Apple

Jean-Louis Gassée, writing for Monday Note:

In the old days, circuits were prototyped by hand using a primitive breadboard. After the circuit was debugged and pronounced fit, it was translated into masks for printed circuit boards.

As integrated circuits grew to comprise thousands and then millions of logic elements, breadboards were virtualized: The circuit-to-be was designed on a computer, just as we model a building using architectural Computer Assisted Design (CAD).

A multibillion industry of software modules that could be plugged into one’s own circuit specifications soon emerged. Companies such as Synopsys, Cadence, and Mentor Graphics offered circuit design tools, and an ecosystem of third-party developers offered complementary libraries for graphics, networking, sensors… The end result is a System On a Chip (SOC) that’s sent off to semiconductor manufacturing companies commonly called foundries.

This was the fertile ground on which ARM has prospered. ARM-based chips aren’t simply more efficient and cheaper than Intel’s x86 designs, they’re customizable: They can be tuned to fit the client’s project.

And this on Intel’s reaction to ARM:

Intel didn’t get it. “Just you wait!” the company insisted, “Our superior semiconductor manufacturing process will negate ARM’s thriftier power consumption and production costs!” But that opportunity has passed. Intel miscalculated the iPhone, failed to gain any traction in the Android market, and had to resort to bribing (er…incentivizing) tablet manufacturers to use their low-end Atom processors. Earlier this year, they threw in the towel on mobile and are now focused on PCs and Cloud data centers.

Great post.

As I’ve said before, I am a big fan of Apple’s @AppleSupport Twitter presence. They do a terrific job guiding folks to answers when they are stuck. They also periodically post useful tips.

In this recent tweet, Apple Support embedded a video explaining how to set up Night Shift in iOS 9.3.

I found this interesting for several reasons. First, the video itself was well done, as is most Apple video. But this is the first time I’ve noticed this approach, the rolling out of an internal video via @AppleSupport.

Obviously, Night Shift is not brand new, and this video likely was made some time ago. Has anyone seen it before? If so, can you tweet me a link?

Wondering if Apple is planning on a regular series of these sorts of videos.

Interesting piece from Joe Saward, longtime Formula One blogger:

The suggestion last week that Apple may be discussing the acquisition of the Formula One group has led to a lot of interest and a lot of opinion. Traditional technology people argue it would never happen because it’s not the way Apple works. The company buys small clever companies and use the technology under the Apple brand. They don’t need the kind of advertising that F1 provides. So why would they buy it? The answer, it seems, is not to do with advertising, but rather with sales. Apple has built its empire on the iPhone and the iPad. The company has sold 800 million iPhones and, as a result, is now the biggest company in the world. But sales are slowing gradually and competition is increasing and Apple is following the Steve Jobs philosophy and looking for new ideas which reinvent the way we live.

I am relatively new to Formula One, but I am definitely a fan and totally get the attraction. The Formula One cars are attractive, fast, powerful, incredibly high tech and, at the same time, incredibly fragile. There’s big money pouring into the sport and there’s an opportunity for Apple to buy the whole thing, to funnel an entire sport through Apple TVs.

Heineken recently entered F1 believing the sport will bring it 200 million new customers. OK, it’s beer, but if Apple saw similar potential, the impact could be dramatic. AppleTVs cost $200 each, but selling 200 million of them could generate $40 billion. With such vast numbers, one could imagine Apple being willing to perhaps even consider broadcasting the sport free-to-air, and generating money only from the sale of the devices.

Fascinating read. I’d love this investment for Apple.

CNBC:

Needham & Co. Managing Director Laura Martin estimates that “Pokemon Go” could generate $3 billion in revenue for Apple in the next 12 to 24 months as the game expands into more countries. Since the game achieved penetration of 6 percent of the U.S. population after just 10 days, Martin predicts 20 percent penetration at maturity.

And here’s the key:

“I think the point is that while Nintendo has gone up 20 billion and they do have IP risks, Apple does not,” Martin said on CNBC’s “Halftime Report.” “It is hedged because the next genius that makes a hit game, Apple shares on that one too. So while this one may be transitory, Apple has an option on all future hit games over the iOS platform.”

At the core of the App Store’s business model is this risk disparity. Apple took the vast majority of their risk at inception, when they built the App Store infrastructure. Now that risk has been paid for and the current risk all lies with the developers.

The Japan Times:

In an ultimatum, Iranian officials asked iPhone manufacturer Apple Inc. to either officially register in Iran or have its products banned, a local news agency reported Monday.

“If Apple will not register an official representative in Iran within the next few days, all iPhones will be collected from the market,” Tasnim News Agency quoted the director of Iran’s anti-smuggling office as having said on Sunday.

More than 40 million Iranians are using smart phones, including millions of iPhone users, whose devices are often imported into the country by smugglers.

And:

For anti-smuggling purposes Iran has started a project, running under the president’s office, to ban smuggled mobile phones. The scheme, which will start later this week, will require all mobile phones to be registered with Iran’s telecommunications user database. Any that are not will not be able to be used.

Hard to know what to make of this. Given past events, is it wrong to be skeptical here?

Business Insider, recounting an interview from this MacObserver podcast:

“‘You’re asking me if I’m interested in a job, if I’m willing to move out to the West Coast, but you’re not willing to tell me what the job is,'” Gartenberg joked. “He goes, ‘Yeah, that’s pretty much it. Phil will give you a call in the next couple of days.'”

Read the whole thing. Fascinating anecdote.

New York Times:

Started in 1990 as a spinoff from Acorn Computers, a now-defunct British computer maker, ARM has gone from a small start-up of less than 20 people to a global leader whose technology is used in more than 90 percent of smartphones produced by Apple and Samsung, among others.

And:

Unlike Intel, ARM forgoes the high margins — and equally high production costs — of directly manufacturing microchips. Instead, its engineers design chips, which are then licensed to larger technology companies like Qualcomm that pay ARM fees and royalties for manufacturing the chips.

This is not yet a done deal. Whoever ultimately owns ARM will have control over the chip designs in most of the mobile devices in the world, no small thing. I don’t expect Apple to sit on the sidelines while this plays out.

All about tech companies and the movement to have a right to repair your broken phones, computers, tablets and other complex products. This is an important issue.

Jason Snell:

Family Sharing feels very much like a version 1.0, a first crack at the idea that people with their own Apple IDs also have intermingled real lives that should probably be intermingled digitally. Nearly two years after the release of iOS 8, however, not a whole lot has changed in the realm of family sharing. And it’s got some glaring deficiencies that really need to be addressed.

Spot on. Read the post for more examples/suggestions.