Apple didn't revolutionize power supplies; new transistors did (2012)

http://www.righto.com/2012/02/apple-didnt-revolutionize-power.html

by Rondom • 5 years ago

208 158 5 years ago

wyager• 5 years ago

While obviously Jobs’ claim was false, I will say that Apple is the only company I am aware of that manufacturers power supplies which are reliably completely free of perceptible inductor whine. I have very acute high-frequency hearing and I often have to replace non-Apple USB(-C) switching power supplies with Apple ones so I don’t go crazy from the whining. Teardowns of Apple PSUs typically reveal very favorable electronic and industrial design as well.

bayindirh2• 5 years ago

My old MacBook Pro's power brick has perceptible inductor whine. It's not screamingly high, but I can hear it when it's near.

Probably my ears' sensitivity, and that little thing's age (~13 years) are both contributing factors.

errantspark• 5 years ago

Don't worry, that problem will solve itself with time. Just let the lowpass in your ears grow a bit. ;)

I will say I have been very impressed with Anker's GaN power bricks of late.

Tade0• 5 years ago

I have one(60W) but its output isn't very smooth. Still great to have just one small device to charge my phone, laptop and headphones.

Syonyk• 5 years ago

I have very acute high-frequency hearing...

Doesn't take "acute," just takes "not destroyed."

I've, at various points in my career, grumbled about various things whining audibly (one particular motion light sensor was defective and right outside my office for a while). The trick to getting other people to believe you ("I can't hear anything... are you sure?") is to wait for a bring-your-kids-to-work day. And ask if they can hear it.

Or, perhaps, if it's bad enough, you don't even have to do that, because the kids will ask what that horrid whining noise is. We did eventually get it fixed after that, but I was quite literally the only one in the hall who could hear it.

On the topic of power supplies, though - Apple has done some impressive work in their small power supplies. The Chinesium clones are similarly sized, they just skip literally every safety feature intended to keep mains voltage out of your USB cord...

bayindirh2• 5 years ago

On the topic of power supplies, though - Apple has done some impressive work in their small power supplies.

And a nice teardown is done here, by the same guy: http://www.righto.com/2015/11/macbook-charger-teardown-surpr...

Doesn't take "acute," just takes "not destroyed."

It depends. Played in an orchestra, and I've found out that hearing is very different from person to person. Seen people with hearing lower than 20Hz band, or people who can hear a wrong note in a symphony orchestra recording, or people who can perfectly tune their instruments by ear... The list goes on and on.

Our ears' equalizers are not always flat and equal. We can damage them yes, but not everyone starts from the same point.

foobarian• 5 years ago

Gotta hand it to the kids. My 9 year old claims he can hear a whine from iPads and iPhones when their battery level is near 0%. And I thought I had good hearing...

krono• 5 years ago

This is so off-topic, but no one ever believes me when I'm complaining about a wall adapter across the room driving me mad. Glad to know I'm really not imagining things hah!

zsmi• 5 years ago

You're not imagining it at all.

This is an important consideration all electrical engineers should take seriously when designing products for people. It's a shame many don't.

https://product.tdk.com/en/techlibrary/solutionguide/acousti...

https://www.edn.com/reducing-mlccs-piezoelectric-effects-and...

krrrh• 5 years ago

It’s extremely frustrating, and I was always surprised when I returned mid-range USB chargers because of whine only to receive a replacement with the same problem and hundreds of reviews that failed to mention it. I’ve never had an issue with Apple chargers, and the extra cost is money we’ll spent.

Buy genuine Apple chargers, if not for you, then for your dog.

westurner• 5 years ago

All brands should put USB-A and USB-C ports on the power brick.

fsckboy2• 5 years ago

Apple is the only company I am aware of that manufacturers power supplies which are reliably completely free of perceptible inductor whine...I often have to replace non-Apple USB(-C) switching power supplies

it's a well-studied economic fact that monopolists generally sell higher quality products, and it helps them maintain their monopoly. With their market power and the fat margins they earn, there is plenty of budget to do R&D and have achieve scale benefits. Their optimum-profit product-mix and pricepoints are skewed higher. Nobody complained about IBM mainframe quality, nor Bell Telephone quality.

So, it's not testimony to Apple's prowess, it's simply a cookbook outgrowth of their product differentiation strategy.

socialdemocrat2• 5 years ago

But regardless of reason it still matters to the buyer. If Apple monopoly is giving me better products, then I am not complaining.

justin66• 5 years ago

Nobody complained about IBM mainframe quality

Well, that's completely ahistorical. "Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM" was due to conservatism and idiocy on the part of managers and businesspeople, not to mention... you know... IBM's monopoly power and the advantages that went along with that. During the bulk of the minicomputer and mainframe era it had little or nothing to do with the relative quality of IBM's stuff.

setpatchaddress• 5 years ago

it's a well-studied economic fact that monopolists generally sell higher quality products

What does this have to do with Apple, which has neither the completely captive market that AT&T did nor the overwhelming market control that IBM did?

kcb2• 5 years ago

My Macbook Power Supply whines like crazy, especially when under load. The one thing that drives me crazy that I rarely see talked about is PWM fan control. I think different manufactures use different frequencies but it's usually far more annoying than the motor/air movement noise.

vmception2• 5 years ago

I'm guessing this article is from 2011, back when Apple fans were just ending their role as being a niche that believed anything.

At this point it is - I think - a pretty common assumption that Apple just puts things together in a decent ecosystem. If Apple devices offers a new frequency range, its because Qualcomm's radio allowed for it, which was dependent on other things further in the stream.

This is an interesting trip down memory lane. Apple still says magical sometimes in their keynotes, but nobody is really mystified only occasionally glad they decided to offer something in that way, since its more about the Apple implementation than the Apple innovation.

gumby• 5 years ago

Not an Apple fanboy but I don’t this is completely correct. As a huge buyer of semiconductors they can, when they want to, exert a lot of pressure on suppliers. Famously they did this with Gorilla glass; they have done so with Intel and qcomm. Sometimes not so successfully (all the expense on the “liquid metal” company, for example).

It’s not all sheer pressure; they do a lot of collaborative design. After all they have one of the best semiconductor design teams (both digital and analog) around. And they are on standards bodies; they allegedly (some non-Apple people told me) contributed contributed significantly to USB-C.

I emphasized completely because in the modern ecosystem it’s broadly true (RAM, displays etc)

2muchcoffeeman• 5 years ago

Apple’s supply chains and how they can apply pressure is massively underrated.

People still have this idea that “so and so actually invented it”. Or “Apple just combined X and Y”.

But they fail to see how truck loads of money and a customer willing to pay for something and making large pre-payments can change the trajectory of a company. Or even has impact on other players.

_carbyau_• 5 years ago

I don't like Apple generally. And it wasn't "their" technology - but thank fuck they brought "better than 1080p" screens to the mainstream.

Throughout the 90's screen resolutions were getting better and better. Then LCDs came and 1080p stopped mainstream screen resolution improvements for at least 5 years.

Thankfully Apple got the screen resolution race going again.

kcb2• 5 years ago

Mainstream 1080p wasn't the worst of it. Just a decade or so ago it was impossible to find a non-17" Windows laptop without a 1366x768 TN screen with awful contrast and viewing angles so bad there was no good angle. Even super premium $3000 "Ultrabooks", it was true insanity.

userbinator• 5 years ago

No need to guess, the year is in the URL.

vmception2• 5 years ago

*thanks to a necessary mod edit

JKCalhoun3• 5 years ago

Interesting deep dive on switching power supplies. I didn't see the need to frame it by attacking Apple.

retrac• 5 years ago

At the time, "Apple invented the switching power supply" was a notion going around in bad tech/sci reporting circles, so it deserved dismantling along with the power supplies.

fortran772• 5 years ago

It's only right to clear up a falsehood promoted by Steve Jobs himself. He's not above scrutiny.

amelius2• 5 years ago

Fake it till you make it.

JKCalhoun3• 5 years ago

Oh you're absolutely correct about that. Jobs in particular needs to be scrutinized.

But if that was the point of the article a few paragraphs under the section "History of switching power supplies to 1977" already accomplished that.

The article reads like it was written by a power supply enthusiast (who knew?), and the author did a good job of drawing me into the history, technology. It would have still been an interesting read without the "bookends".

kens5• 5 years ago

The motivation for the article was to investigate Steve Jobs' claim, so it would be strange to remove that.

TedDoesntTalk6• 5 years ago

I do wish your blog articles had the published date at the top.

Hello71• 5 years ago

the first sentence of the article:

The new biography Steve Jobs

it was a response to the new biography.

echelon• 5 years ago

I didn't see the need to frame it by attacking Apple.

Other posters have already pointed out that this article seeks to clarify the history around Steve Jobs' (not entirely accurate) claims.

I want to focus on the fact that people find a need to protect Apple.

Apple is a 2T+ market cap corporation. It is not a friend, it is not a family member, and it is certainly not beyond reproach. It doesn't care about you -- it just wants you to spend more money on its products and services.

Don't feel bad for Apple when people call it out for bad behavior or historical inaccuracies. People should do this.

While there are people that work at Apple that legitimately care about making good products, in the macro the predominant factor is still money. It drives the whole enterprise. The very shape of Apple's solutions and good will are fit by an optimization function to obtain money.

Brand, supply chain, innovation, fierce competition, fostering loyalty, building a moat. These are the things Apple does. It's a machine that makes money selling products.

You might like Tim Cook, Steve Jobs, or many of the other product people and engineers there. That's fine. But don't form a fond bond with the company. And also realize the motivations of the leadership. They're humans -- they can do good, but they can also make mistakes and tell lies to serve their own needs.

If Apple makes products you like and enjoy, buy them, appreciate them, and leave it at that. Don't let Apple create a sense of nostalgia, closeness, or loyalty. This is artificial. The company doesn't care about you at all. It can't.

FpUser5• 5 years ago

"I want to focus on the fact that people find a need to protect Apple."

I do not think they're trying to protect Apple. They are protecting their choice. Same as people "protecting" Python, Rust etc.

TedDoesntTalk6• 5 years ago

The article is debunking this claim by Steve Jobs:

"That switching power supply was as revolutionary as the Apple II logic board was," Jobs later said. "Rod doesn't get a lot of credit for this in the history books but he should. Every computer now uses switching power supplies, and they all rip off Rod Holt's design."’

ForOldHack3• 5 years ago

Which like the GUI was ripped off from someone else: The GUI was stolen from Xerox, and the switching power supplies were ripped of from an oscilloscope company, Hewlett-Packard. Didn't Woz work for them. Hmmmm...

throwawaylinux2• 5 years ago

Pushing false or unsubstantiated information is the attack. Investigating it and presenting facts and counter points is defense.

djmips• 5 years ago

Totally agree, that aspect made me roll my eyes. Very unnecessary even if it provides a skeleton for the narrative.

amelius2• 5 years ago

Another article in IEEE Spectrum:

https://spectrum.ieee.org/a-half-century-ago-better-transist...

A half century ago, better transistors and switching regulators revolutionized the design of computer power supplies
Apple, for one, benefited, though it didn’t spark this revolution, as Steve Jobs claimed

kens5• 5 years ago

That's the same blog post, rewritten for IEEE Spectrum.

nahuel0x2• 5 years ago

well, in some sense Apple didn't invent personal computing, MOS 6502 did.

kens5• 5 years ago

I'm not looking to argue over the meaning of "invent" or "personal computing", but I'll point out that Alan Kay wrote a 1972 paper "A Personal Computer for Children of All Ages" that pretty much describes the modern laptop or tablet. (He even mentions ad blockers!) Xerox PARC went on to implement a lot of this in the Xerox Alto.

It's worth taking a look at the paper to see how many "modern" ideas were described in 1972: http://www.vpri.org/pdf/hc_pers_comp_for_children.pdf

nahuel0x2• 5 years ago

True, I should have used "massify" instead of "invent".

comeonseriously• 5 years ago

It still baffles my mind that Xerox is not a multi-trillion dollar company today.

BitAstronaut3• 5 years ago

I don't remember exactly when, but maybe around 2007, my cousin sent me a video where a man was essentially interacting with a tablet that was sitting on a table. It had an assistant that was helping him with everyone - he was putting together a presentation about a forest (I believe), I think he asked it the weather, set up meetings, etc.

It was an amazing thing to watch unfold.

To this day, I can't for the life of me find that video and really wish I could.

As I was reading through that paper, it reminded me of it.

smoldesu2• 5 years ago

"Should the computer program the kid, or should the kid program the computer?" -s. Papert

Whoa.

That's a great read, thanks!

Underphil• 5 years ago

It's the old classic of 'invented' vs 'popularised' at play. Both equally important I think.

EastOfTruth• 5 years ago

I never heard that Apple invented switching power supplies... how common is that train of thought? I've been using them since way before this article was written

FPGAhacker• 5 years ago

The article is neither making or debunking that claim. It is debunking the claim that apple revolutionized computer power supplies by borrowing the switching power supply design used in oscilloscopes. It’s the second sentence of the post.

Angostura• 5 years ago

I've never heard the claim that apple revolutionized computer power supplies.

I've heard the claim they make decent ones.

briandear2• 5 years ago

So why didn’t any other computer maker do it?

JKCalhoun3• 5 years ago

For its personal computer contemporaries, the TRS-80, the Commmodore PET, the Apple II's use of a switching power supply was unique. I had never heard that they invented the switching power supply.

Apple's price premium meant they often could introduce the next cutting edge technology that would soon become ubiquitous when the prices came down.

FpUser5• 5 years ago

Same story as with hard drive based audio players. I've been using one (if I remember correctly) from Creative long before iPod materialized. All was quiet but suddenly as iPod came it was of course called revolution.

socialdemocrat2• 5 years ago

Seriously, those MP3 players were nothing like the iPod. This is a bit like people going on about smart phones before iPhone. I had a couple of those and the iPhone was just so far ahead, that we are not really talking about the same category of products.

A product isn’t merely checking some boxes. Checking the “has hard drive” box doesn’t make any it an iPod.

pram2• 5 years ago

Archos Jukebox was acceptable design back then. Just Google it, provides enough context about the state of portable music players in the year 2000 lol

FpUser5• 5 years ago

"A product isn’t merely checking some boxes."

The first "box" I used to check when buying things like that is that PC sees it as a hard drive to which I can copy files. That horror they called iTunes would not be let anywhere close to my computers.

democracy• 5 years ago

Yeah I also didn't know that "hard drive based audio players" was a thing :)

But I remember that ipod was awesome (comparing with the other players with shitty controls and sticky buttons). I hated apple products at the time (religion) but I was amazed by the quality and UI of ipod and the quality of ipad (took me and my kids many attempts and years to actually kill it).

I don't think any other product amazed me that much since then.

soylentcola• 5 years ago

"So far ahead" in some ways, while completely lacking in others.

When iPhone came out, the responsive UI was something I'd wanted for the past several years worth of Palm and HTC phones. But I couldn't get one because I'd have to give up things I used daily - like 3rd party apps, 3G data, turn-by-turn navigation, MMS (which was still a big deal before the prevalence of IP-based mobile IM platforms), multitasking, live streaming radio, and even "crazy" features like copy/paste and custom wallpapers/alert sounds.

iPhone did a few things very well, but it took a while to catch up on a lot of the common functionality of those older smartphones. Thankfully Apple did add those features over time. And other smartphones gained more responsive UI. Now we have more options than ever, with even the cheapest bargain device performing better than anything available in 2007.

moftz2• 5 years ago

Apple invented one people actually wanted to buy

FpUser5• 5 years ago

No I did not buy iPod. Am I not "people"?

pdamoc• 5 years ago

"No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame." - CmdrTaco

Apple is very good at maximizing "consumer satisfaction". This means giving consumer the best deal for their money considering as many of the consumer needs as feasible. Other brands ignore a lot of these needs and then they wonder why people don't buy their products when, on some details, they are much better than Apple at a lower price.

hedgehog2• 5 years ago

I know someone who was an exec at Astec in the 90s and Apple was notable for being willing to pay a premium for their power supplies (I think for better efficiency and miniaturization).

ForOldHack3• 5 years ago

Then... how did they wind up with such utter garbage? The Astec in the Mac IIcx/ci was prone to failures. The power supply in the mirror door Mac.

hedgehog2• 5 years ago

I don't remember any notable problems but Apple has a long history of doing interesting things for form factor rather than prioritizing reliability going at least as far back as the 128k.

tim3333• 5 years ago

And now power supplies are getting another step smaller and more efficient by switching from silicon transistors to GaN. (https://www.cui.com/blog/how-gallium-nitride-gan-enables-sma...)

alexose2• 5 years ago

I've been using a GaN-based power supply for my MacBook Pro and it's just as good as advertised. Slightly bigger than a deck of cards, yet it runs cooler than the stock unit.

Hopefully this tech finds its way into more devices as it gets cheaper. It would be neat to have GaN based inverters for electric cars.

nimish• 5 years ago

Tesla use silicon carbide which has favorable temp and reliability over Gan for higher voltage operation.

codeisawesome• 5 years ago

I thought this was a new "ML powered" charger of some type until I googled... interesting find.

crishoj• 5 years ago

May I ask which model you use?

xqyf2• 5 years ago

They work great to charge my Android. One day MacBook chargers may even charge iPhones!

dehrmann• 5 years ago

Any advice on buying these? A lot of the GaN bricks look impressive, but they're always made by a sketchy peripheral maker.

kitsunesoba• 5 years ago

I don't know if they make the size you need, but Anker makes GaN chargers and their products are usually pretty solid.

scottlamb• 5 years ago

* Make sure they are UL listed for safety, as Animats pointed out in an earlier discussion. [1] Some aren't, even from well-known brands like Anker.

* If they are multi-port, make sure you're happy with how they distribute power. Most likely you want the majority of the power going to port 1 where you stick a laptop, but some drop it down to 50W or lower if you just have a cable in one of the other spots, much less any device connected.

I love the monoprice ones. They're small, inexpensive, inconspicuous, and meet the standards I described above. They also charge all my devices reliably, unlike my (larger, I think non-GaN) Nekteck chargers that spend their time in a drawer now. Buy a 5A cable to get the full 100W out of them at 20V.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21679302

dddw• 5 years ago

I can recommend the minix 66w gan charger. Ideal for travel.

baybal22• 5 years ago

A lot of the GaN bricks look impressive, but they're always made by a sketchy peripheral maker.

90% of them are in fact just exact copies of Navitas reference design, and are made by just a few factories which sell white label.

mschuster91• 5 years ago

For chargers, I exclusively buy Anker. They're the best there is.

watersb• 5 years ago

I have a collection of RAVPower GaN chargers that are very solid so far. Been using them for about a year now.

In fact, the Apple power brick that came with my M1 MacBook Pro is still in its original packaging; I have not used it yet. The 65 Watt RAVPower one seems as if it's about half the size. More than half the mass, though.

(I have never needed to try warranty support for RAVPower things.)

vwoolf• 5 years ago

At first glance I thought the article would discuss GaN. Agree with the overall point; Anker seems to be making well-thought-out GaN chargers.

byw• 5 years ago

Can this also be used for electric car inverters?

baybal22• 5 years ago

Yes, it can, but that would be pricey with regards to how much current they can handle. GaN switches can't handle as much as silicon, or SiC, despite their higher efficiency.

Stall torque == current.

londons_explore• 5 years ago

It surprises me that GaN marketed power supplies cost extra. The actual GaN transistors are under 10 cents now, and by using one you can use a smaller inductor, smaller capacitor and smaller heatsinks. Those smaller components lead to a smaller plastic case and smaller circuit board.

All of those smaller things cost less, so the finished product has lower production costs.

tim3333• 5 years ago

The ones I've bought haven't been terribly expensive. About half the price of Apple chargers. I daresay you don't want to go too cheap with chargers as they can overheat/pack up/damage things.

dang• 5 years ago

Past threads:

Apple didn't revolutionize power supplies; new transistors did - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6575994 - Oct 2013 (63 comments)

Apple didn't revolutionize power supplies; new transistors did - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3636047 - Feb 2012 (73 comments)

ForOldHack3• 5 years ago

Apple did revolutionize power supplies, but not in the way that is claimed: They made it a marketing stratjey to ship utter garbage, like the Appple III, and the "Hindenbook" along with the most inexpensive, cost cutting, garbage known in the industry, until Dell and eMachines decided to use the same model:

Just look up "Apple PowerSupply Recall" and you will see they are just repeating their cost saving success/failure.

esturk• 5 years ago

Does anyone know of a hack or instructions that can convert a magsafe charger for old macbooks into a USB-C charger for new macbooks?

wtallis• 5 years ago

I doubt that the old MagSafe chargers are capable of outputting the variety of voltages necessary to be usefully compliant with USB-C charging. IIRC, the old MagSafe chargers put a fairly small voltage on their output pins, and when a load was detected they turned on the full voltage and power—but there was no real data communication between the computer and the brick (just between the computer and the connector at the end of the charging cable). USB-PD however is a complicated protocol.

intsunny• 5 years ago

There are "magsafe to usb c" dongles on Amazon and other retailers.

The run a little hot, but seem to work pretty well.

karlkloss• 5 years ago

In fact, switching power supplies were used long before the transistor, they were using mechanical switches.

Car radios used mechanical switches to generate the anode voltage for the tubes, and in trains there were voltage converters using a rotating stream of liquid mercury.

simonebrunozzi• 5 years ago

Any suggestions on a good Macbook pro charger? I try to find a GaN-based one, with all the necessary certifications, but my search hasn't been successful so far. e.g. [0]

[0] https://www.monoprice.com/Search?keyword=APPLE%20MACBOOK%20P...

alan-kay• 5 years ago

This is an old original post, but it still worries me.

Consider: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switched-mode_power_supply

To find this requires a combination of a few keystrokes and button pushes plus an "outlook" (rather than "inlook") attitude.

Instead, as with so many discussions in a so-called "CS" community, we find something like adolescents trying to BS each other by presenting their mere opinions as facts.

Come on! Please!

Long ago my research community put in a lot of work to make it easy to deal with many simple questions, but we didn't reckon with the sheer inwardness of so many end-users. A similar problem is that most people in CS have no idea what Doug Engelbart really did, yet just typing his name into Google will provide great info in just the first few hits.

How can the current community repair itself and start trying to become a real field again?

foxhill• 5 years ago

it is the paradox of the information era: society has never had such easy and immediate access to the limits of human knowledge, and at the same time, society can’t agree on whether the earth is spherical, vaccines work, or if demonstrably corrupt politicians are really that bad.

WalterBright2• 5 years ago

I didn't realize it, but my '72 Dodge has a switching power supply to convert the 12 volt system voltage to 5V for the dashboard instruments.

It's a very simple device, relying on current heating a wire to bend it to and from a contact, but it's an engineering marvel of low cost effectiveness.

But it doesn't produce "clean" 5V, there's a jitter to it. Some electronics guys have replaced it with modern circuitry (an op-amp I think) but it turned out there was a problem with clean 5V. The jitter would unstick the the analog dials, so they'd display accurately. The clean 5V didn't do that. So, they had to add more circuitry to add jitter in the supply voltage.

dotancohen• 5 years ago

I had no idea how these work, nor about the jitter, thanks. It's now over $60 [1], these used to cost about a dollar!

[1] https://www.moparshop.com/en/Online-Store/Ignition-Electrica...

WalterBright2• 5 years ago

The price rise may be because nobody makes them anymore.

ladyattis• 5 years ago

If only they'd invest more work into CMC and LC filters for such power supplies in wall warts. As someone who listens to shortwave and AM radio DX it's sometimes impossible to pick up even strong stations due to the swampy noise of SMPS devices.

musicale• 5 years ago

Whenever Apple is discussed, there often seems to be a conflation of invention (coming up with something new) with innovation (applying an invention in a way that changes things.)

Apple didn't invent the personal computer, or the GUI, or Wi-Fi, or MP3 players, or smartphones, or app stores, or tablets, or smartwatches, or ARM processors – but they introduced innovative, and indeed transformative, products in those categories.

NoPicklez• 5 years ago

Came to say the same

anaganisk• 5 years ago

But Android did it first /s.

Apple didn't revolutionize power supplies; new transistors did (2012)

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