How bad is that, though? The success and impressive performance, battery life, temperature of the Apple M1 suggests that this kind of integration can have outstanding results. So there are tradeoffs, at least.
Now, the fact that vertical integration usually implies closed doors is relevant, yeah; but I don't think anyone is denying credit anywhere, and I think it's important to acknowledge upsides.
From my perspective Apple just made it so non Apple hardware couldn't get fast CPU's for another year.
M1 is a 5nm CPU that is faster than 7nm low power CPU's, and uses less power than 7nm high power CPU's, but to me it isn't obvious that it will perform significantly better than others 5nm low power CPU's when those hits the market. Others 5nm will hit the market once Apples contracts to use all 5nm fabs runs out, but before then we are stuck with only Apple having that tech.
You might think that this situation sounds great, but it doesn't look that great to me. I'd prefer if Apple didn't work to lock in hardware components and tech as they do.
Yes without Apple’s money TSMC would have still built 5nm, but likely a few years later.
ex. https://wccftech.com/apple-secures-3nm-tsmc-chip-production/
Because humanity and every company now has access to 5nm infrastructure? Because Apple created the greatest marketing campaign TSMC ever benefited from? Because Apple proved that custom silicon design is no longer fools gold and can be profitable and competitive? Because Apple showcased that more instruction parallelism, heterogeneous core types, co-processors, etc are all beneficial design choices and every competing company can take advantage of them? Because Intel is now competing with TSMC? Because AMD and Intel might lose the monopoly on x86 and need to compete? Because Rosetta 2 and universal binaries pave the way for Apple to invest and eventually transition to RISC-5 or …?
Do you not see any of these points as great? If not, why not? I’ll use your reasons to try to come up with better examples.
I guess that spareparts are harder to get and third party repairing will be almost non existent. It'll also make new competitors with good concepts harder to come into industry (steam deck, framework laptop).
Imagine if every car vendor (bmw, mercedes, toyota, etc) start making a very specific tire that can only be used by their own model.
Does the recent removal of apps [1] from russian appstore ring some bells?
[1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/17/world/europe/russia-naval...
Only sometimes. Have you ever tried unlocking a Pixelbook to run a different OS?
It needs a custom cable and significant RE efforts by the community.
For the average consumer — everything.
I'm kind of torn between the two opinions. I wish my iPhone would be able to run anything I want to run. I also recognize that nobody forced me to buy this iPhone.
Mobile phones are mandated to have emergency calling functionality. Maybe in the future we'll have some "general purpose computing as a human right" law.
> I'm kind of torn between the two opinions.
I am not torn. Because of us two, apparently only one lives in an authoritarian country. When your computing device blocks you from accessing anything not praising the current regime, it kinda devalues the user-friendly interface and manufacturing quality. Shiny chains are still chains.
I also welcome tech companies trying to extract every tiny bit of performance from the silicon that powers computing today. It may lead to developing something incompatible with existing solutions, but surely no regime on this planet is to blame here.