- cross-posted to:
- technews@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- technews@lemmy.ml
Apple to Buy TSMC’s Entire Supply of 3nm Chips for 2023::Apple will receive all of TSMC’s first-generation 3-nanometer process chips this year for upcoming iPhones, Macs, and iPads, according to…
The practical performance differences between N3B and N3E should be more or less immaterial to the end user. N3E just has a lower defect rate, meaning a greater portion of chips will be valid when made under that process versus made under N3B. There was a fairly credible rumor a few weeks ago that Apple was paying TSMC per valid chip instead of the industry standard per wafer. So for us, the end users, the cost won’t even be passed down — that’s just a cost that TSMC has to bear.
That said, if you don’t need a new phone now, waiting is good in general. Whatever is out today, they’ll have something better next year. Wait as long as you’re willing and able between upgrades. Unless you’re absolutely loaded with money, I guess.
Honestly, if not for security patches, most people could probably use a top of the line 8 year old smartphone, like the Iphone 6, without almost missing any feature or functionality, maybe for 20 years or more. Would certainly be great for the environment if we could use a smartphone for 15 years or more, with all the computational power already available this should be doable on the technical level. Unfortunatelly, it will not be allowed to by mnanufacturers, and we do not have a universally compatible functional linux for phones, that also can pass the locked bootloaders.
Repair would have to become easier or cheaper if you want people to use their phone for 15 years. It’s incredibly likely the screen will break in that time frame.
The EU already demanded user replaceable batteries, outside of that just not using software lockdowns a la Apple would already allow 3rd party repair and manufacture of equivalent parts, going even further the Fairphone is modular and with open specs, this kind of modularity and open protocols would theoretically allow smartphones to be Ship of Theseus style immortals.
Yeah I had an iPhone 6 Plus until 2 years ago. But I couldn’t keep using it because it was stuck on iOS 12 and all the apps no longer supported it.
Although the screen and camera were pretty damaged, and the battery was dying, so maybe it was a good time to upgrade anyway.