
Apple said Qualcomm’s tech was no good, but privately it was ‘the best’ - wallflower
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/04/19/apple-said-qualcomms-tech-was-no-good-private-communications-it-was-best/
======
synaesthesisx
This is the very reason why I had loaded up on significant amounts of Qualcomm
stock earlier this year. Apple pretty much had no choice but to settle a deal
with them or get screwed on 5G.

I have no doubt that Apple will likely attempt to sever their dependency on
Qualcomm when they make eventually make their own modems (they've made
incredible strides with their SoC's under Johny Srouji), but it will still be
at least a few years before that will even be a reasonable option.

The complexity of engineering that goes into a high-performance modem is
nothing to sneeze at, especially when Qualcomm owns a significant portion of
5G-related patents. Even Intel threw in the towel upon the realization that
the capital expenditure wouldn't be worth it, and it would be impossible to
compete with Qualcomm profitably (Intel stock actually jumped up accordingly).
Qualcomm will continue to collect licensing/royalties from other manufacturers
like Huawei as well, and is in an excellent position frankly.

~~~
Traster
> Even Intel threw in the towel upon the realization that the capital
> expenditure wouldn't be worth it

Intel doesn't seem to me like a company that is able to embark on a new
technology, innovate and surpass the competition. Take a look at dGPUs, Intel
has been getting smashed about by Nvidia for decades and there's a
fantastically long history of Intel slowing buying up and killing hundreds of
small GPU companies. If I were to pick someone to move into the Modem space
and succeed it wouldn't have been Intel.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
Intel's integrated GPUs have different goals than NVIDIA's dedicated GPUs.
Power efficiency and video decoding and encoding is more important to Intel
than raw gaming performance.

~~~
andrewnicolalde
I think they’re talking about Intel’s unsuccessful foray into the dGPU market,
not the integrated GPUs on intel CPUs.

~~~
kristofferR
They're talking about the upcoming Intel dGPUs, not past attempts.

------
asr
This article is conflating two separate things: Apple said it should pay less
for Qualcomm’s PATENTS. It always liked and never really said bad things about
Qualcomm’s MODEMS. Patents != modems.

Also, the article quotes “Adam Mossoff, a law professor at George Mason
University” without disclosing that Qualcomm funds GMU exactly so it will get
favorable press like this.[1]

I expect better from WaPo.

[1]
[https://cpip.gmu.edu/about/supporters/](https://cpip.gmu.edu/about/supporters/)

~~~
systemBuilder
Yeah I know you don't really understand how things work. The patents only tell
about half the story in the modem design. the part that Qualcomm leaves out of
the patents and they leave out of the standards that's the part they put into
the modems. It's why Intel's modems are garbage.

~~~
sctb
Could you please review the guidelines and start following them? You've been
posting a lot of uncivil and/or unsubstantive comments.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

------
Lowkeyloki
One of the comments on the site proper mentions that in light of the actions
of the larger tech companies of the past decade, the commentor feels like they
were unfairly harsh in their judgement of Bill Gates in the 1990s.

That's such a dangerous conclusion that's used in politics from time to time.
Just because X is worse than Y, it doesn't mean that Y wasn't also bad. Y is
only better by comparison. It's as objectively bad as it ever was.

Strive for better instead of simply settling for not as bad.

~~~
HNthrow22
How is it dangerous? How are you able to equate "I was unfairly harsh in my
judgement of X" with "X wasn't bad"? That doesn't follow, it's simply a
comparison.

Gates and MS anti-trust violations are now standard operating procedure for
today's tech giants, the behavior of MS in the 90s looks incredibly harmless
when compared to the wildly irresponsible socially dangerous behavior of tech
giants today. We seemed to have just collectively forgotten about anti-trust
and decided that the natural monopoly of tech services will be the new status
quo. But anti-trust is nothing compared to the perils and social consequences
of the 'move fast and break things' approach of technology and software today.
The Boeing 737max is one recent example, but we're just starting to unravel
the social and cultural costs of allowing companies with unprecedented power
to shape human behavior and public opinions, dictate what is and is acceptable
speech for their platform in the name of quarterly growth. Seems like a
reasonable comment and insight to me.

~~~
soup10
It's strange that ms got busted partly for their handling of internet
explorer, but at least on windows there was never any restrictions on what 3rd
party software was allowed and no obligation to pay Microsoft a 30% tax on
sales. Meanwhile Apple has 50 pages of App Store Review guidelines, routinely
rejects apps for political reasons. And collects taxes on everything.

~~~
WillPostForFood
In the 90's Windows had > 90% marketshare of the desktop market and Internet
Explorer had > 90% browser marketshare. Globally, iOS is < 25% marketshare. So
while Apple holds an app store monopoly on their own phone, you have a
comparable alternatives available. Microsoft lost because, "The Court has
already found, based on the evidence in this record, that there are currently
no products - and that there are not likely to be any in the near future -
that a significant percentage of computer users worldwide could substitute for
Intel-compatible PC operating systems without incurring substantial costs." In
retrospect, that looks questionable, but at the time Windows dominance looked
pretty unstoppable.

~~~
mceoin
Why is this comment flagged? Seems reasonable and certainly not rude or
inflammatory.

~~~
pjmlp
Maybe because some people on HN don't like to be reminded that their bias
against Apple doesn't play out in what the law actually states about
monopolies, and the factual market across the globe.

~~~
anilakar
Oh? From my international viewpoint HN is very pro-Apple biased.

~~~
WillPostForFood
You tend to have both vocal advocates and vocal detractors.

------
axaxs
These statements aren't exactly mutually exclusive. Most folks in the industry
generally accept QCOM is the best, but also that they are no good. They're
borderline patent trolls. While they do some good, the market would've
advanced much faster without them.

~~~
systemBuilder
By market, who are you talking about? The Europeans? Seriously? The Asians?
With TD-OFDMA? Seriously? Intel? Intel has never been a successful network
company. they bought every goddamn Network product (through acquisitions) they
ever sold in the marketplace.

~~~
trevyn
When one company dominates a technology, it reduces incentives for other
companies to join or be founded to address that space. If Qualcomm did not
exist, there would be a market vacuum of that size, and it is impossible to
predict how that vacuum would end up being filled decades later.

The hope is that there would have been an entrant with similar technological
prowess, but more _humane_ business practices.

(I have personally worked with Qualcomm in the past on both technical and
business fronts. Their technology can be very good, but their business side
can be straight up offensive in their anti-competitive and predatory demands.
I would love to be deposed on this topic.)

------
tooltalk
I was actually quite disappointed that they settled at the last minute, as we
no longer have access to juicy legal discovery that would have revealed
Apple's rotten legal strategies and bad-faith practices. Now it's slowly
becoming apparent that Apple fabricated evidences and tricked Qualcomm into
legal troubles with regulators (eg, rebates for exclusivity) -- which is why
QCOM stopped paying Apple rebates.

I don't think Apple is giving up its unscrupulous practices, however, and I'm
pretty sure they are setting themselves up for the next battle years from now
(Apple is now a direct licensee). In hindsight, QCOM should have taken lessons
from Samsung's battle with Apple years back. There were so many red flags from
the moment the FTC approved antitrust investigation of QCOM just days ahead of
a new administration with 2 of the 5 commissioners missing, against the
vehement dissent from the interim chair. I just have to wonder what's in their
new licensing/business agreement -- if QCOM had to make concessions like it
did before and it's another legal or regulatory minefield.

~~~
robertAngst
I know Apple gets lots of support from HN, but the company has serious ethics
problems.

While fans brush it off as 'marketing', they would not give Google such a
pass.

And... lets not forget, the FBI did break into their device. They don't win
the privacy game when their device failed to be secure.

~~~
ceejayoz
> They don't win the privacy game when their device failed to be secure.

If given the choice between hanging out with the guy who committed an
_accidental_ homicide and a _serial killer_ , I know which one I'd pick.

~~~
tooltalk
serial killer?

------
jchw
At least on paper, Apple's work on ARM chips is truly incredible. I recognize
that it's not gonna happen but I would kill for a dev board with an A12X, and
I doubt I'm alone. (There wouldn't be much of a point to one in practice, but
I bet it would make a very formidable low power desktop.)

~~~
TheCoreh
> I bet it would make a very formidable low power desktop

Perhaps if Apple really transitions to ARM on the Mac Line, that might be a
reality in a couple years. I'm not sure they would want to replace x86 for the
'Pro' Desktop machines, but I don't think an ARM Mac Mini is out of the
question.

~~~
Abishek_Muthian
ARM for Mac depends upon the Software ecosystem. Though much of enthusiast
tools are ARM compatible, in the Linux/ARM scene; professional software are
long way from it.

Unlike a dev board, Mac caters to professional audience. Apart from iOS apps,
Several professional x86 software needs to be ported to ARM before ARM Mac
becomes a reality.

~~~
hevi_jos
The main points of Apple changing to ARM is:

1\. They don't need to pay licenses per core, so they can put 48, 96 cores in
a single machine.

2\. Is ARM as powerful as Intel, of course not, but who cares? ARM is more
efficient so just add more cores to it.

3.Apple already owns all development stack. They already created hardware
emulators for previous chip changes. They will do it again.

~~~
spectramax
> so they can put 48, 96 cores in a single machine.

> so just add more cores to it.

Oh my...thermals. I don't know where to begin. Scaling cores (even if they're
efficient) poses many challenges - thermal, core-to-core bandwidth, interposer
design issues and warpage, and most importantly, yield as the die size gets
larger. Or you'd have to break up the core dice into many die and create
fabric such as what AMD Epyc server chips are doing, etc...etc. A 96 core die
with decent power envelope would be in the order of 300-500 watts.

------
selectodude
For all the posturing, Apple was nerfing Qualcomm's chipsets in the iPhone X
to bring them to feature parity with Intel's garbage.

~~~
mwfunk
How so? I hadn't heard about this.

~~~
synaesthesisx
Apple had given Intel modems a shot, and then users started complaining about
performance differences. In some cases the Qualcomm modems would outperform
the Intel ones by over 70%, especially in situations with low/weak signal. To
maintain consistency and avoid outrage they tried to intentionally nerf the
Qualcomm modem performance in these situations (since the Intel ones were
lagging behind significantly).

[https://www.theverge.com/2017/4/11/15255318/qualcomm-sues-
ap...](https://www.theverge.com/2017/4/11/15255318/qualcomm-sues-apple-iphone-
countersue-intel)

~~~
selectodude
Furthermore, the iPhone X was intentionally only made with two antennas, even
though the Qualcomm X16 supported 4x4 MIMO and thus gigabit LTE because
Intel's modem at the time didn't support that. Once Intel could do it, they
released the iPhone Xs which is the same body but with the correct antenna
support.

------
systemBuilder
I worked for Qualcomm on 802.20. This was their first OFDMA system, complete
in 2007 but polished for release at a disastrous time - 2009 - and all the
patents were eventually fed into LTE. LTE, being a European standard, was 4
years late and 80% as good ...

The company in 2002 used a large compute farm to simulate the entire network
stack (57 cells, hundreds of users) and to prototype changes to improve sector
throughput. My group built the network emulator and tested TCP performance.
They tested and simulated the crap out of their designs. Once the hardware was
all built then they drive through the canyons of San Diego which is the
second-worst wireless environment on Earth (Hong Kong #1 worst) to tune it so
that it works well. Then they charge "too much."

The Europeans slap something together, producing networks very sensitive to
site planning to work AT ALL, and then they charge a lot more for the network
hardware changing data networks the way a young girl changes her shoe color
every other day...

You have a choice when it comes to wireless network hardware and software.
Qualcomm stuff is Rock solid. No other company does half of the design and
field proving the Qualcomm does with their Network equipment.

~~~
msh
I think your negativity to Europeans needs some references to back it up.

~~~
kingosticks
Absolutely any references at all would be a start. As is, this is just a rant.

------
sgjohnson
The current patent system is utterly broken. Patents should have a validity of
2-3 years maximum.

~~~
paul7986
Indeed it is utterly broken as up until March 2013 it was first to invent
allowing the little guys/girls to get their fair share. Upload a demo video of
their creation on YouTube and boom you were protected if there was no prior
art.

Now it's first to file so if your an inventor inventing you better have the
thousands of dollars to run to the patent office before some rich lazy tool
steals your blood, sweat and tears.

Overall the tech companies helped/lobbied to get this terrible law passed!

~~~
sjwright
Does that mean unpatented prior art no longer applies at all to new patents?

~~~
jacobolus
Anything which is published before your filing date is prior art. Something
sitting in your garage that only you and your drinking buddies know about or
something your coworkers have been chatting about on a whiteboard at the
office is not prior art.

This also means that if you want a patent you need to file a provisional
application before publishing your work anywhere (e.g. the other commenter’s
YouTube example).
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provisional_application](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provisional_application)

Having a first-to-invent patent system makes patent disputes into complicated
messy legal fights about when different people first encountered an idea.
First-to-file leaves much less ambiguity.

~~~
lostmyoldone
Less ambiguity is not automatically an improvement. I'm not convinced that the
lowered ambiguity of first to file is a net win.

Even with the availability of provisional applications, the 12 month limit on
priority date, and the relative stringency required to avoid challenges to the
priority date, doesn't seem to tip the scales significantly towards
encouraging the creation of what we think of as inventions while
simultaneously simplifying possible court proceedings, or lowering ambiguity
as you put it.

------
throwaway_234
[https://outline.com/R8j349](https://outline.com/R8j349)

~~~
totololo
Wow thanks!

------
reilly3000
I wonder what all of this is like from an engineer’s perspective. I imagine a
lot of internal resources were aimed at the problem. There must have been a
tremendous amount of pressure to ship something that was ultimately thwarted
by the quality of Qualcomm’s product. I’m no hardware engineer, and I’m sure
some of the particulars are private... but there is probably a remarkable
story there.

------
mcculley
Is this whole patent mess the reason one cannot buy a MacBook Pro with an
builtin LTE modem? I'm baffled that they don't supply such an option.

------
winter_blue
I have a couple of phones, and the iPhone X has by far the _worst_ Wifi
connectivity. My Moto X4 and an older iPhone 6 Plus can both connect to WiFi
through walls and other barriers. My iPhone X's loses its WiFi connectivity
almost as soon as I leave my room. Even GPS accuracy is unacceptably horrid
(making it useless for driving) on the X compared to my old 6 Plus.

It's saying something because my iPhone X is the most I've ever spent on a
phone. With AppleCare NYC sales tax, the 256GB iPhone X cost me ~$1,450.
Approximately what I paid for my MacBook.

I don't why the X's connectivity is so poor, buy my best guess is they changed
the WiFi/network chip away from Qualcomm.

~~~
npunt
Wifi/bluetooth chip is entirely different from the cell modem and on the
iPhone X isn't made by Intel. See:
[https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iPhone+X+Teardown/98975](https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iPhone+X+Teardown/98975)

------
adolph
One could say that something is the best (relatively) and that something is no
good (absolute) without contradicting oneself, right?

------
benologist
Apple only pocket hundreds in profit per phone so it makes sense Tim would
freak out about paying Qualcomm less than $10.

Withholding royalties till you can pay less is as unnecessary as downplaying
hardware issues and avoiding taxes.

------
totololo
Aggressive paywall for me... Can't even read a single line!

~~~
jshevek
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19704410](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19704410)

~~~
totololo
Wow thanks!

------
solarkraft
TL;DR:

Apple argued in court that Qualcomm wasn't licensing their patents fairly,
something they agreed to do by helping shape standards based on them.

They did this through "creating evidence" by negotiating and selecting for
favorable (but non-equivalent) patent deals as examples.

~~~
eridius
I find it odd that the article is implying that the only reason for Apple to
negotiate for cheap patent licenses elsewhere is to artificially portray
Qualcomm as overcharging, when surely it's in Apple's interest _in general_ to
negotiate favorable patent licensing deals.

Even if Apple's sole goal was to prove that they could license a much larger
portfolio of patents for much less as a way of demonstrating that Qualcomm is
overcharging, the fact that this was their goal doesn't make them wrong. "I'm
going to prove you're overcharging by demonstrating that I can license other
patents cheaply. Look, I licensed other patents cheaply!" is actually a pretty
good argument that Qualcomm is overcharging.

~~~
grigjd3
The difference is the supporting documents found by Qualcomm during discovery.
Internal Apple documents stated that Apple was actively trying to portray
Qualcomm's patents as inferior by going to other providers.

~~~
eridius
Where does it say that? I've read the article twice now, and nowhere does it
say that Apple internal memos tried to say Qualcomm's patents were somehow
inferior. What it said was they intentionally licensed less-expensive patents
to try and make Qualcomm's look more expensive, but that's the argument I
already addressed.

~~~
tooltalk
That's exactly what the FTC did during their trial. The FTC lined up QCOM's
competitors and had them testify that QCOM's patents were
insignificant/inferior compared to their own patent portfolio. I'm fairly sure
that this repertoire was in Apple lawyer's play too.

~~~
eridius
I can't seem to find an article talking about what you just described. Though
I'm not sure what the FTC did even matters since we're talking about Apple,
not the FTC.

------
Apreche
It's both, just like representative democracy.

------
devoply
It's too expensive. Says a company with hundreds of billions in the bank.

~~~
megaremote
What does one have to do with the other? Nothing at all.

~~~
Nasrudith
Well it points out that they certainly aren't suffering from ability and don't
need to try to skimp on the licensing. There are limits but it points out that
trying to keep the price down wasn't necessary.

Now the true definition of 'overpriced' in this context is 'can they have some
alternative that can do a better or cheaper'? Both will try to maximize their
own profits and it is possible Apple made a penny wise pound foolish plan to
try to cut costs.

------
atomical
[https://outline.com/R8j34](https://outline.com/R8j34)

