Hacker News Reader

Comment by ggm | Hacker News Reader

As I heard it, Apple boosted VLSI design smarts in the UK to get audio stuff in the iPod era, got really good FPGA and there was a one-two year boost in the british chip smarts IPR. Next cycle round, Apple went to the cheaper foundries and said "do this smart stuff cheaper" and undercut. So the apple model appears to me to be: get good design work, but don't depend on it, leverage scale to get cheaper.

Apple is still hugely exposed to the lack of diversity in touch screen and battery smarts. I expect to see something there, because it must hurt paying Samsung with one hand, while you are suing for a pound of flesh with the other.

View on HN

Apple already uses OLED panels frpm LG in the Apple Watch, but LG hasn't got the capacity or the consistent quality on phone sized panels to rival Samsung. There are reports Apple put down $2.7bn on LG to help with capital investments to get them in the game, but volume shipments at iPhone scale wont be possible until 2019.

One problem is the ELVESS OLED camera tracking vapour deposition systems used in the manufacturing process are only made by Canon and only in very small quantities - about 10 a year.

http://appleinsider.com/articles/17/07/28/apple-invests-27b-...

Apple only used OLED from LG in their first Apple Watch, all subsequent Apple Watch's OLED are from Samsung.

LG, has yet to prove themselves regarding Mobile OLED display panel. ( Look at the problems with V30, and soon the Pixel 2 ) I seriously doubt Apple are putting $2.7B on the Mobile OLED, ( or what LG called POLED, which is the same as Samsung's AMOLED ), they could have spend the same money on JDI.

Looks like some reports of uneven backlighting / quality issues.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/09/lg-v30-hands-on-lgs-...

God, Yes. Why did I not point that out LG 's OLED quality were no good. ( My hand and mind are always out of sync these days )

And one reason why I dont believe Apple will invest in an OLED production line for capacity and assume their quality standard will improve in the future. LG had the best Desktop > TV Size OLED Panel ( WOLED ), that is I think where Apple are heading.

LG also was also sourced for the first gen retina macbooks due to capacity issues with Samsung. So this story repeats over the long haul where Apple has to go to lg for a seriously inferior product. Would be fantastic to see them correct this issue since they keep paying the same quality price over and over again.

> So the apple model appears to me to be: get good design work, but don't depend on it, leverage scale to get cheaper.

I would just tack on, "then leverage global markets to get those margins as wide as possible". Apple really loves their huge margins. Their design work plays into this by creating a brand and lifestyle for their products, increasing the price. I feel that many of Apple's business decisions come down to either ensuring margins stay high or opting for materials, parts, and designs that increase them.

I really don't think we're at the point anymore where people by iPhones because of any supposed 'brand and lifestyle' Apple projects.

Sure, iPhone "Animoji-Class-Signalling" x will definitely reach back into this level for a bit, but I think that smartphones (and iPhones) are so ubiquitous these days that there's no lifestyle to project from having an iPhone any more.

> I think that smartphones (and iPhones) are so ubiquitous these days that there's no lifestyle to project from having an iPhone any more

Lifestyle signaling never stops playing a role, for anything sold commercial, in any market in any nation.

Nike has been popular and common for three decades. If anything shouldn't be a lifestyle signal, it would be Nike, right? There's a gap between Russell Athletic or Champion and Nike. You can go further and use Gildan (generic, medium quality) vs Nike. Here, take a walk around Walmart's athletic wear department:

https://www.walmart.com/browse/men/men-s-activewear/5438_133...

You'll instantly notice the lack of Nike or Under Armour, much less anything more expensive. There's a reason for that: the bottom half of the income bracket can't afford to frequently, needlessly pay a large mark-up for the swoosh logo. That below middle class, 13 year old, knows there's a lifestyle gap between Russell and Nike, and very particularly so does the Nike Corporation - it's something they monitor like a hawk.

Poorer people know there's a gap between a new iPhone model and other cheap phones that get thrown at you for $0 or $39 as part of a deal in signing up with a telecom carrier.

Great analysis.

You know what's fascinating about the iPhone ? So many people online, really smart ones, have analyzed Apple's sucsess and strategy, with great depth.

And yet rarely mentioned is the huge impact brand/luxury marketing has had on it sucsess and the methods used to get Apple there.

Almost makes you believe in conspiracies :)

For example, it's a known thing in the luxury marketing business - that if you want to create a luxury product with high margins - you need to talk about unique materials and processes, that nobody else knows how to do. And maybe that makes Apple's cpu the first brand driven processor ?

Or that's a good part of luxury marketing, is creating an image of a godlike founder genius. Who is a better example than Jobs ? and only recently we're started to see storiesi about how actually the iPhone was mostly a team effort by a group of smart people, and Jobs didn't play such a big part in it.

Or the fact that all the stars use iPhone(maybe because it was the first smartphone, and now they are locked into it), and that's the kind of advertisement money cannot buy ?

Anyway, reading the full story of Apple's marketing would be a really interesting tale .

iPhones are still have noticeable advantages over non iPhone smartphones for the same price.

Calling that lifestyle signaling completely misses the boat. Samsung could easily afford to beat Apple at the smartphone game, but they would need to improve or replace Android.

I've been an iPhone user since 3GS but I'll dispute that. Top Android phones have been first to market with too many hardware/design/UI innovations that were later copied by Apple. I think familiarity with the O/S & keeping paid apps are what keep users on their chosen platform, and lifestyle signaling is what brings new users onboard.

Innovations don't make the device.

I know at least 10 people that bought an Android phone after owning an iPhone and every single one of them switched back. Really, after years of using an Android people don't switch back because of familiarity.

PS: I am not saying Android is strictly worse, just there are meaningful positives on the iPhone side.

It helps when you're not afraid to throw everything at the wall and see what sticks; it also helps when you have dozens of companies following that same strategy. Android makers are almost always going to be "first" with something new.

They're rarely going to get it right.

> and lifestyle signaling is what brings new users onboard.

For me to understand this, I need to know what lifestyle Apple is trying to convince the iPhone will give you.

The biggest thing I can think of is Instagram and Uber, two things which everyone knows happens without iPhones.

...what is this magical iPhone lifestyle that’s I’m being sold?

Saying that is like saying Xerox invented graphical computing, it’s true but misses the point. The Macintosh vastly improved graphical computing and its cost.

In phones Apple hasn’t been first with any technology, but it’s been first making the useful and usable for the mass market a lot.

> Apple boosted VLSI design smarts in the UK

What does this mean? What is a 'design smart'?

No the OP but I think it translates as "Apple increased the breadth and depth of knowledge among people and companies in the UK around Very Large Scale Integration chip design"

Reply on news.ycombinator.com