Apple dives into display-making to cut reliance on Samsung

https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Supply-Chain/Apple-dives-into-display-making-to-cut-reliance-on-Samsung

by thunderbong • 3 years ago

244 301 3 years ago

asia.nikkei.com

jiggawatts3• 3 years ago

Are these FALD backlights for LCDs, or full-resolution LED arrays?

enticeing• 3 years ago

The latter.

rowanG0773• 3 years ago

microLED is full-resolution LED arrays. The former is miniLED.

ErneX• 3 years ago

These are self emitting, it will have the good things of OLED without its degradation and probably more brightness.

alberth2• 3 years ago

Has Apple in its history ever manufactured components themselves?

I know they have created machinery for their suppliers to use, but actual manufacturing before?

vkdelta• 3 years ago

They have designed their own SoCs, own BLE radio and now working on their own cellular and Wifi radios.

I understand displays is another beast but apple is doing complete vertical integration like no one else. Anytime they notice a dependency on specific vendor, they try to move out.

alberth2• 3 years ago

But design is not manufacture.

Have they ever manufactured components before?

andruby• 3 years ago

Designed, yes. But not manufactured afaik

babl-yc• 3 years ago

Which step are you counting as "manufacture"? They will have a lot of partners here in the supply chain of this component; ams-Osram, LG, and TSMC according to the article.

In terms of Apple being "hands on" in manufacturing I don't see this as too different from the Apple Silicon case, where they design but work with partners in Taiwan+China to manufacture.

I see the big news here as "moving away from Samsung", where they would likely have to continue to invest in a competitor (money and IP) in order to get microLED technology through them.

MBCook7• 3 years ago

Continuing to work with Samsung (or LG, etc) means as soon as Apple gets a cool new display tech, so does everyone else. Because they don’t control it.

If Apple controls it all and they get it working, they can have an advantage until everyone else figured it out on their own without infringement. Even a 2-3 year advantage (like the A series gave them) would be huge.

bitL2• 3 years ago

You can kinda view ARM and TSMC as their babies. They founded ARM and financed all the node tech in TSMC that made TSMC competitive.

Zenst• 3 years ago

Not in this universe:

History of TSMC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fVrWDdll0g

ARM was born out of the BBC micro project, so if anything a BBC baby.

Vt71fcAqt7• 3 years ago

Sure if we just ignore all the billions that the Tawiwanese government poured into TSMC, and all the stock investors' money, and ignore the other clients TSMC had, and the fact that they got to 20-nanometer without any funding from Apple as far as I know, then I guess you are right.

leejoramo2• 3 years ago

Apple use to directly manufacture its computers at is own factories in the US (and maybe elsewhere).

And if I recall correctly the last two generations of Mac Pro systems have been built in their own plants.

Of course that only says they have experience with making cases and motherboards, not down to the level of chip and screen components

culturestate• 3 years ago

the last two generations of Mac Pro systems have been built in their own plants

As far as we know, Apple doesn’t own any of its manufacturing directly. The Mac Pro plant in Texas is operated by either Quanta or Flex[1], depending on who you ask.

You could argue that it’s largely a semantic difference, though, because those facilities are dedicated entirely to Apple and they’re usually the ones funding their construction.

1. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/23/apple-will-make-the-mac-pro-...

scarface744• 3 years ago

That was nothing more than a dog and pony show for Trump. They still did all of their real manufacturing overseas.

BearOso• 3 years ago

At this point there isn't any significant infrastructure for building microled displays anywhere. Why invest in a competitor when they would do the same exact thing you would, but they would own it?

dimmke2• 3 years ago

They definitely have assembled them but I don’t think they ever felt the need to manufacture because the infrastructure for doing that for various types of parts is so strong. This is probably just another step in vertical integration and hedging against their supply chain being vulnerable.

I believe the supplier for iOS displays in general has been Samsung for a while (majority) with a few other suppliers mixed in. Maybe they want to keep going with this technology and Samsung is moving away from it.

They’re not going to be fabbing their own chips so maybe it’s an attempt to shore up other areas that are less moated.

criddell• 3 years ago

AFAIK, they have have never manufactured components before.

Every company that does manufacture components had to start at some point. This seems like a good time for Apple to start.

dimmke2• 3 years ago

Good time and place to start too- the smallest screens of any product they produce and only the high end (and margin) models. Always better to start small. Can work out the kinks before going wide.

elzbardico2• 3 years ago

Apple probably has several engineers embedded in TSMC and Samsung's teams. You may not have a fab, but I don't think that it is likely that you can build an advanced CPU in the newest process without having a few teams directly involved in the manufacture.

barbariangrunge• 3 years ago

Putting this facility in Taiwan seems risky, considering the political situation. I heard Warren buffet just pulled his tsmc stocks out of caution over it

mjhay• 3 years ago

Almost their whole supply chain is in China. If a Taiwan strait war breaks out, Apple is completely screwed anyway.

treeman79• 3 years ago

Might help matter. If China blows up part of Apple, they are going lose all of Apple Business. That’s a big cash cow China would lose.

Flatcircle3• 3 years ago

I still don't understand why China would possibly want to try and invade Taiwan? The chip foundry's would immediately be scuttled, and whatever would be left would be a nice, but simple island.

In exchange for taking that land mass, their entire international trade business which mainland china is extremely reliant on, would be in jeopardy.

It would almost be political suicide to invade as far as I see it. But I'm no expert.

IlliOnato• 3 years ago

I still don't understand how Russia (the country where I was born) would possibly want and invade Ukraine... But it did.

jmartrican2• 3 years ago

How do you deduce that the foundry's will be scuttled? I'm not saying they won't be. But I can foresee a world where too many people who care about these foundry's regardless of which political party is in charge, would prevent them from being scuttled. And also, China might have insiders in Taiwan that might prevent the scuttling and make sure they are preserved.

bitwize• 3 years ago

The fact that Taiwan exists disrupts the official narrative that there is only one China and its ideology is Maoist communism. Reunifying China is thus kind of a priority.

ttul• 3 years ago

Assuming the Chinese manage to occupy Taiwan, they would no doubt want to take over TSMC’s facilities and hold them as a bargaining chip to normalize relations with the West. They’d swiftly run out of essential components such as silicon wafers (from Japan), but the CCPC might just try their luck.

toast0• 3 years ago

In exchange for taking that land mass, their entire international trade business which mainland china is extremely reliant on, would be in jeopardy.

The thing is most of the world is also pretty reliant on international trade business with mainland China.

The question is really about how willing the world is to disrupt their own economies in order to disrupt China's.

Trade barriers against North Korea and Cuba are basically free for the other country, restricting access to energy imports from Iran or Russia imposes a real cost on the country raising the barriers, but even after decades of grumbling it's hard to find a supply chain for manufactured products that doesn't have a significant dependency on China. That makes it hard to fight a war with China, trade or otherwise.

mullingitover2• 3 years ago

There's small matter of the gigantic trove of treasure.

The Kuomintang took huge amounts of priceless Chinese artifacts when they fled to Taiwan, which are now in the National Palace Museum[1]. There's a case to be made that the CCP was on an iconoclastic spree and there was good reason to take the artifacts to Taiwan for safekeeping, but the fact remains that vast amounts of priceless Chinese relics are now in Taiwan. China would like them back and is willing to do more than ask politely. Taiwan can blow up the fabs, sure, but they're probably not going to blow up the relics. Chinese leadership would gain a historic amount of face by bringing them home.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Palace_Museum

philwelch2• 3 years ago

There's a lot of people who ask questions about history or geopolitics that amount to, "why would <country> pursue <goal>?" when <goal> is a central ideologically motivating factor for <faction-that-controls-country>. The classic example being Germany's 1941 invasion of Russia--often derided as a strategic blunder in hindsight, except the rulers of Germany in 1941 had the conquest of Russia as their primary geopolitical goal in the first place. Likewise, the existence of Taiwan outside of CCP control is contrary to the goal of unifying all of China under CCP control.

droopyEyelids• 3 years ago

Taiwan relies on external materials as much or more than Manhattan. They have at best under a month's worth of food on the island, and other raw materials supply is measured in days.

One thing people miss with the china/taiwan discussion is that China doesn't need to make a single violent move towards Taiwan to subdue it. A naval blockade would force Taiwan's capitulation in almost no time at all.

Even a forceful blockade wouldn't be totally necessary, if China just passed any sort of sanction stopping the export of materials or food to Taiwan, prices would immediately become unsustainable on the island and it would also have to capitulate.

dehrmann3• 3 years ago

I still don't understand why China would possibly want to try and invade Taiwan?

China has no access to the open ocean. The US has bases and strong allies (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Philippines, Singapore) surrounding it.

FredPret• 3 years ago

Never discount the possibility that someone / thing important might be an idiot

George83728• 3 years ago

It's not about the chips. It was never about the chips.

elzbardico2• 3 years ago

For the same reason Russia invaded Ukraine: American interference.

etempleton4• 3 years ago

Why did Russia invade Ukraine? Same reason.

It has nothing to do with strategy and everything to do with ideology and projecting power.

layer82• 3 years ago

Taiwan is of major geostrategic importance for economic (trade routes) and military control in the region. See here for example for further reading: https://thediplomat.com/2016/03/how-chinese-analysts-underst...

sampullman4• 3 years ago

I don't think the political situation has changed that much since 1949, except for minor updates in 1971 and 1992. Besides, as the sibling commenter mentions, Apple (and every other consumer electronics manufacturer in the world) is in deep trouble if war breaks out.

If they de-risk by doing this in the US or India, what are they going to use the screens for?

melling4• 3 years ago

China has the second largest economy with the second largest military budget.

The world is definitely a lot different than it was 50 years ago.

Taking an island 100 miles offshore is definitely doable

mcntsh• 3 years ago

I don't think the political situation has changed that much since 1949

China is in much better of a position both economically and militarily to invade Taiwan today than it was in 1992, 1971, and 1949.

bioemerl3• 3 years ago

It's a pretty far out risk and far better than putting it in China like most companies do.

baybal2• 3 years ago

Apple for long time tried to buy JBD Display, they sent their due-diligencers, which inspected everything millimetre by millimetre, and then poached their process head.

JBD then armed itself with lawyers, and for long tried to frustrate Apple from reproducing the technology.

valine2• 3 years ago

Is MicroLED the be all end all for display technologies? Perfect blacks, high brightness, no burn in, no bezels, thin. It's hard to imagine another display tech displacing MicroLED once it takes hold. Does it have any theoretical downsides other than cost?

londons_explore7• 3 years ago

Microled will prove very cheap when somebody figures out a good production process.

None of the materials are expensive.

The risk is that they patent that process and we have 20 years to wait till we get cheap screens.

cubefox8• 3 years ago

More "if" rather than "when". It's far from obvious whether they will be successful. They just have a higher maximum brightness, and a large cost cut is not guaranteed.

manaskarekar3• 3 years ago

Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but micro-LED, by design is going to suffer from PWM flicker.

That is a deal breaker for many.

bioemerl3• 3 years ago

I don't believe it would be by design. LEDs can dim without flicker.

valine2• 3 years ago

Why can’t they reduce voltage to each pixel to reduce brightness? I don’t see this as a fundamental limitation of the display technology, PWM is just easy and cheap to implement.

redox99• 3 years ago

Could they use a high enough frequency that isn't noticeable? 10kHz maybe?

kitsunesoba2• 3 years ago

In theory, yes it's about as perfect as a screen technology can get. I'm sure earlier implementations will have quirks that make it a dealbreaker for particular applications/users, but that'll work itself out in time.

I'm looking forward to it. I'm happy with the OLED panels in my phones but with how long static elements are visible on my computer monitors and TVs I haven't been able to justify buying OLED for those with how even the best can still exhibit burn-in. Once there's microLED monitors and TVs with performance equivalent or better than current QD-OLED panels I'll be buying them immediately.

cptskippy• 3 years ago

I haven't been able to justify buying OLED for those with how even the best can still exhibit burn-in.

My oldest OLED TV will turn 6 in August and has exhibited no burn-in.

I think it ultimately comes down to what you're watching. You're likely to experience burn-in if you watch something with a persistent banner like 24 hour news.

For example, my 2 year old LED VA Panel monitor already has burn-in where the task bar is displayed.

hedora• 3 years ago

In addition to flicker (discussed in sibling comments), I imagine they have problems with power + glare just like any other non-reflective display technology.

dehrmann3• 3 years ago

How's its response time? Any ghosting?

christkv• 3 years ago

Don't MicroLED's still have the problem of higher pixel refresh latency than OLED ?

dtx1• 3 years ago

OLEDs have almost perfect Pixel Refresh Latency (< 1.5ms). MicroLEDs are still just LCDs with a better backlight but LCD Tech has evolved quite a lot and pixel refresh time (< 3-4ms) is not much of a problem anymore.

cubefox8• 3 years ago

I actually think there are no major issues apart from the enormous costs. But costs don't always get outweighed by higher performance. The reason why OLED-Displays were (and are) so successful wasn't just that they had better contrast than LCDs, it was also that they were not massively more expensive.

Compare that to Intel's Optane, the elusive PCM memory technology which finally arrived to take out NAND Flash. Sure, it was faster than Flash, but it was also massively more expensive. It wasn't worth it for most people. So Intel recently discontinued it.

The same could happen for Micro LEDs. It isn't clear whether their quality advantage over OLED is worth a much higher price. Their main advantage over OLEDs (higher max brightness) doesn't seem too relevant anyway.

lightedman• 3 years ago

uLED will have one major victory over OLED - longevity of the display.

Source: Where I work is tooling up to start producing uLED products for SLA 3D printing. UV uLED + LCD filter all in one. I'm having to teach them how to utilize LIFT.

runeks• 3 years ago

Compare that to Intel's Optane, the elusive PCM memory technology which finally arrived to take out NAND Flash. Sure, it was faster than Flash, but it was also massively more expensive. It wasn't worth it for most people. So Intel recently discontinued it.

Intel Optane is barely faster than flash — roughly 3x (for 4k random read) compared to the fastest Samsung SSD [1].

Optane was a failure because it failed to deliver the promised result. Intel would have never poured money into a new technology only three times faster than an existing technology. I recall initial promises were RAM-like speeds.

If Apple is able to spit out 200 million of these screens in a year, I have a very hard time imagining what ingredient could go into the production causing a greater per unit price than a Samsung display.

[1] https://ssd.userbenchmark.com/

WXLCKNO• 3 years ago

Higher max brightness is very relevant. most Oled tvs in recent years max out at something like 800-1000 nits. Dolby vision content can be mastered at up to 10000 nits I believe and microled tvs could provide that brightness.

There's something incredibly realistic about highlights being super bright, I think it's going to look more like a window than a TV.

jiggawatts3• 3 years ago

The only technology I've heard of that might outperform it is directly-driven nanorods, something Samsung has been experimenting with. These are basically the same thing as "quantum dots", except that instead of small round crystals they are rod shaped. Apparently if they're aligned and excited by an electric field, they glow with a pure colour. This makes them very similar to microLEDs, but potentially much cheaper to manufacture.

However, other than some breathless press-releases a few years ago I haven't heard anything happening recently, so it's possible the technology didn't pan out.

https://www.channelnews.com.au/new-samsung-lg-premium-displa...

aledalgrande2• 3 years ago

Super cool, I asked Master GPT-4 to teach me about these nanorods and they sound super interesting. Exciting that they could be used for flexible/transparent screens and are lighter on battery, that would make AR devices much more seamless.

Now we just need to make them...

TaylorAlexander• 3 years ago

For VR headsets the real buzz is around MicroOLED not MicroLED. Samsung just bought a small MicroOLED manufacturer with a technology that offers much higher brightness than other methods, which is important for virtual reality headsets.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOtuMMi9LX4

layer82• 3 years ago

I’ve read somewhere that one potential issue is that due to microLED color primaries having more narrow spectral bands, individual variations in color perception become more pronounced, leading to differences in how people perceive the colors of microLED displays.

brightball• 3 years ago

Who’s stock will this negatively impact?

lostmsu• 3 years ago

Samsung?

buran773• 3 years ago

"Apple's ultimate plan is to introduce the technologies on its iPhone, which is its key revenue source and has much bigger volume, to justify the investments over the years," said one of the sources who has seen samples of the company's microLED screen.

One thing I really appreciate when it comes to Apple is that despite all their shortcomings they don't "sleep on the job". Over the years they never hesitated to cannibalize their own product lines (iPod), or go through several tough technological transitions (68K/PPC/x86/ARM) if it meant building a better product. And bigger profits of course.

For example I'm sure Google would just rather stuff your phone to the gills with ads in order to drive revenue than actually bother with a coherent investment in a long term strategy to make a better product. And bigger profits of course.

dehrmann3• 3 years ago

cannibalize their own product lines (iPod)

I disagree on this. The iPhone was a potential iPod replacement when it launched, but the choice was selling $200 iPods or $500 iPhones. The iPhone felt like a leap of several generations, but the hardware and business model were still similar.

Where Apple actually cannibalized something was Apple Music and the iTunes store, but they drug their feet on it.

buran773• 3 years ago

but the choice was selling $200 iPods or $500 iPhones

I don't think we are in disagreement. But the fact is very few companies do this regardless. When it comes to the product that's their bread and butter they tend to put it on a pedestal never to be touched until it falls into irrelevance.

Apple didn't launch an improved iPod and retire the old. They didn't try to sell a phone and a music player by artificially differentiating them, or by sabotaging one of them. They didn't try to make $250 off the iPod and another $250 from a phone that "shouldn't compete too well". They launched 2 product lines made by different parts of the company, knowing that the iPhone may undermine the iPod userbase and then still fail, possibly souring those customers.

They wouldn't necessarily do this today. iDevices now are clearly (and artificially) differentiated from the Macs: different OS, no options to use them in a way they truly compete despite having such similar hardware theoretical capabilities.

Again to give the Google example, when they tried to have competing lines (Google/Nest) they managed to fail at both and lose the customers completely.

no_wizard• 3 years ago

I think this had more to due with negotiations with the record labels[0]. All the major record labels have investments in Spotify[1] which I imagine lends more credence to Spotify being able to negotiate good deals with the labels, since they can act more like partners

[0] https://www.cultofmac.com/325034/apples-music-streaming-nego...

[1] https://variety.com/2018/biz/news/spotify-at-days-close-what...

dwaite6• 3 years ago

One of the classic examples I've heard was how Apple cannibalized their iPod (classic) with the iPod Mini and the iPod nano. These were smaller and cheaper due to the flash storage, but did not replace their more expensive cousin.

The iPod Classic got relatively little updates toward the end of the iPod line because while it had a dedicated fan base due to its ability to store truly massive music libraries, it just wasn't selling much.

This was also the first time we really saw the scale Tim Cook could push for - competitors had difficulty going up against Apple because they hadn't just bought out all the available flash in the channel - they had funded building new factories for building denser/cheaper flash, in return for their entire initial production.

kccqzy• 3 years ago

Is Google launching Bard a perfect example of displaying the willingness to cannibalize Search?

Google Brain was formed in 2011. If that's not coherent investment in a long term strategy I don't know what would qualify.

__hello__• 3 years ago

This is a bad example - bard just seems to halucinate and make up 50% of the answers.

buran773• 3 years ago

The only thing Bard shows is that Google doesn't want OpenAI to eat into their Search. There's no indication it was ever planned to compete with Search or that they had a clear plan for it before OpenAI walked that path.

When you have all you need theoretically in house but your moves are rushed and come only as a reaction to the competition you are the very example I was trying to make, of milking your cash cow and waiting too long. Google had to change the strategy [0], reorganize [1], and struggle to launch your product in an emergency as a response to competition. This is the very definition of not having a well thought out long term strategy, isn't it?

Google owned Brain and DeepMind as rival divisions since before OpenAI existed. They didn't cooperate, didn't launch any revolutionary product, and didn't compete in any way with Google's main offering. They were left to their own devices like side projects until the competition dashed in front and hit Google's most sensitive area and dictated their strategy.

I don't know if Bard is a good or bad product. But we may have different definitions of a coherent investment in a long term strategy to make a better product. None of the above shouts "coherent", "long term strategy", or even necessarily "better product".

[0] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/01/feari...

[1] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/04/googles-ai-panic-for...

pinkcan• 3 years ago

lol, don't be naive

bart is only being made public because openai did a thing

sharkjacobs• 3 years ago

It might've been if its release wasn't such a direct response to ChatGPT

zitterbewegung• 3 years ago

It seems too reactive to be like that. They had the ability to do what OpenAI is already did well before OpenAI had a product.

jbverschoor3• 3 years ago

Google didn’t cannibalize search with Bard. Bing/openai forced google to act.

This is exactly the opposite of what was meant

m4632• 3 years ago

The other side of that coin is that apple navel gazes, shunning the rest of the world.

I think the most recent apple golden age was around 2007 when they switched to intel. This allowed folks to use apple hardware and macos, but also run windows on their systems. mac os was more open. The mac pro embraced the PC ecosystem, hard drives, pcie cards and more.

Nowadays the pendulum is swinging the other way and though it might be good for apple's bottom line, I don't think it's better for customers (or apple long term)

JumpCrisscross2• 3 years ago

though it might be good for apple's bottom line, I don't think it's better for customers

The M1 MacBook Pro is the best laptop I’ve ever used.

ok_dad• 3 years ago

Apple users pay for the integration in the Apple ecosystem, lack of spyware, and quality of the physical device. They aren’t looking to run windows or Linux or anything like that.

thevagrant• 3 years ago

While those early intel days were great (for example, being able to add more ram or install an ssd in 2009 macbook pro).

M1 is a big improvement over that even without the upgrade flexibility early intel years offered.

M1 can run windows in parallels and it works well enough for most cases

yunohn• 3 years ago

Over the years they never hesitated to cannibalize their own product lines (iPod)

The iPod was subsumed by the iPhone, not cannibalised. Parents were obligated to buy their kids a device with tracking/communication capabilities, so iPods became irrelevant. Now everyone buys the 2x more expensive device.

Now, if Apple were to merge the iPad and Macbook, I would agree with you readily.

kevin_thibedeau2• 3 years ago

There's no replacement for the Nano. iPhone doesn't cover that use case.

howinteresting3• 3 years ago

Which has more ads in the settings menu, an iPhone or a Pixel?

jayd162• 3 years ago

No undismissable ads as notification bubbles on a Pixel either.

cubefox8• 3 years ago

I'm not sure that's true overall. Consider their strange design decisions with iPhone screens:

- They waited years longer than the competition to switch to larger screens. They only really got to it with the iPhone 6.

- They completely slept on OLED and stuck to LCD until the iPhone X, when all mid to high range Android phones had already used OLED for years. Their iPads still use LCDs for apparently no good reason (lower price presumably), around ten years after Samsung sold their first OLED tablets.

- They slept on the screen-to-body ratio. They were years behind their Android competition when they finally changed their course with the iPhone X.

californical2• 3 years ago

It’s just a different set of values. If you want the latest tech specs, like OLED or whatever else, then you’ll find that in other brand.

But if you prefer a system that just gets out of your way so you don’t need to think about it, and just use it as a tool to do something else then Apple is nearly unbeatable.

And I say this as a recent Apple convert. I reluctantly started using their tech a few years ago when a Macbook was the laptop given to me at a new job. But since embracing the idea of “meh I’ll just use the defaults and let the system get out of my way”, I feel like I get to spend more time on things where I add value.

I switched to an iPhone for the first time in 2020 with the SE, and it is still running fine today with no problems, on the latest software update. I don’t care about the screen-to-body ratio, I just want it to work well as a tool

fomine3• 3 years ago

LCD is still superior for durability and max brightness. I'd still prefer LCD for expensive tablets because it will be used over 6 years, unlike phones. Early OLED phones were bad for burn in. I heard that iPhone X OLED has more chance to get burned in compared to later models.

MBCook7• 3 years ago

I can’t speak to screen sizes. I’m still not sure what the deal was there.

There was a reason for OLED. The first Android phones with OLED looked hideous. The saturation was all wrong and they used pentile subpixel arrangements. Further more I remember seeing pictures of burn-in on some (cheaper/off brand?) OLED phones.

Apple has their priorities. And display quality is one of them. Look at professional reviews of their monitors and other displays like the iPhones and iPads. Whatever people think of the cost/features they tend to be be impressed with the display accuracy out of the box.

They waited until they could get enough OLED screens to handle their demand. But they also wanted certain levels of color accuracy, I assume non-pentile, and something that could handle avoiding burn in for the expected lifetime of the phone.

That must have taken time.

Screen to body: I suspect they knew they were getting close on the iPhone X design and wanted it to really stand out, so they stuck with the forehead/chin longer than others. Total guess though.

dwaite6• 3 years ago

They waited years longer than the competition to switch to larger screens. They only really got to it with the iPhone 6.

There's a lot of people upset they switched to larger screens! I suspect that Steve Jobs really wanted the phone to continue to fit in his jeans watch pocket.

Android phones generally had to be larger for engineering reasons. But larger phones sell well.

They completely slept on OLED and stuck to LCD until the iPhone X, when all mid to high range Android phones had already used OLED for years.

The iPhone has always had great screens. A lot of the early OLED screens were simply not good enough, cheap enough, and/or available at high enough production.

The iPhone X was more expensive and meant to be a smaller run compared to the main consumer line. It needed a screen with a concave cutout. It makes a lot of sense that this was their first OLED iPhone screen.

IIRC correctly, the iPhone X had much higher demand than Apple anticipated, and there were shortages due to the OLED screen.

Generally, android phones compare favorably because people will pick and choose the winning premium features and the lowest price from a set of Android phones, to compare against the single flagship iPhone. It's rigged.

Eventually people will be talking about how late Apple was to get into folding phones, when nearly all Android phones sold are still non-folding phones today, years after the first folder launched - and folders typically sell at over $1k premium.

They slept on the screen-to-body ratio. They were years behind their Android competition when they finally changed their course with the iPhone X.

Is replacing hardware buttons with an always-displayed button bar really changing the screen-to-body ratio?

rmm• 3 years ago

Isn’t it the scale they need to supply it in. It’s next level. I mean they don’t need to just implement a new tech but implement it in 200million devices every year.

Barrin92• 3 years ago

Google would just rather stuff your phone to the gills with ads

I see literally more ads on my iphone than I see on my Google Pixel, and it is one of Apple's fastest growing sources of revenue.

m3kw9• 3 years ago

Ads don’t matter unless they are intrusive. Most part Apple does well, but Apple News is the worst

pkasting• 3 years ago

Hmm. Over in the browser space, I'd say Google's shown significant, long-term investment in Chrome/Blink, especially compared to Apple's relative disinterest in putting significant engineering resources on WebKit.

Perhaps instead of this being about Apple vs. Google (or others), it's about companies investing in their core competencies and areas where they have a business interest.

madeofpalk2• 3 years ago

I think people underestimate Safari. IIRC "back in the day" they were the first to get 100% in supporting all of ES6. Conviently, they were first in supporting the things I care about - like backdrop-filter and css scroll snap. Safari/Webkit/JSC is faster at executing javascript as well.

jbverschoor3• 3 years ago

Disinterest?.. Apple initiated the investments in WebKit.

They both had to, f was dominant.

jbverschoor3• 3 years ago

Disinterest?.. Apple initiated the investments in WebKit, and chrome was later on based on that.

josephcsible• 3 years ago

It's not that Apple is disinterested in WebKit now or just doesn't want to spend money on it. They intentionally want to keep it bad, so that Web apps won't be a viable alternative to native apps on iOS.

ksec3• 3 years ago

Chrome fits the long term and Better, but apart from Chrome, What else?

Not Android because it has a direct competition that is arguably doing much better ( More user switching to Apple than Android ) and is forced to improve in other to compete.

NoMoreNicksLeft• 3 years ago

I keep wondering what would happen if Apple were to license iOS. I know that's a sore spot (Jobs is dead though), but could they actually fuck over Android if they did?

A whitebox iOS could be downgraded enough that they could still service the snob market, but maybe undercut Google completely. I mean, how much does it even have to cost per unit when each sold drives traffic to their own app store?

aledalgrande2• 3 years ago

It would be a nightmare for iOS devs, now swamped by tons of device formats and missing capabilities depending on the model, like it is for Android.

MBCook7• 3 years ago

A whitebox iOS could be downgraded enough[…]

And that’s a huge part of the problem. Any move like that would tarnish iOS in everyone’s eyes. Apple wants you to buy a real iPhone, even if it’s the model from 2 years ago, instead.

If BMW started selling a ton of $18,000 cars do you think that would help or hurt sales of the M3 and the 5 Series?

That bit then with the clones. The competition undercut them. You know what that high Apple price does? Help pay to develop iOS.

They would have to charge enough to make up for the money they would lose on the list phone sales. And seriously risk their reputation in the process.

Apple has been through a lot in their 40 years. They have an atavistic reaction at this point against anything that prevents them from controlling their own destiny. It’s hurt them too many times.

I suspect that’s why they’re doing this. They don’t want to be beholden to Samsung, LG, or anyone else for displays.

scarface744• 3 years ago

What good is iOS on commodity hardware? The entire value proposition of any of Apple’s products are the right integration of hardware and software.

rodgerd2• 3 years ago

I keep wondering what would happen if Apple were to license iOS.

Much the same thing as happened to Apple when they licensed their OS in the 90s, I imagine.

Panzer04• 3 years ago

I use Apple devices despite iOS, not because of it.

jayd162• 3 years ago

You're acting like Android isn't staying competitive. If Apple is moving forward how can you say Google isn't?

MBCook7• 3 years ago

I think their point was, would Google move forward if they weren’t forced by Apple?

Google News took over and they gave up. Gmail got huge and they stopped doing much other than adding ads. Maps slowed down, other than adding ads. Google search keeps getting worse, they can’t seem to fix the SEO/spam problem. But they can add more ads.

Left to their own devices, Google seems happy to collect rent.

Apple, historically, makes their money by selling new hardware, and that requires improving things enough people want to buy it.

dmix• 3 years ago

It helps when you have so much power over suppliers they can't complain or cut you out when you overtly threaten to replace them with vertical integration.

lern_too_spel2• 3 years ago

Despite what you're sure of, it's Apple that's stuffing your phone with more ads, and it won't let you use alternative apps without those ads on "your" phone.

Keirmot• 3 years ago

Can you elaborate what adds I have on my iPhone?

reacharavindh• 3 years ago

Over the years they never hesitated to cannibalize their own product lines (iPod), or go through several tough technological transitions (68K/PPC/x86/ARM) if it meant building a better product. And bigger profits of course.

Oh the mighty power ipad with M2 chip and 5G modem but a crippling ipadOS that prevents one from making good use of the CPU power would like a word to argue with you :-)

I cannot think of any reason for Apple to not allow ipadOS to get proper multi-tasking than "oh this will start eating into our profits from the MacBook Air/Macbook Pro lines". I'm not advocating for MacOS on a touchscreen mode. I would have chosen the ipad Pro in a heatbeat if it could have real multi-tasking with a keyboard and a touchpad plugged in. I mean the chip is already there twiddling its thumbs..

jibcage• 3 years ago

I think they know this and may already be working on it, but if not, it’s likely they’ve done the math that the engineering investment to flesh out the iPad experience wouldn’t be worth the potential payout - people can always get a MacBook, as you rightly point out.

ksec3• 3 years ago

actually bother with a coherent investment in a long term strategy to make a better product.

Pretty much every company on planet earth other than Apple. There are actually Three key points here, long term, correct strategy and better. Most company would do pretty well if they even have just one of the three.

One could argue Intel didn't have any of the three for about 5 - 8 years.

dang• 3 years ago

Url changed from https://www.macrumors.com/2023/05/18/apple-mass-produce-micr..., which points to this.

Submitters: "Please submit the original source. If a post reports on something found on another site, submit the latter."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

shmerl• 3 years ago

Typical Apple NIH mentality. What will be next, memory chips may be?

worrycue2• 3 years ago

I think they are just warily of being reliant on a single supplier - they have been burned before; https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=MacBasic.txt

MBCook7• 3 years ago

Some companies they’ve been beholden to that made their lives worse:

Microsoft, Adobe, Motorola, IBM, Intel, nVidia, Qualcomm, Samsung, Metroworks, Oracle, and ATI/AMD.

They’ve done everything they can to either kick those to the curb or minimize the risk.

Sony is the one big exception I can think of. Sony makes the camera sensors and I don’t remember hearing of Sony causing issues.

Wouldn’t surprise me if Sony was next on the list after displays though.

neximo64• 3 years ago

This is funny, they only did this because they don't like dealing with Samsung on the display side.

MBCook7• 3 years ago

They don’t like being beholden to anyone. It’s why they their own chips. Their own chipsets. Their own storage controllers. They’re working on their own radios. Their own fingerprint sensors. Their own facial recognition. Their LIDAR. Their image processing chips attached to the camera.

They often contract out actual manufacturing. But they design and control everything they can, being very hands on with manufacturing.

On the iPhone the screen and the camera sensors are the two big things they don’t control.

The Samsung angle absolutely doesn’t help. But if they were using LG I think they would still do this. It’s the direction they’ve been heading in for years.

fwlr4• 3 years ago

One exciting thing about microLEDs is they can achieve much higher pixels per inch. Before Apple’s big Retina push, PPI was around 80-120. It went to around 200-300 with Retina. Researchers making microLEDs in the lab have gone as high as 6000 PPI, and something in the low thousands seems quite plausible for commercial technology. Apple could conceivably bring in “Double Retina” at 800 PPI, or they could go straight to “Double Double Retina” at 1600 PPI.

It’s often claimed the human eye can’t see above 300 PPI; this is even more misleading than the claim that the human eye can’t see above 30fps (we all know there’s a distinct visual difference between 30fps and 60fps, and most people are able to detect the difference between 60fps and 144fps as well). The PPI limit of the eye depends on how brightly lit the subject is and how far away one is viewing it; for a real upper limit you might use something like the maximums of https://lobsangstudio.com/ls_pixel.cfm which says at 6 inches viewing distance under 10,000 lux (bright sunny day), the eye could go as high as 1200PPI. The fact that microLEDs offer the potential to go beyond even the maximum of generous estimates in best conditions is very exciting, it’s like Formal Proof version of Retina rather than the current Good Enough.

ericpauley2• 3 years ago

The point of Retina is that the pixels aren't visible at normal viewing distances. You really shouldn't be using any (non-VR) screen 6 inches away. At 18 inches the effective PPI would be 400, so not much more than retina even at insane brightness.

I could see it being a big deal for VR, though.

thr-nrg• 3 years ago

https://clarkvision.com/articles/eye-resolution.html

The 10600 pixels over 20 inches corresponds to 530 pixels per inch, which would indeed appear very sharp. Note in a recent printer test I showed a 600 ppi print had more detail than a 300 ppi print on an HP1220C printer (1200x2400 print dots). I've conducted some blind tests where a viewer had to sort 4 photos (150, 300, 600 and 600 ppi prints). The two 600 ppi were printed at 1200x1200 and 1200x2400 dpi. So far all have gotten the correct order of highest to lowest ppi (includes people up to age 50). See: http://www.clarkvision.com/articles/printer-ppi

I have no idea why everyone forgot how shit 300dpi printers were and how much crisper 1200dpi looked.

fwlr4• 3 years ago

The Retina value is “for a specific visual acuity (usually 20/20), at a specific viewing distance (usually 18 inches), at a specific brightness (usually indoor office lighting), individual pixels cannot be distinguished”. If you have better than 20/20 vision, you need a higher PPI to achieve “Retina” (individual pixels not distinguishable). Chuck Yeager, the fighter pilot guy, famously had 20/10 vision, and it’s estimated up to 1% of the population might have 20/10 vision as well. It is apparently quite common among elite athletes to be 20/15 or better.

Viewing distance also varies a lot - I recall reading somewhere the empirical observed viewing distance for smartphones is between 6 and 15 inches sitting and between 4 and 9 inches lying down. Environmental brightness also varies, obviously.

Just to give a personal example, my near vision was measured at 20/16 with correction, I am currently holding my phone 7 inches from my eyes, and I have my room lit with four 1500-lumen bulbs (to simulate daylight). I don’t know what the correct PPI would be there, but it’s obviously going to be higher than the usual amount.

In addition, it’s not clear that “cannot distinguish individual pixels” is even the same thing as “no more visual quality can be gained with higher pixel density”. At 30fps the human eye can’t distinguish individual frames, but 60fps still has visual benefits over 30fps, and many people are able to consistently detect the difference between 60fps and 144fps. Past 144fps is when you get to “no more visual quality can be obtained by higher frame rates” (as opposed to proxies like “individual frames are not distinguishable”). I suspect a similar thing is true for pixel density.

But as I said originally, I’m excited that microLEDs might make it viable to have screens with a pixel density not just “beyond what’s reasonably good enough in most circumstances”, not even “beyond what’s detectable by most people in all but the best circumstances”, but in fact well into “provably beyond the limits of what the best human eyes can detect in the best possible conditions at impractically close viewing distances”.

heliophobicdude• 3 years ago

Couple of questions. Is Apple intending to use microOLED from Samsung after buying Sony's microOLED for this upcoming AR HMD?

Also are they intending to use Samsung's new purchase of eMagine optics for the higher quality microOLED micro displays with no color filter?

If so, are they then just trying to cut reliance on specific types of displays?

Also microLED != microOLED.

nologic013• 3 years ago

The headline that would bring tears to my eyes is "Users dive into Linux to cut reliance on big tech"

The endless cola versus pepsi discussion is not really going to move the needle and the users pay with inferior experience.

Apple has been playing its cards well and in a sense its good that it exists. It shows that different business models are possible but thats a far cry from it being a functioning market that delivers for users.

Ultimately you want multiple manufacturers, low switching costs between platforms that wont lock-in users, 100% stop with the abominable surveillance adtech, extensive recyclability and reparability.

These are not absurd demands that cant be delivered, these are very basic aspects of a sane personal computing landscape. But we will not get them if all the ink is spent on which of the two options is the least bad one.

jvm___2• 3 years ago

low switching costs between platforms that wont lock-in users, 100% stop with the abominable surveillance adtech, extensive recyclability and reparability.

Who pays for that?

What you want is less "pollution". A polluted market where you can't switch from apple to Samsung. A polluted privacy environment online. A polluted world with a phone that's just full of glue.

Companies, and humanity in general, just pollutes as much as their local environment allows.

What your saying is possible to do, but doing those things means less money for the owners of the companies and less features going out the door (as money and time are spent on non-profit expenses).

No one will pay $$ to switch between apple and google. Why would either company make it easy to lose monthly app subscriptions? They'd be paying money to shoot themselves in the foot.

What needs to happen is more regulation (just like physical world pollution) but the USA culture is very anti-government so nothing will happen.

nologic013• 3 years ago

Who pays for that?

Users will pay. One way or another users pay for everything.

But you cannot pay for something that doesnt exist.

Reduced competition is the best way to ensure real choice doesnt exist.

Its the simplest of truths yet we are past the stage of even grasping simple truths.

xyzabc098123• 3 years ago

This is history repeating itself; like the "frowned-upon", complex structures of conglomerate in Japan and South Korea. Samsung is an example most are familiar with. At least gen Z and millennials get to see how one is borned.

Too much money, why not DIY?

Apple dives into display-making to cut reliance on Samsung

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