flying his spaceship through rings marked "2%". He finished, but it said he missed the mark, that the average was still 5.75%, I guess from some issues seen earlier in the game. I don't know how well it did at conveying the full concept, but it was interesting to him, and probably more informative than his "plants vs zombies" he would have likely otherwise been playing on his phone.
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mark
fire starter
Posts: 1,552
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Post by mark on Jul 7, 2023 11:39:19 GMT -8
These days I think Apple mostly makes its own memory, built into the processor package. I wish there were still slots in many machines to add memory, even if that additional memory would run at a much lower speed. It just seems like that helps extend the useful life of things, in some manner... The problem with this is that if you do this, ALL the memory will run at a lower speed, including the built-in memory. And the way I understand what Apple has done regarding memory, it isn't only bus speed that is better, but the entire [memory] architecture allows for more efficient processing in many regular daily use cases.
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4aapl
Moderator
Posts: 3,632
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Post by 4aapl on Jul 7, 2023 12:57:21 GMT -8
These days I think Apple mostly makes its own memory, built into the processor package. I wish there were still slots in many machines to add memory, even if that additional memory would run at a much lower speed. It just seems like that helps extend the useful life of things, in some manner... The problem with this is that if you do this, ALL the memory will run at a lower speed, including the built-in memory. And the way I understand what Apple has done regarding memory, it isn't only bus speed that is better, but the entire [memory] architecture allows for more efficient processing in many regular daily use cases. Just because it would be more complex doesn't mean it can't be done. Similar to an L1/L2/L3 cache, or a hybrid HD, you could offset some of the memory needs to the fastest, while putting others that aren't as beneficial to slower memory. But like a hybrid car being more complex than just a gas or an electric car, it depends on if the added complexity is beneficial enough to make it worthwhile. Simplicity is nice. As a user I hate that Apple charges so much for extra memory, both in the old days of simms/dimms/sodimms, and now with it in the processor package. As a large shareholder I'm sure it has made Apple money and so helped boost the share price. But at what cost? It's hard to know that or even give a ballpark guess. I'd like to see Apple start putting 16 gigs into machines across the board as the base level, especially now that it's on the same die and goes through the same processes, even if it means quality has to be high enough to keep all of the memory units good, just as it is for all of the processing units (previous guesses were that lower level chips that Apple had were higher level ones, but where a core failed QA or was disabled. I don't know if that is the current working theory, but that's what I am grasping at here). Oh well. Like with cars, you only really get to choose from the models they offer, even if that means you get "upgraded seat material" when all you wanted was heated seats. I do wish Apple had a few more choices, now that they have a much larger marketshare than when Steve gave the 4 options. OTOH, I heard from friends in Apple support that there were much more problems with the iMacs that were more user serviceable (2nd version of the post-lampshade all-in-one), because people were screwing them up. Fun times.
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