White House Advisor Kudlow Says Apple Technology May Have Been 'Picked Off' by China (cnbc.com)

Apple technology by Anonymous Coward · 2019-01-04 07:41 · Score: 2, Insightful

Apple technology!!!

Ahahaha that's so funny! Now the Chinese can round their corners add notches to screens and remove headphone jacks and extra mouse buttons!

Re:Apple technology by sexconker · 2019-01-04 08:39 · Score: 2

Apple doesn't have the fastest hardware. They leapfrog each other regularly. Their OS and the thermal design of the devices lets them use the hardware much more efficiently than the competitors, however.
Re: Apple technology by cypherthor · 2019-01-04 10:15 · Score: 5, Insightful

Well.... Chinese companies are flooding the whole world with dirt cheap copies of apple devices. Every single device since 2006 has a Chinese look alike clone... down to the non standard screws on the casing of the 2011 MacBook Air. Itâ(TM)s just like what they are doing to all design companies from gucci to Bose to mevodo. I know some of you think design of devices is something you should be free to copy, but a lot of money spent hiring the best designers and making designs. Apple cant just change their design Willy nilly because the entire product line is consistent. Honestly, the way these Chinese companies are operating is predatory, I think they are making these devices at a loss... probably subsidized by the Chinese government so that apple goes out of business. These products should be banned from sale in US and Europe. If they copied the outside almost exactly, you donâ(TM)t think they copied the insides too? Same logic board design, same component sets... same .... need I go on? Those are you defending these practices and saying its consumer freedom... ask yourselves, what kind of freedom are you going to have when apple, google, sony, even samsung are gone and you have to buy Chinese government subsidized smartphones and computers? You think thinks will be as cheap as they are now? Want a hint... look at any industry that has been decimated by Chinese clones.
Re: Apple technology by Anonymous Coward · 2019-01-04 10:54 · Score: 1

yeah, that makes sense. one of the richest companies in the world is actually being driven out of business because the chinese government is subsidizing knock-offs of their cheaply manufactured toys which obviously must be being produced at a loss, because apple would never rip off its customers with bloated prices
are you awake
Re:Apple technology by Anonymous Coward · 2019-01-04 12:00 · Score: 1

1: They were handed 40 years of engineering by ARM and Imagination Technologies.
2: They didn't invent facial recognition software, and adding poop-emojis doesn't make it an invention.
3: Remember "The Fappening"? It wasn't some guy who made phonecalls to 200 pretty celebrity girls, it was someone who had unrestricted access to iCloud and could search and view all user data.
4: Just regular cryptography.
5: Just regular cryptography.
6: Apple do not build their own phones, Foxconn do.
7: That's not an Apple technology, that's just a consequence of Windows being the overwhelmingly largest platform and attracting more users and malware.
Tough pill to swallow: most of the stuff in the phone was actually invented and designed by other companies around the world. If Apple were building their own phones and components, then you might have had something.
Re: Apple technology by Anonymous Coward · 2019-01-04 15:49 · Score: 2, Interesting

A Chinese company has to, by their law, have Chinese government employees and Party members as part of the decision making company board. It would be equal to having a DHS/CIA/NSA employee on every US company's board and who has the deciding authority about everything.
If you do a venture on Chinese soil, China has to own 51% of the venture, or you go to prison.
So, where Chinese companies go, so does the Chinese intelligence, Chinese military, and Chinese government.
Re: Apple technology by reanjr · 2019-01-05 05:03 · Score: 1

If you think China is ultra capitalist, you should read Hayak to understand what capitalism looks like.
Re: Apple technology by cypherthor · 2019-01-05 07:16 · Score: 1

Just walk down any Chinese city... not only are these companies subsidized they practically are the government. The idea of fair competition is non existent. I went to a mall in Shanghai... ten floors high. The building was made by the government. There where three American stores out of about 100 allowed in there. Burger King (god save us), Starbucks and toys r us. Burger King was in the second basement at the very back all the other restaurants where on floors 9 and 10... clearly they did not chose that spot. Starbucks had a fairly good spot, hidden on the third floor, but better than Burger King. Toys R Us had a nice spot with the other toy stores... great right? Until you realize toys r us has been out of business for 5 months and this is just a clone of the whole store. There is your citation... primary source.. me.

Build something in a country by spiritplumber · 2019-01-04 07:41 · Score: 5, Insightful

and the people in that country will learn how to build it. Big surprise, right?

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Liberty - Security - Laziness - Pick any two.

Re:Build something in a country by alvinrod · 2019-01-04 07:49 · Score: 4, Funny

I’m assuming that they were referring to software. I don’t think Apple builds any of the manufacturing equipment that they use, so the Chinese manufacturers already know how to produce a lot of that stuff. If the Chinese stole anything having to do with iTunes I truly pity them though.
Re: Build something in a country by Anonymous Coward · 2019-01-04 08:05 · Score: 1

Chinese people are allowed to crack software. It is not illegal for them crack foreign software. China advances.
Americans are brutally punished for cracking anything. America falls back.
It's almost like it's logical or something.
Re:Build something in a country by Anubis+IV · 2019-01-04 08:25 · Score: 4, Insightful

Being able to build things isn't the issue. That's fine. As is learning to design those things after building enough of them. That's fine too.
But if they have a contract in place that stipulates that the parts are to be built exclusively for the client and the designs are to remain confidential, there's a problem if they start building the parts for other clients (including themselves) or sharing the designs with anyone else.
To draw an analogy, it's fine if a contractor knows how to build homes. It's fine if they eventually learn how to design their own homes after building enough of them. But if your general contractor steals your custom home's blueprints and sells them to a developer who builds a neighborhood of copycat houses right next to yours, that's not fine.
I don't know what's being alleged here, but it seems evident to me that they aren't simply talking about China learning how to manufacture and design stuff on their own.
Re:Build something in a country by AmiMoJo · 2019-01-04 09:14 · Score: 3, Informative

The whole world will learn how to build it as soon as you release it, because everyone can disassemble it and a lot of the parts of off-the-shelf or explained in patents.
These days Apple learns as much from China anyway.
For a start designing any product is as much an exercise in figuring out how to mass produce it as it is engineering the features. And since Foxconn builds Apple products for them they likely learned a lot from Foxconn and took their lead on a lot of the design decisions. Every time a new material or new way of assembling something is introduced, you can bet that it was Foxconn that did a lot of the R&D, quite possibly even originated the idea.
Of course that's completely normal with US companies too. For example the touch wheel on the iPod was invented by Synaptec, they just couldn't find anyone interested in buying it until Apple came along.
Modern Chinese smart phones often introduce features before Apple does, and Apple copies them. Wireless charging, for example, became a staple of Chinese high end phones long before Apple adopted it. Dual cameras too, although Korea gets some credit there as well.

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const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Re:Build something in a country by ewhenn · 2019-01-04 10:13 · Score: 5, Insightful

Being able to build things isn't the issue. That's fine. As is learning to design those things after building enough of them. That's fine too.
But if they have a contract in place that stipulates that the parts are to be built exclusively for the client and the designs are to remain confidential, there's a problem if they start building the parts for other clients (including themselves) or sharing the designs with anyone else.
To draw an analogy, it's fine if a contractor knows how to build homes. It's fine if they eventually learn how to design their own homes after building enough of them. But if your general contractor steals your custom home's blueprints and sells them to a developer who builds a neighborhood of copycat houses right next to yours, that's not fine.
I don't know what's being alleged here, but it seems evident to me that they aren't simply talking about China learning how to manufacture and design stuff on their own.
Yeah, except you left out the part where you know that contractor you just did a deal with has stolen designs from 50 other designers and you still decide to do business with them anyways, and then act surprised when they steal your design too. Gee, who would have guessed that would happen?!?
Re:Build something in a country by Anonymous Coward · 2019-01-04 10:14 · Score: 1

Apple certainly does not build any of the manufacturing tech. China does. China hasn't stole anything as far as how to turn a brick of aluminum into a sleek phone, they are the ones that posses that technology. Apple makes a design, emails it over to their producer in china and they use their Chinese developed manufacturing techniques to make it. Upload the file to the CNC machine, out comes something that fits within the design limitations of the CNC. At best apple can claim trademark theft by using a similar design.
Re:Build something in a country by AmiMoJo · 2019-01-04 11:06 · Score: 2

Their human rights record, their massive surveillance state, censorship, inequality, forced relocations... Loads of stuff.

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const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC

Of course China stole Apple technology by Spy+Handler · 2019-01-04 07:45 · Score: 3, Insightful

do the China phones have rounded corners? Yeah? Well there you go.

Re:Of course China stole Apple technology by jellomizer · 2019-01-04 08:17 · Score: 1

While Android was in development before iOS. When Apple released the iPhone, Google had to go back and completely rejigger its OS to meet demand of the Gesture based OS.
Before the iPhone, Gesture were a Gimmick, and often they were way to hard for people to remember, so they resorted to pressing buttons. Android OS was meant to go against Blackberry with devices with full keyboards and physical pointing devices. Apple when they released the iPhone actually put the smart phone market on a 2 year gap where they had to rethink and rebuild everything.

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If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Re:Of course China stole Apple technology by ArhcAngel · 2019-01-04 08:42 · Score: 1

Before the iPhone, Gesture were a Gimmick
Except for the millions of Palm Pilot users.

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"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
Re:Of course China stole Apple technology by jellomizer · 2019-01-04 08:49 · Score: 1

And today's and yesterday's (Pick any reasonably complex software) is a hellstew of bugs and bad design.
As a consumer you need to find the product that sucks less for what you will be doing the most of.
But when you design software and its scope of use will expand, the more doors are open where you need to either break architecture causing bugs, or try to use the existing architecture in different ways causing a bad design.
We can all look at a completed product find its problems and come up with a solution that may have made it better, but often such solution would probably put a damper on the other guys change they would want to see.

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If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Re:Of course China stole Apple technology by SuricouRaven · 2019-01-04 12:29 · Score: 1

I had a laptop with gesture trackpad back in the 90s. Turned them off though, because tapping too near one corner kept opening the start menu.

a classic poem is warranted by Anonymous Coward · 2019-01-04 07:47 · Score: 1

Me Chinese

Exploit SOCKS

Me Put Malware

On your box

What technology, exactly? by SuricouRaven · 2019-01-04 07:47 · Score: 5, Insightful

Could he maybe offer some specifics? Exactly what is is that China is being accused of stealing? A claim this lacking in detail is suspiciously non-falsifiable.

Re:What technology, exactly? by Artem+S.+Tashkinov · 2019-01-04 08:07 · Score: 3, Informative

Yep, I guess the iPhone contains close to a hundred thousand different technologies and perhaps the most lucrative is the design/implementation of the A12X SoC.
Re:What technology, exactly? by RuiFRibeiro · 2019-01-04 08:08 · Score: 3, Interesting

Android phones were always years ahead of Apple on technology, at least in the last couple of years. So what exactly new technologies are we talking about?
Re:What technology, exactly? by BringsApples · 2019-01-04 08:38 · Score: 2

They didn't steal anything, they 'picked off'. What about THAT don't you understand??

You can pick off your nose.
You can pick off your friends.
But you cannot pick off your friend's nose.

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Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
Re:What technology, exactly? by gtall · 2019-01-04 10:51 · Score: 1

C'mon, this is Larry Kudlow. His previous position was talking head on some network. It isn't like he's qualified for anything. Blinky lights confuse him.
Re:What technology, exactly? by ath1901 · 2019-01-04 11:32 · Score: 5, Informative

Oh, come on, how bad can it be? I know nothing about they guy but I'm sure he has some talents. Let's check Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Wow! That was hilarious! One ridiculous statement after the other. Best summed up by this paragraph:

In their 2015 book Superforecasting, University of Pennsylvania political scientist Philip E. Tetlock and Dan Gardner refer to Kudlow as a "consistently wrong" pundit, and use Kudlow's long record of failed predictions to clarify common mistakes that poor forecasters make

The plus side of incompetence by T.E.D. · 2019-01-04 07:50 · Score: 3, Insightful

I'd be much more worried about a White House advisor spouting nonsense if we had a White House that actually listened to advice.

With this administration, if the Big T himself didn't say it, its just meaningless noise. And sometimes even if he DID say it.

Hypocritical FUD by hackingbear · 2019-01-04 07:50 · Score: 1

oh.. yeah, then they don't need to go the more obscure way.

Re:Hypocritical FUD by hackingbear · 2019-01-04 09:56 · Score: 1

Here's the evidence.

How would you know by dkman · 2019-01-04 07:51 · Score: 3, Insightful

China builds Apple's phones. There was no "theft" necessary. Apple taught them how to build the phones.

I assume what's in question here is "Is China building iPhones and selling them in China without giving Apple a cut?"

That's an entirely different question, but quite plausible.

As for DaringFireball's later comment: How would you know? If they technically are iPhones flooding the Chinese market they wouldn't look like "fake knockoffs" because they technically aren't. But if Apple isn't selling the phones or getting any cut then there's still shady activity going on.

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I refuse to sign

Re:How would you know by jodido · 2019-01-04 07:58 · Score: 4, Informative

About ten years ago I bought a Prada-labelled shoulder bag in Vietnam for $10 from a street vendor. When I got it back to NY I asked around and it sold for around $400. Not only is it indistinguishable from the real thing, it IS the real thing. It's what I call a "real fake." As described above, the factory gets an order for 5000 of these bags, makes 6000 and sells 1000 out the back door. There is no difference between those 1000 and the other 5000. Did this happen in China with iPhones? Has Apple complained about it? Because they would surely know.
Re:How would you know by jellomizer · 2019-01-04 08:25 · Score: 3, Insightful

I worked for a company that bought out an other company including all its IP. The owner of the bought out company quit (because he didn't realize when you get bought out, you are no longer in command of such company). Being fed up he used his money he got from the purchase to start his own company. Then he used the software he wrote for the previous company which we now own. We sued him, we won.
Now if he had written a new program then he would be OK. But the software that we bought the rights too. Thus he went bankrupt, and we got all our money back that was the cost of the company to be purchased.
Just because you made it, doesn't make it yours. If you sell it, or get paid to build it for someone else, it belongs to them not you, they paid you for it, so it is no longer yours.
What is yours though, is the experience gained in making it, so you will be on good footing to make something new, possibly better.

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If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Re:How would you know by magzteel · 2019-01-04 08:36 · Score: 5, Informative

About ten years ago I bought a Prada-labelled shoulder bag in Vietnam for $10 from a street vendor. When I got it back to NY I asked around and it sold for around $400. Not only is it indistinguishable from the real thing, it IS the real thing. It's what I call a "real fake." As described above, the factory gets an order for 5000 of these bags, makes 6000 and sells 1000 out the back door. There is no difference between those 1000 and the other 5000. Did this happen in China with iPhones? Has Apple complained about it? Because they would surely know.
I read a book some years ago on the many pitfalls of doing business in China. Issues raised included:
- Selling unauthorized overproduction runs as you described
- Making unauthorized changes to the product design or materials to make manufacturing cheaper. There were multiple cases cited where the product changes produced unsafe or defective products that cost the product owners dearly
- Duplicating the product under another label and competing with the original
The Chinese government has little incentive to crack down on such practices.
Re:How would you know by klingens · 2019-01-04 08:50 · Score: 1

Apple would easily know when the phone needs the next update or any other interaction with the Apple servers.
Phones are no Prada handbags: they need constant service after manufacture. I'm certain almost every chip in every apple device has a unique serial which apple can and does query everytime they phone home for updates, icloud sync, appstore access, etc. There is no way anyone can sell more phones than apple knows. Serials which apple hasn't given out would stand out like a sore thumb, and double serials, 1 serial used for 2 or more devices, would be a little easier to hide but you need to sell thousands to millions of devices to make the fraud profitable, and that many you can't hide with double serial numbers. Kinda hard to hide if the same IPhone is logged in to the appstore once from Hongkong and once from Kuala Lumpur at the same time.
Phones even have the unique capability of exactly telling the manufacturer where the phone is right now on earth, down to the meter. So Apple "enforcers" can go there and send someone to buy it from the unsuspecting consumer who doesn't know he bought a "fake" IPhone.
At that point, Foxconn would be bankrupt since apple would sue them into the ground for this. And all the other OEMs who let Foxconn manufacture their hardware would check for the same behaviour and cancel all the contracts as soon as possible. China as a country for outsourcing itself would have massive problems after such a stunt, the chinese government would have to dismantle Foxconn and jail or even sentence the managers to death for this, just to prevent damage from the chinese economy as a whole.
So IPhones from the actual factory which are not produced under the Apple contract are a total non starter.
Re:How would you know by klingens · 2019-01-04 08:52 · Score: 1

PS: Samsung or TSMC would need to be "in on it" too since they need to make the additional SoCs. Even more fallout, this time Korea or Taiwan. And they need to use those SoCs or the buyers of the IPhones couldn't use it as an IPhone: no iCloud/Appstore/ITunes access.
Re:How would you know by PPH · 2019-01-04 08:56 · Score: 1

Note to self: Always sell a company with the buggy version of the software. Keep the good stuff for the new venture.

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Have gnu, will travel.
Re:How would you know by AmiMoJo · 2019-01-04 09:17 · Score: 3, Interesting

All those things happen in the west as well. And those responsible go out of business eventually, because they get a bad rep. Then they try to start again with a different name, but eventually people caught on.
These days if you want high quality, secure manufacturing in China it's available. You might pay a bit more for it. Up to you, go with the cheapest or go with a reputable manufacturer. Do you think Foxconn has 3rd shifts making iPhones?

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const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Re:How would you know by AmiMoJo · 2019-01-04 09:27 · Score: 1

Chances are Foxconn taught Apple as much about making phones as Apple taught Foxconn. They are hardly new to this game. In fact they have been designing products for western companies to slap their names on for decades.
As for fake iPhones, there is no need. Go to Shenzhen and wonder around the massive shopping centres that are nothing but people with rework stations refurbing phones, mostly Apple ones. If you want a cheap iPhone X they will sell you one that has had whatever was wrong with it fixed, in mint condition with all the accessories and box.
Making new ones is risky and would probably be noticed pretty quickly as each phone has a unique serial number that is used for Apple online services. Refurbs are legal and besides which the hot phones in China are from Xaomi and Huawei now, the iPhone is a bit "cheap" because the market is saturated with refurbs and hand-me-downs. Even Apple admitted that.

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const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Re:How would you know by thegarbz · 2019-01-04 11:04 · Score: 1

- Duplicating the product under another label and competing with the original
Pfft. Product? Amateurs. China has been caught duplicating entire companies
Not only that, but they expanded the companies they counterfeited. Did you know NEC made DVD players? NEC didn't know. But apparently they did and they were designed in a subsidiary that they never knew existed.
Re:How would you know by AHuxley · 2019-01-04 11:29 · Score: 2

They don't happen in the West as the legal and security controls would be in place to stop illegal such events.
No instant way to legally set up a new factory in the "West" with the same look and feel of the tech for export.

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Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Re:How would you know by AmiMoJo · 2019-01-04 22:26 · Score: 2

Substitutions for inferior parts definitely happen. One place I worked we ended up buying components ourselves and sending them to the manufacturer, because every time we asked any of the several we used to source some expensive, rare bits they ended up with fakes and nothing worked.
We even ended up having to specify certain fluxes and solders and reflow ovens because otherwise they would switch to the cheap stuff after a while and quality would go through the floor.

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const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Re: How would you know by Dixie_Flatline · 2019-01-05 06:16 · Score: 1

I think what Gruber is talking about are things like the processor tech or the Face ID system. We would be seeing more phones with guts more like Apple's and more secure facial recognition. We already know that they're apeing the look and feel of iPhones, and they seem to catch up to the tech (fast fingerprint sensors, dot projectors) on a timeline that suggest they copied the idea but didn't actually lift the manufacturing process.
Re:How would you know by jellomizer · 2019-01-07 07:37 · Score: 1

Well the guy thought he was all that. A super genius Business man and programmer because he wrote an Application in Visual Basic.
While he was still employed at the company, we knew about his ego, so we all kinda played dumb with him, during the period of knowledge transfer. So his ego, with us playing to it, just so we can get the information much quicker from him, he just thought we were idiots. He thought he could get away with saying he was running with an older version of the software without any ways to prove it. However, he didn't realize how much we were playing dumb. When we saw that the same day he quit, a handful of customers just dropped service, saying they went with another company that could deal with all their data without any interruption. Some of the customers he contacted basically squealed back to us, (Mostly because if they switched they were going to get a lawsuit too). I gave the legal team digital signatures to search for on his server to prove what version of the software was running.
I think the guy was bipolar, and did all this during a manic episode (within a period of a weekend). He was in general unhappy when he sold the company, that he no longer had control of the big decisions. How we decided to give everyone extra monitors so they don't print boxes of paper every day, then have them scan them back in to the system and then shred the boxes of paper. Also the guy was a bigot, he didn't like that we brought in a manager who happened to be Indian to manage the day to day activities as well.

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If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.

Which tech? by Valkyre · 2019-01-04 07:56 · Score: 1

Did they make another BSD fork or are they switching to an x86-based architecture?

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What the heck is a 'sig'?

My cat probably knows more about economics... by rnturn · 2019-01-04 07:59 · Score: 2

... than Larry Kudlow.

Apple's problem is that they think everyone on the planet has $1000+ to spend on a phone every couple of years.

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CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M

Re:My cat probably knows more about economics... by fruity_pebbles · 2019-01-04 08:19 · Score: 1

No probably about it. Your cat definitely knows more about economics than Larry Kudlow.

those bastards!! by Anonymous Coward · 2019-01-04 08:00 · Score: 1

now the Chinese will have phones without headphone jacks!!!

-db

It's not Apple's technology by Solandri · 2019-01-04 08:06 · Score: 5, Interesting

Apple's phones use screens by Samsung or LG, RAM by SK Hynix, flash storage by Toshiba, cellular modem by Qualcomm, battery charger by TI, WiFi/Bluetooth by Murata, cameras by Sony, etc. The only parts Apple makes are the A10 processor and the software. Everything else is stuff made by other companies which anyone can buy to use in their own products. In that sense, aside from the processor and software, cloning an iPhone is relatively simple and does not require any theft of technology.

Also, the median income in China is 18,371 Yuan, or roughly $2,674 per year. You're kidding yourself if you believe the Chinese would be buying $1000 iPhones if it weren't for the availability of cheap knockoffs.

Re:It's not Apple's technology by ctilsie242 · 2019-01-04 08:37 · Score: 1

ARM does not make any CPUs. They have the design for them and license it out, for someone else to fab. In fact, Apple does its own silicon.
Re:It's not Apple's technology by klingens · 2019-01-04 09:02 · Score: 4, Informative

Apple is not making anything at all, especially not any chips. They don't have fabs.
The main chips for i-devices are made by TSMC and Samsung, no one else.
They are designed by PA Semi an Apple subsidiary or maybe it is incorporated fully into Apple now.
PA Semi designs custom ARM chips, they don't use the normal cortex A8 A53 or A73 designs from ARM at all. They start with the ARM v8 ISA and from there on, they do everything in their own way. And generally much much better than ARM itself, of course the chips are also quite huge and therefore expensive to manufacture compared to any ARM design. They are however always faster/better than the ARM ones. A current A12 Bionic chip from Apple is about the same size as a current Intel Quadcore CPU, 122mm^2.
Re:It's not Apple's technology by bill_mcgonigle · 2019-01-04 09:08 · Score: 2

If you're familiar with the Chinese income distribution, why are you quoting the median, rather than the percentile and the nominal number of people, who have incomes well north of $30,000 per year, and can afford to purchase an iPhone? Most Americans would be surprised at the raw number compared with the number of US citizens at the same earning level.

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My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Re:It's not Apple's technology by jittles · 2019-01-04 09:57 · Score: 1

ARM does not make any CPUs. They have the design for them and license it out, for someone else to fab. In fact, Apple does its own silicon.
I believe that ARM does have some engineering samples fabbed for development purposes. But nothing that is commercialized by any means.
Re:It's not Apple's technology by jaa101 · 2019-01-04 10:25 · Score: 1

The only parts Apple makes are the A10 processor and the software
Maybe, but "the software" is a huge part of a phone. All those people pricing the components of iPhones and then ridiculing people for paying much more for the device are missing this same point. There's a huge amount of R&D and work in the software. Sure, Google gives Android away for free ... but it's really funded by end-user consumption of Google ads. Smartphone OSes cost serious money and end-users have some choice in how they pay for them, though I guess most people don't realise this.
All this said, I doubt iOS is the tech the Chinese are being accused of ripping off. It would have little value to them unless they were planning on manufacturing their own iOS devices. That would be such a massive and blatant copyright violation that it would really fire up the China-US trade tensions.
Re:It's not Apple's technology by thegarbz · 2019-01-04 11:06 · Score: 1

The only parts Apple makes are the A10 processor
The A10 is made by TSMC. Apple designed it, but they do not make them.
Re:It's not Apple's technology by thegarbz · 2019-01-04 11:15 · Score: 1

Also, the median income in China is 18,371 Yuan, or roughly $2,674 per year. You're kidding yourself if you believe the Chinese would be buying $1000 iPhones if it weren't for the availability of cheap knockoffs.
The median income in a country of 1bn people many of which are 3rd world is not very interesting. Based on telecom activation figures there are only 100million activated iPhones in China, not all of them current, not all of them top of the line. They are very much toys for the rich.
That said there's a lot to choose from in the iPhone lookalike category, but this all has zero to do with "stealing technology" as much as it is buying the same screen and camera module and throwing it in a case and slapping Android on it:
http://www.oukitel.com/product...
https://www.goophoneshops.com/...
http://www.blackview.hk/blackv...
Re:It's not Apple's technology by AHuxley · 2019-01-04 11:24 · Score: 1

Its the generational changes that China wanted.
The sealed battery design. CPU, GPU, storage use. Battery time. The ability to make a new production line work with less workers, robots
Thats the US design skill that set advanced and new US designs apart from the existing generations of smartphones and flip phones.
Thats all US tech that gets transferred out when seeking low cost nations.

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Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Re: It's not Apple's technology by cypherthor · 2019-01-04 11:45 · Score: 1

Apple bought Freescale many years ago... engineers and all. Apple soc are based on Freescale technology.
Re: It's not Apple's technology by cypherthor · 2019-01-04 11:48 · Score: 1

Well having been to China... it may be that most people make almost no money.... but there is a huge middle class probably bigger than in most European countries with tons of disposable income. 1000 for the is nothing. There is an entire block of mclaren shops in Shanghai including mini mclaren for the kids. You think those are cheap?
Re:It's not Apple's technology by dk20 · 2019-01-04 12:51 · Score: 2

Most americans want to pretend China is an economic wasteland, and they are years ahead of them.. They prefer this comfortable feeling instead of reality.
"
Who Has the World's No. 1 Economy? Not the U.S.
By most measures, China has passed the U.S. and is pulling away.
"
https://www.bloomberg.com/opin...
Re:It's not Apple's technology by cheesybagel · 2019-01-04 15:44 · Score: 1

Huawei also designs their own chips like the Kirin processor line.
Re: It's not Apple's technology by cypherthor · 2019-01-05 07:43 · Score: 1

My bad... https://patentlyo.com/patent/2... They just acquired all their IP...
Re: It's not Apple's technology by jittles · 2019-01-07 00:47 · Score: 1

Apple bought Freescale many years ago... engineers and all. Apple soc are based on Freescale technology.
I am aware of that. I was just pointing out that I believe that ARM does manufacture some CPUs, at least in the same sense the AMD manufactures them.

The situation is really grave. by 140Mandak262Jamuna · 2019-01-04 08:07 · Score: 1

Apple developed the technology to get mediocre products made cheaply in China to be marketed as a premium product. Pollution stayed in China. Profits stayed in US of A.

If China figures out how to make people pay premium prices for its crappy products we are doomed!

It is time we replace Sam Walton as the ultimate traitor of the USA, Benedict Arnold is nothing compared to this rat. Exported the manufacturing technology, taught them how to make products that could be sold in USA. Single handedly changed the playing field and made every retailer to go to China. Decimated the manufacturing base of the USA.

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sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact

Re:The situation is really grave. by rahvin112 · 2019-01-04 11:55 · Score: 3, Informative

Old Sam didn't do what you think he did. When he ran the company it prioritized american made products.
When Sam handed the company to his kids is when the made in china takeover happened. His kids had been raised with a silverspoon in their mouths and had no concept of american patriotism. Much like the current president.
Re:The situation is really grave. by dk20 · 2019-01-04 12:54 · Score: 1

Profits stayed in US of A.
that isnt accurate either.. The profits stay overseas so Apple can avoid paying US taxes, while maximizing US benefits they receive (patents, etc).

Kudlow's a Shyster by Anonymous Coward · 2019-01-04 08:26 · Score: 1

Another idiotic comment from an corporate, know-nothing shill. Some excellent quotes from Kudlow just to show how out of touch he has been with economic reality:

“Despite all the doom and gloom from the economic pessimistas, the resilient U.S. economy continues moving ahead,” Kudlow wrote on Dec. 7, 2007, in National Review.

“There’s no recession coming. The pessimistas were wrong. It’s not going to happen,” wrote Kudlow. “ ... The Bush boom is alive and well. It’s finishing up its sixth consecutive year with more to come. Yes, it’s still the greatest story never told.”

Even as trouble became clear, Kudlow, a CNBC pundit who is not trained in economics, wrote a Feb. 5, 2008, column in National Review saying he was “still betting on and buying Goldilocks [a just-right scenario] for the long run.” He wrote, “Maybe we are going to have a mild correction. Maybe not,” adding: “I’m going to bet that the economy will be rebounding sometime this summer, if not sooner. We are in a slow patch. That’s all. It’s nothing to get up in arms about.”

When the economy didn’t rebound and housing continued its collapse, Kudlow pronounced, in a CNBC column on July 24, 2008, that he saw in the data “an awful lot of very good new news, which appear to be pointing to a bottom in the housing problem; in fact, maybe the tiniest beginnings of a recovery.” Stocks lost nearly half their value in the coming months.

All take from, and more here:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/larry-kudlow-may-have-been-more-wrong-about-the-economy-than-anyone-alive/2018/03/14/a98f2292-27ce-11e8-b79d-f3d931db7f68_story.html?utm_term=.e99498c1990d

Re: Kudlow's a Shyster by cypherthor · 2019-01-05 07:59 · Score: 1

This guy is a total idiot... but he is stating the ovious

The greedy corporations gave it all to the China by Anonymous Coward · 2019-01-04 08:26 · Score: 3, Interesting

We've been outsourcing US work to China.
This means the greedy US corporations built factories in China, exploited the cheap labor and showed China how to
make product X, Y and Z. Now the greedy US corporations are surprised that China knows our technology.
This concept is best explained by Jib Jab's Big Boxmart video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKv6RcXa2UI

In essence, US corporate greed created their own competitor.

No, China has not! by DaMattster · 2019-01-04 08:30 · Score: 3, Insightful

I am not an apologist for China but neither am I for Apple. Apple simply hit peak iPhone and had no ideas to really innovate further. Let's put the blame where it really lies, with Apple. The last 3 years the changes were basically a better screen and a better camera and hardly worth spending that kind of money for so little in return. In fact, we've really hit peak smartphone altogether. Whatever changes we will see forthcoming are hardly worth the additional price. In fact, I stopped chasing the smartphone craze three years ago. Now I only get free phones offered by prepaid carriers. I usually float between 3 different ones depending on which company has the best deal. I would rather spend the money on a real digital camera.

Re:No, China has not! by Anonymous Coward · 2019-01-04 09:29 · Score: 1

Maybe if Apple's development environment didn't suck so bad people could make some innovative apps for it specifically, but Xcode is shit, Swift has trivial but breaking changes every single year, and Apple's down documentation is littered with old objective-c code and warnings like "this document is no longer updated go here for a newer version" which just points to a list of methods and absolutely nothing else. It sucks so fucking much. Apple is clearly horrible at software.

I think we are making the wrong assumptions here by pgmrdlm · 2019-01-04 08:47 · Score: 1

I don't think this is about the iPhone. From the https://www.washingtonpost.com...

From all the comments here, everyone has been assuming this is about the iPhone or other mobile products. But Apple has it's fingers into other areas too.

So, is it really far fetched that the statement is false? Especially seance their already has been arrests.

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Anonymous comments are as pathetic as the anonymous "sources" that contaminate gutless journalism from the New York Time

Re:I think we are making the wrong assumptions her by pgmrdlm · 2019-01-04 08:51 · Score: 1

He was an engineer for self driving cars, that was the link reference. What I meant to say was, is it really farfetched what was reported is true?

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Anonymous comments are as pathetic as the anonymous "sources" that contaminate gutless journalism from the New York Time

Cold War feelings... by fbobraga · 2019-01-04 09:10 · Score: 1

... all over again!

rule of greed by bigtreeman · 2019-01-04 10:09 · Score: 1

No, it's the rule of greed that says send your work to countries with cheap labour and maximise profits.
Japan did the same thing years ago, they learned fast how to do it better than the fucking Yanks.
Now China is doing it on a vastly different scale.
They are going to fuck us over so bad we'll have a new appreciation of what our arses are for.
Now just bend over and take it like a man.

--
Go well

And they can throw a LOT of engineers at it. by Ungrounded+Lightning · 2019-01-04 10:11 · Score: 1

if you produce everything in China... of cource they will have the tech to make it and even improve or make similar products.

And they can throw a literal army of engineers at it: Reverse-engineering anything you didn't tell them about your stuff, then fixing bugs, adding bells and whistles, and eventually pushing out the core functionality to advance the bleeding edge.

Individually they may not average as good as US engineers (though many of them are quite competent). But suppose they're only a third as effective. If they can throw ten to a hundred times as many at a product (and organize them effectively) they can still beat you at pushing your own stolen tech out beyond the cutting edge - and beyond your own next-few-gens progucts.

--
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way

Microsoft says... by theendlessnow · 2019-01-04 10:13 · Score: 1

We keep putting the WinPhone tech on amazon.cn and others, but nobody ever downloads it.

Re:I think we are making the wrong assumptions her by gtall · 2019-01-04 10:55 · Score: 1

From Larry Kudlow we can fairly assume the statement is false. He's on par with economics in the same way a brick is on par with the Sargasso Sea (to rework a Douglas Adams' metaphor).

How this could have been avoided by AHuxley · 2019-01-04 11:32 · Score: 1

Set up secure factory networks in say the Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, Ireland.
Make a deal with the governments for union free, low tax, low cost workers.
Such pro West nations would have kept all US secrets and produced great export products for generations.

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Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"

Re: Apple only have themselves to blame by cypherthor · 2019-01-04 11:42 · Score: 1

That is because the Chinese government requires US companies to partner with local companies in order to do business in China. Imagine the uproar if Americans required BMW to build cars in factories designed to copy BMW cars and sell them as their own. Yet because of the cheap labor we allow Chinese companies to get away with it. Guess what... itâ(TM)s not as cheap as you think when it will put you out of business in 5 years. Want good cheap labor... go to a country that actually gives a dam about intellectual property. I recently made a trip to Shanghai, I can tell you every American and European product is being sold in huge quantities... great right? Well guess again.. everything is counterfeit.

At least... by Texmaize · 2019-01-04 12:55 · Score: 1

Sure, but at least Apple saved money in the long term with cheap labor....

Hahahahha

--
"Liberalism is a very noble idea, currently controlled by some very bad people. Be sure you do not get the two confused.

Making Up a Story to Deflect from the Trade War by CanadianMacFan · 2019-01-04 15:08 · Score: 2

In addition to it being peak Apple there is a backlash against things American since Trump decided to start his winnable trade war with China. The iPhone is no longer the status symbol it was six months ago. The Chinese brands, which typically use Android, are seeing a huge surge of interest, especially Huawei.

It wasn't that long ago that the US Government came out with the "report" that Huawei's telecom gear had backdoors in it but they couldn't say what it was. So far Germany has only come out and called their bluff. The other day Apple comes out with a warning about China and Trump's Trade War impacting their upcoming results. So now the White House comes out with a vague statement about China stealing Apple's technology. This is all a smokescreen to get you to forget about the damage that the trade war is causing but there's going to be a bunch of other companies with disappointing financial reports soon because Trump doesn't know the first thing about economics.

Apple bought their tech by gl4ss · 2019-01-04 22:39 · Score: 1

that's the joke. the guy is so out of it and doesn't understand what goes into a mobile phone.

"Apple tech", well, you could at least specify what technology is there that's unique to Apple then. How do you steal something you're selling and licensing? like an arm soc - arm holdings licenses it, chinese pay for license and put it on a cheapo chip they put on a phone - where in that scenario is there anything stolen off apple?

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world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.

Re:Trolling Bear problems. by hackingbear · 2019-01-06 07:35 · Score: 1

Maybe you are the one having reading difficulty. The first sentence said:

German media reports suggest the country's spy agency BND collected data on European firms at the behest of the US National Security Agency.

And in NYT link of the Intercept report:

In each of these cases, American officials insist, when speaking off the record, that the United States was never acting on behalf of specific American companies. But the government does not deny it routinely spies to advance American economic advantage, which is part of its broad definition of how it protects American national security. In short, the officials say, while the N.S.A. cannot spy on Airbus and give the results to Boeing, it is free to spy on European or Asian trade negotiators and use the results to help American trade officials — and, by extension, the American industries and workers they are trying to bolster.

So the differences are
1. some Chinese companies may spy on American companies; some of them may be state-owned. All of above are according to some US agencies who also told us that Iraq had WMDs. (Also note: "state-owned" in China is no more relevant than the US Treasure holding huge amount of shares in GM.)
2. whereas the US agencies are spying on Chinese and European business as a government operation for advancing US economic advantages. And that's shown by leaked documents and sources.

Slashdot Mirror

White House Advisor Kudlow Says Apple Technology May Have Been 'Picked Off' by China (cnbc.com)

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