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DefinitelyNotMasterS t1_itizpr3 wrote

Surely Apple, the highest valued company ever, is going to change their philosophy on creating things for other systems

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IrreverentHippie t1_itj041h wrote

Knowing how good their video acceleration hardware is, they could easily dominate that market on all platforms. I’d personally expect the pro GPU market to be where they would probably try to compete if they did made a PCIe GPU+Video acceleration card available for the general computer market.

And having more options to pick from is always good.

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MrChip53 t1_itj0s1g wrote

Apple sells an ecosystem though. Not hardware components.

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IrreverentHippie t1_itj1spt wrote

Well, yes. But if they also sold hardware components they could probably do very well in that area too

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acsmars t1_itj2rwc wrote

Every sale of a high end GPU would mean one less entire workstation sale they could’ve forced into their camp.

It’s like asking them to sell their iphone software or SoC. They can make more money selling the whole phone, it’d cost them sales to sell it piecemeal . If you’ve got a killer market leading feature and an industry leading product you’re selling, you don’t sell the secret sauce to your competitors.

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MrChip53 t1_itjbtiz wrote

And don't forget that when you buy the whole device they now have you locked in on software sales too.

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IrreverentHippie t1_itjqbpq wrote

Think of it like this, they sell an accelerator card, people go “hey, this apple GPU is awesome”. then apple tells them it works even better in their own computers, because it does, and people go “I guess I should buy an apple computer, I can run my video editing software even faster.”

And then you have people both. Buying your accelerators, and entire systems. Now the ecosystem caters to a wide variety of users, not just “Pros, and facebook scrollers”.

Now apple would have to directly compete with AMD, Nvidia, and Intel. But this competition should potentially help drive innovation, which would help rapidly accelerate the growth and development of computer technology in a 4 way arms race.

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acsmars t1_itjtg4y wrote

Apple does not benefit from increased competition or innovation. Competitive markets are bad for business. GPU chip making is also less profitable than their current markets. This is also why they don’t manufacture their products in house, device manufacturing is a much less profitable business than the product design and software services that they currently operate in.

Apple’s play is and always has been total design and control of the user experience. That’s their differentiator. They’ve no incentive to release a less profitable product, in a competitive market segment, that they can’t fully control, and which is less compatible with their software/services businesses. They will continue to cater to their demographic: people who want their wholistic designed experience and are willing to pay up to get it. That’s how they became the most valuable company.

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IrreverentHippie t1_itkl0ra wrote

Not entirely. They became the most valuable company by having hardware and software that work well together

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acsmars t1_itlkxhq wrote

Which you get by selling complete platforms, not oem parts or components.

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MrChip53 t1_itj2s0p wrote

I'm sure they could but I really don't think Apple cares. Their product isn't Mac books or iPhones either. It's the apple ecosystem. Itunes, icloud, Siri, home thing if thats what it's called, etc. They want you stuck in it so you keep coming back to give them money. A GPU wouldn't cut it so isn't worth the investment to put on shelves. If you want to use their chips you need to buy their devices and be in their ecosystem.

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IrreverentHippie t1_itjpnrd wrote

I don’t care, a balanced economy is needed, and this is a way to do it.

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MrChip53 t1_itjrrba wrote

Apple couldn't give two shits about a balanced economy or the way you think to do it..

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IrreverentHippie t1_itjspgl wrote

Well, I don’t think it matters anyway, the world is already ending, so who cares?

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jaceapoc t1_itj73zo wrote

They kinda do now tho. Their M chips in their latest computers are now a big reason people go for Apple. More and more pros are buying Apple computers for the sole reason that the M chip in it is more powerful than quite a few PC chips for a lot of tasks. People used to buy MacBooks and iMacs mostly because it was “cool”, beautiful, functional out of the box, etc. Apple was for the most part a hype brand, only the “cool” people had those. They bought into the marketing just so they could be mostly showing off. Now people are starting to buy it for the hardware in those machines, because they’re actually that much better at actual benchmarks etc.

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MrChip53 t1_itj9ll4 wrote

Yes but you get stuck in the ecosystem when you buy it and that is what they really want. They want you giving them a cut everytime you buy a song, app, etc.

They used to use Intel chips to tie the apple ecosystem together on desktop. Now they have their own chips that make their desktop experience better in their apple ecosystem. But it's still all about the ecosystem.

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Larsaf t1_itklycv wrote

So you confirm that you your forever stuck with x86-PCs, because your sunk cost is so damn high.

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MrChip53 t1_itl3dmu wrote

No, what would make you draw that conclusion? Lol

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johansugarev t1_itla42o wrote

We go for Apple because of the whole ecosystem. The chips are great but they’re nothing without the software and hardware around them. That’s what Apple is great at and that is a fact.

People who buy computers to show off do not make Apples bottom line.

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acsmars t1_itj2g4v wrote

If it would be dominant, they’d rather sell a $6k workstation than a $2k part. Less driver support/compatibility to manage and more money.

Every other hardware company wishes they could pull in buyers and revenue like Apple does, why would Apple change?

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