More like making devices smaller because that's what customers want.
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Apple Acquires iPhone Power Management Technology in $600 Million Deal With Chipmaker Dialog
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More like making devices smaller because that's what customers want.
Lol boy the apple consumer.. one could wish I guess, and you actually believe that? Nice.
Even an average device like the LG gram running an inferior OS currently doubles apple's battery time.
I'm getting ~190 Wh/mile on a regular basis in my Model 3 which is 177 MPGe. Engines are absurdly inefficient - if they were actually a good idea, you'd see tiny generators instead of batteries running all your electronic systems.
I have community solar that's covering 90-100+% of my electric consumption - varies from month to month.
These are extremely likely the people that Dialog had primarily assigned to doing products for Apple anyway. They are 'best' primarily in their skill at being familiar with the specific product Apple wanted to buy. They aren't necessarily the best at the other products in Dialog's portfolio. With $40-60M of that $300M Dialog could do some buying of 'acquisition hire' talent themselves that doesn't overlap with the Apple business they moved out of.
The stock price is going up because Dialog said that they would do an "up to 10%" buyback of the stock. The stock is going to go up once Dialog gets that cash. 10% probably not (scale iinear with drop of sales), but 3-4% probably. When Dialog's stock dips too much once they get the cash, the company will buy it up. So there will be a 'floor' under the stock for at least 1-2 years once the deal completes ( presuming Dialog doesn't screw up its other businesses/products. )
The catch 22 for Dialog was that Apple was such a big customer that they largely sucked up tons of time and focus. That is nice up until the point where can't complete being a well rounded company. (e.g., all those 300 folks working on Apple only projects don't have time to work on anything else. ) The other problem is that Apple has so much cash they could just walk away with no payment ( it would cost more but not huge problem for Apple).
Apple probably won't do 'all' of the work (Dialog got contracts for new chips in other areas). What Apple is probably buying is the power management that they either have already put into the SoC (system on a chip) or want to. There will be other peripheral projects that probably still use some discrete components because Apple won't build a custom SoC for everything themselves.
300M of that is pre-payment for product. Dialog has to have that product made and shipped. A large chunk of that will go to those contractors. Another chunk can also go into creating the products if there is anything new (e.g., in year 2-3) . Dialog doesn't have to worry about floating costs and getting paid by Apple but they do have costs to cover.
That Apple is taking over some buildings (and/or office space) near Dialog facilities should help Dialog cut some costs [ in addition to not having to pay the salaries of those 300 folks. ] This deal is a 'cost transfer' to Apple also. [ just rough back of envelope: 300 folks at $100k per year is $30M/yr ]
The battery on the Series 2 is 1.28 Wh, the Series 4 is 1.12 Wh. You may be getting half the battery life, but if you’re blaming the battery you’re barking up the wrong tree.
It didn't take them that long, They had to wait for the comments made by apple regarding the "fact" that apple can make its own chips without them to bring the price of Dialog's stock down to where apple can buy the company for next to nothing, or pennies on the dollar, if you will.
Does anyone recall if Dialog's chips were used in the iPhones (6, 6s, 7) that experienced power management issues that led Apple to disguise the problem with throttling (And later, fresh batteries)? Mark my words. It will come out in the wash that those chips had an engineering shortcoming, or had an unusually high amount of manufacturing defects.
Laptop design always involves trade offs between size/weight/power consumption/fan noise/battery life/CPU power/GPU power etc.
Maybe you want longer battery life but don’t need the fastest CPU available from Intel. Maybe you want a gaming GPU but don’t care about battery life or fan noise. I have no idea what your perfect combination of these factors is, but why do you think Apple owes you your perfect laptop?
Apple designs for the 80-90% of their customer base, which doesn’t necessarily include your wants/needs. If 80%—or even 51%—of users want thinner/lighter instead of heavier/thicker/more powerful, should Apple disregard that and make you your “more powerful” MBP instead?
Isn't this an oxymoron? Customers want smaller devices with large screen sizes. Sure, it might be thinner than before, but I'd hardly consider this "smaller".
This. The "faster horses" quote is off the mark. We're dealing with the limitations of physics and until a new chemistry is invented, battery tech will only make small incremental improvements. Just adding a few mm in thickness gives you the greatest return in terms of electrical storage.
This is an interesting solution for both Apple and Dialog.
Apple could just announce (like they did with Imagination) that they were going in house and Dialog would tank the next second. Apple wouldn't be able to pouch anything without exposing themselves to market manipulation lawsuits. Dialog would be no more and Apple would have to use extensive resources to build a power management team and related expertise.
This way Apple gets its in-house team, ready to go and Dialog gets to fight another day and use its cash to try something different.
Apple could just announce (like they did with Imagination) that they were going in house and Dialog would tank the next second. Apple wouldn't be able to pouch anything without exposing themselves to market manipulation lawsuits. Dialog would be no more and Apple would have to use extensive resources to build a power management team and related expertise.
This way Apple gets its in-house team, ready to go and Dialog gets to fight another day and use its cash to try something different.
If Apple were in the business of electric horses, they would be powered via 0.8W chargers
While probably true, the quote is apocryphal. https://hbr.org/2011/08/henry-ford-never-said-the-fast
I wouldn’t call bigger batteries incredibly innovative. What Apple is actually trying to do is the innovation you claim the industry is lacking...not just stuffing in larger batteries. You eventually reach a limit, ie the Galaxy Note recall disaster.
It’s also a complete lie to say Apple hasn’t done tremendous work fitting in respectable batteries within their designs. The iPhone X managed to fit almost a Plus-sized battery despite the tremendous size difference.
Limiting the battery forces engineering to think more creatively and problem solve. Stuffing in more mAh is the easy, lazy answer
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So the going price for talent is $2/M per head. Interesting. I think Apple got a really good deal here. If you think about how much it costs to recruit good people, and if these folks stay around for a number of years, Apple would have gotten more than its moneys worth.
Apple should buy Qualcomm and maybe even other companies like LG that supply components and chip fabricators such as TSMC. If they own the whole stack they can cut their prices even more, make even better devices, and afford to build the iPhone in the U.S. I know it sounds completely crazy but it has to be more of a long-term goal of Apple to do something like this. Why? Because they're more self-reliant, they can clamp down on supply chain and manufacturing leaks, they wouldn't have to worry as much about the trade war with China, and they can get a lot of politicians in the U.S. off their back by building things here. It's a lot of work, a lot of money, and a lot of time.
I'm pretty sure most customers would prefer a 1mm thicker device if it significantly increased their battery life.
This being said, throwing faster processors and larger batteries to cover up for inefficient code is not the ideal solution. Optimizing code is not as sexy as adding flashy new features to the OS, but deep down it is really what customers want, even if they don't know it.
your comment deserves one million up votes .... finally someone who gets it
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That shows your youth - the older generation here still remembers the pointless MHz wars of the past
Maybe. I wasn’t really into tech until the past 15-20 years. Even then i was really not paying that much attention.