Dracarris

The confusing (and, let’s admit it, intentionally misleading) ways Qualcomm is doing the comparisons with Apple Silicon has been giving me headaches, both at the time of the initial unveiling and at today’s controlled-environment press hands-on event. 
 
It’s a constant game of apples to oranges comparisons and deliberate confusion.
 
First of all, what even is the equivalent Apple chip to compare against the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite (or SxE)? The M2, the M2 Pro or the M2 Max? Or maybe more appropriately the actual Apple chips for 2024 (M3, M3 Pro and M3 Max, being released tonight)?
 
The SxE is a 12 P-core homogeneous design, with no E-cores.
 
Additionally, the SxE, compared to Apple’s chips, is heavily skewed towards allocating its transistor budget (or die area if you will) to the CPU section of the SoC, and has a comparatively smaller GPU. Apple’s M3 chips will run circles around the SxE in terms of GPU, roughly with the M3 being 1x the SxE, the M3 Pro being 2x and the M3 Max being 4x in terms of GPU results, not to mention they’ll most certainly have hw ray tracing, which the SxE lacks (edit: or lacks temporarily, apparently).
 
The best way to approximate what the SxE is ballpark-comparable to could be “the CPU of an M2 Max in MT terms + the CPU of an M2 Pro in ST terms + the GPU of a base M2”. (Or swap “M3” for “M2” after tonight’s M3 unveiling)
 
Hence:
- comparing the ST performance to the M2 Max is theatre, ‘cause you might as well compare it to an M2 Pro or even a well cooled M2, it’s not like ST changes much accross the M2 family, but saying “faster in ST than the M2 Max” sounds more impressive
- comparing the MT performance to the humble base M2 (with its 4p+4e cores, vs 12p cores in the SxE) is…what is it, even? Really?
- comparing the GPU performance to the humble base M2…is cherry picking the only M2 chip the SxE can beat in terms of GPU. (Probably the base M3 tonight will take away even that)
 
Just pick one Apple chip to go against Qualcomm, and then be consistent with the comparison, power efficiency and all. 
 
The way they did it has been just confusing. 
 
ps: someone smarter than me should explain what’s the deal with the Linux GB6 ST score of 3200 that according to Anandtech benefits from the fans being at full blast at all times…was it misleading to quote that score in their presentation or is it fair game? The Windows GB6 ST score with a normal fan curve profile is much closer to the M2 score, probably on par with the M3 score.

In the end Siri like workloads are best done on device given your want low latency and you have so many possible devices that could be making requests that doing this server side would just cost a small fortune.   Just piping Siri to a cloud based LLM would have so many downsides from a load perspective since the Siri load is likly has lots of spikes throughout the day, and you cant pipe requests half way round the world to have a single server handle that load due to massive added latency so you would end up with a lot of compute spread out around the world with much of it only be used at peak times for that timezone. 

Being able to do as much as possible locally on the device, even possibly letting that on device model figure out how to query remove data sources (even remote LLMs) would filter out most of this load... it would be a huge wast of $ to have an huge cloud based LLM handle people adding groceries to thier shopping list, or tuning on and off lights in the house (this sort of things makes up most of the Siri requests)... people are not asking Siri to write them a 100 page essay. 

Me rocking the almighty iPhone 6s. 

This isn't really "news".
 
There seems to be an odd connection between reporting on minute details and disliking people/companies.

Not sure if Apple is more desperate to sell phones or people are desperate to talk about Apple.
 
 

Ask the makers of ForeFlight?
 
Maybe because Android tablets never really took off as a premium software platform where real people and professionals spend actual money for premium apps?
 
Maybe because iPads are stable, predictable and dependable hardware-wise across the years? 
 
You may have made the case for the closed system with that example.
 
Looks like it's Apple's fault even when competitors can't get their sh..strategy together. 

Relating iMessage usage/adoption to a smartphone monopoly has to be one of the stupiest things I've heard in a long time.

Not sure that's a good example of anything-- the developer just didn't find it worthwhile to release the apps on other platforms. That's not something Apple caused.
 
Solidworks can't be purchased on Mac. Is that because Microsoft is exercising monopoly power over it, to keep it a windows exclusive?

ah, FFS, for real!!
- there's a million third-party messaging tools that work on all operating systems, including Windows, Linux and macOS. How are people in the US unable to use them, just how??!! Most of them are way better/have more features than freaking iMessage, and nobody forces you to only use one, they can all be used in parallel.
- what freaking plan comes without text messaging?? it has been included for free for more than a decade by now
- even if the guys plan does "not have texting" he can still _receive_ text messages without any issues and then reply through other channels, including phone & and all kinds of VoIP calls
 
This is one of the most absurd, artificially constructed problems I've probably ever seen.

for those who care about more than pointing and laughing at apple.. here's some detail:
 

ah, FFS, for real!!
- there's a million third-party messaging tools that work on all operating systems, including Windows, Linux and macOS. How are people in the US unable to use them, just how??!! Most of them are way better/have more features than freaking iMessage, and nobody forces you to only use one, they can all be used in parallel.
- what freaking plan comes without text messaging?? it has been included for free for more than a decade by now
- even if the guys plan does "not have texting" he can still _receive_ text messages without any issues and then reply through other channels, including phone & and all kinds of VoIP calls
 
This is one of the most absurd, artificially constructed problems I've probably ever seen.

ah, FFS, for real!!
- there's a million third-party messaging tools that work on all operating systems, including Windows, Linux and macOS. How are people in the US unable to use them, just how??!! Most of them are way better/have more features than freaking iMessage, and nobody forces you to only use one, they can all be used in parallel.
- what freaking plan comes without text messaging?? it has been included for free for more than a decade by now
- even if the guys plan does "not have texting" he can still _receive_ text messages without any issues and then reply through other channels, including phone & and all kinds of VoIP calls
 
This is one of the most absurd, artificially constructed problems I've probably ever seen.

That still doesn't take choice away from consumers, which is what I'm talking about. You as a consumer have the choice to not buy an iPhone if you don't want that. Idk why people act like having an iPhone is a necessity.

I have only ever owned iPhones as far as "smart" phones are concerned; The Apple ecosystem works great and I don't mind staying in it. I also don't mind being 'confined' to validated and verified apps through Apple's own marketplace, VS getting random 3rd party stuff elsewhere like you can on an Android-based phone. Also, SMS text issues between Android and Apple devices simply doesn't matter to me; I have friends with Android phones and they can send me a photo if they need to and it still works.
 
I also like that as an iPhone user, my OS support is going to be longer than most Android devices, and since I take care of my phone I can keep them for quite a few years without worrying about it. I'm not a 'green bubble hater' or anything, but the Android people I know buy garbage-tier phones that are basically worthless in a short period of time, but they think they're getting a great deal because they're cheap. They could keep an iPhone SE over a longer duration of time than several of those cheap Androids, spend less money in that period of time, and not have a bad experience soon after they open the box. I think a lot of Android support comes from people that believe buying cheap crap is good because it's cheap, a phone isn't an investment but just like buying computer parts, getting the cheapest thing on the market is rarely a good deal.

Relating iMessage usage/adoption to a smartphone monopoly has to be one of the stupiest things I've heard in a long time.

Wow... so having a high market share means you are a monopoly apparently. Want to know something funny, that 39.66% of other, shows that Apple indeed does not have a monopoly by definition. By that logic, Boeing has a monopoly too on the 700 series, or that Youtube is the monopoly on video streaming.
 
If you want to see a real monopoly, check out Luxotica. 
 
Also, dear DoJ, We are we going after google next?

Apple users don't avoid switching Android because they're being blocked from doing it.  They don't because they don't want to.
 
The entire strength of the Apple ecosystem comes from it being centrally managed by Apple.  iMessage is good because it's run by Apple.  Apple Pay is good because it's run by Apple.  The app store is good.....because it's run by Apple.  You open this shit up and you end up with the Android shitshow where nothing works with anything else and a 5 year old can hack it because there's more gaping holes than a BDSM porn set.
 
If the DOJ is bored why don't they sue Nvidia...who has an actual monopoly on everything GPU compute right now.  Oh yeah because it's harder to explain that in a press release when it's an election year vs. "iPhone bad"

Exactly, what is the point for me to go back to android to get if I am lucky 3 years of updates when Apple can offer me double the length at the same price. 
 
it's funny over my years, I have actually left android for iPhone and it's honestly a better experience. I still use an android device but for a very limited use case, recording videos, as the thermals for that are much better. Beyond that, its not worth getting an android device because their software update support is that bad whereas I finally parted with my iPhone 8 in September after it wasn't going to be updated anymore. We've been seeing a push to iPhone because and this is in my opinion, people want a device that will last more than two years, which software support side, android fails to deliver, such as the laughable joke that was the pixel pass program.
 
Here has been my personal phone history since my Blackberry 8820. 
Blackberry 8820 HTC Dream Google Nexus 4 iPhone 6s iPhone 8 Samsung S10e (Only used for video these days; the phone functionally was a used for a short time) iPhone 15 Pro Max So my S10e a $749 smartphone hit EOL in April 2023 after a lifespan of 4 years and 1 month with a sole security update about 7 months ago. My iPhone 8 at $849 dollar phone at the time just got today an security update, 6 and a half years later, and 6 months after the last software update. 

Interesting dynamic in other countries when reading how the smartphone ecosystems work in the US, Japan and Korea. Segmented (in Apple's favor), prestige and socially not even accepted amongst younger generation if you don't have an iPhone.
 
Where as in Europe everyone uses 3rd parties. Whatsapp, Signal, Instagram, Messenger and Snapchat for most of people's communication.

Too bad i'm using linux (ik no one asked)

Because of social engineering.
 
You know how many people are stupid enough to get phished for things like fortnite vbucks? Phishing sites are never detected by AV products until it's too late. The same will happen with apps, because it happens right now on other platforms.
 
Having apple "approve" things removes that window of opportunity. We know they don't check enough for submarine  code, which is how Epic got in trouble in the first place.

If all of that is true and Spotify actually paid Apple nothing besides the developer fee, then I kind of see the point. They get preferred treatment, devs flown to their HQ to help, and very little in return. Is 30% grossly too much, even though that's the exact same cut that Gabe gets every time you buy a game on Steam (and nobody complains about this, because in theory there are other platforms which see a tiny fraction of the traffic Steam gets)? Yes. Is 0% too little? Also, yes.
 
And no matter what some people stubbornly claim, there's no denying that Spotifys easy availability on the builtin, trusted, and content-reviewed app store on the most popular mobile platform has helped their growth and success tremendously. It's also pretty irrelevant whether Spotify can be bought on third-party App stores or not as only a tiny fraction of the target audience will bother to install those and search for the app there. C.f. Android and the Play Store.
 
TLDR 30% is unfair, 0% is unfair, and not being allowed to properly inform your users about other ways to subscribe is shit and from now on hopefully banned for good.
Having only the possibilities to either get 30% or nothing, however, is also kind of a dumb business model to be frank. 30% for recurring charges is simply way too much.

Making data centres isn't free... Just because they're not paying an outside company for the service doesn't mean there isn't a cost involved. Whether Apple is doing it themselves or contracting out for data hosting and bandwidth it still ends up costing Apple money to operate.
 
Don't underestimate the number of people who just type "music" in to the app store to see which apps come up then choose one of the top rated apps and then go on to sign up to Spotify or other such apps.
Being on the app store - and being one of the most popular apps shown in search results - is a significant promotion for that app. There's probably a lot of people who have heard of Spotify but if they searched "music" on the app store and Spotify didn't show up as a top result they'd just choose one of the other options that does show up like Youtube Music, Amazon Music, or Apple Music.

Can someone distill it down to one sentence?

Do not buy a product with the promise of future features, especially not from apple for 3500$ with skimped parts. Honestly nothing from what ive seen makes this seem anything other then a failure.

I still wonder about the technical specifics of this "detection" by the public Wi-Fi. Even though Snapchat is not E2E, it should still be using HTTPS.