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The Complexity-and-Cost Edition Monday, December 19, 2022

Apple Scales Back High-End Mac Pro Plans, Weighs Production Move To Asia, by Mark Gurman, Bloomberg

Apple had aimed to introduce the new Mac Pro by now, but the high-end machine has been held up for a number of reasons, including multiple changes to its features, a significant shift in the company’s plans for high-end processors and a potential relocation of its manufacturing.

[...]

An M2 Extreme chip would have doubled that to 48 CPU cores and 152 graphics cores. But here’s the bad news: The company has likely scrapped that higher-end configuration, which may disappoint Apple’s most demanding users — the photographers, editors and programmers who prize that kind of computing power.

The company made the decision because of both the complexity and cost of producing a processor that is essentially four M2 Max chips fused together. It also will help Apple and partner Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. save chip-production resources for higher-volume machines.

Apple Suppliers Accelerate Buildup Outside China, Analysts Say, by Bloomberg

India and Vietnam are emerging as Apple Inc.’s next manufacturing hubs as assembly partners seek to add resilience to a supply chain heavily centered on China and shaken by its geopolitical and health challenges.

Key electronics manufacturers are moving faster to diversify their capacity globally, taking advantage of local incentive policies, according to Counterpoint Research analysts Ivan Lam and Shenghao Bai. The multiyear effort, which began before Covid-19 and economically stifling lockdowns roiled China, may see leading partner Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. move as much as 30% of its capacity to those Asian nations and Brazil, they said.

Develop

Doing "No" Better, by Andy Cleff

And remember, “No” is a complete sentence. Sometimes it maybe the most graceful way to respond.

Notes

Apple Killed The iPod, But Modders Are Giving It A Second Life, by Ian Carlos Campbell, Inverse

The great irony of the iPod line's tremendous success is that even though Apple abandoned the product category entirely, these things have been around so long that there will always be more alternative parts or software solutions to fill in the gaps. iPods are “kind of future-proof,” Wirth believes. “From now until eternity, you will always be able to put music on an iPod one way or another.”

More involved projects like Dupont’s require new software or hardware, but the basics are accessible for anyone to do on their own. And that’s not even counting the variety of third-party modders on platforms like Etsy that can add new functionality for a reasonable price. You can get an iPod in any color of the rainbow that charges over USB-C with little effort.

'They Accidentally Threw This Away': Woman Finds Unused Apple Products While Dumpster Diving At Apple Store, by Jack Alban, Daily Dot

In the clip, she manages to find a lot of empty product boxes, which you can find for sale in online marketplaces like eBay, along with some seemingly unused product accessories that could also be sold online.

Ella’s first find is an iPhone case that appears unused. She then comes across what appears to be a broken laptop charger. As she’s checking an iPhone box that at first looks empty, she reveals a wound-up new charging cable for an iPhone.

Bottom of the Page

I've encountered yet another iOS bug this evening: my podcast is playing, but the now-playing thing is not showing up on the lock screen. And I can't swipe up from the bottom to get rid of the lock screen to get to my home screen: nothing happens when I swipe.

In the end, I rebooted the iPhone.

Am I just (un)lucky recently, or is the latest iOS versions more buggy?

~

Thanks for reading.