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Comment by _aavaa_ | Hacker News Reader

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_aavaa_·

That kinda depends on another manufacturer making a laptop with MacBook-level: battery life, screen, touchpad.

Which is apparently impossible.

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Oh, I assume I'll still be using a Macbook.

Because of IP laws, I believe. Even China can't rip Apple's trackpad tech and copy it because they _really_ like having iPhones made and sold in China... can't rock that boat. But if the latter wasn't true, you'd have 500 brands with an Apple-like or better trackpad.

I don't know if I believe that. Nobody seems to be reaching for absolute top shelf quality anymore. You have Apple, then you have every other computer maker battling it out to try to win the "low cost plastic junk" market. A few of them have a "premium" tier which itself is still comparatively low-cost and sub-par.

Then why hasn't someone in China just simply copied the Apple track pad directly? They've done it to cars like BMWs... ?

This seems like a hand wavy explanation. What specific is IP law protecting here? Do they have patents on the trackpad? On battery life? On nice screens?

Throwing my conspiracy theory in here...

Who does Jony Ive work for now?

Yea, but Jony don’t design chips.

But OpenAI does. If the models can vibe code software and operating systems and design 3D printed objects, what's stopping advances in material science to improve battery technology and beat Apple at their own game?

OpenAI Planning A 2028 Smartphone With Custom Chips

https://www.androidauthority.com/openai-smartphone-mediatek-...

The battery in particular is not battery technology. It's equal parts the CPU hardware (though intel and amd are making good strides) and software. Back in the windows bootcamp days, you would get substantially better battery life from macOS than from windows on the same hardware.

Then there's things like properly sleep and suspend support.

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