Dummond D. Slow (mental.delete@this.protozoa.us) on February 22, 2021 4:55 pm wrote:
> For a phone, almost everything else matters more and is a bigger barrier to entry compared to the CPU core AMD
> could tout as their advantage. Only GPU has lesser importance. These two items are not worth much - what you
> have to bring to the table is cellular connectivity (with allt he regulatory stuff handled!), wireless, power
> management, the low power platform stuff and software ecosystem. These days, also sensors, ISP, AI unit.


I very much disagree with that. I don't think anything in modern smartphones is truly more or less important than any other, it is all "good enough" for most though thresholds will vary by customer. Most people don't care about cellular connectivity - if it is "good enough" then better is not worth much. Despite the breathless articles in the tech press about how Intel's modems couldn't compare to Qualcomm's, iPhone sales were not hurt when Apple switched to Intel modems for a few years. When Apple switches to their own modems I'm sure we'll see the same articles since there is little chance they will be as good across all metrics as Qualcomm's, but even fewer people will care.

Same is true for cameras, they get better and better but that just means they are past the "good enough" threshold for a larger and larger number of people. While a lot of people consider battery life a huge issue, as far as most people are concerned if it lasts all day without needing a charge that's good enough and battery life beyond that is pretty much pointless.

Everyone has one or two things about smartphones where they have not and may never reach "good enough". For people who like to play games, it might be the GPU. For people who are on their phone all day, it is battery life. For social media influencers it may be video quality.

I agree with your main sentiment that Apple's large CPU & GPU performance lead over Android is not that big of a deal, because for most people the "good enough" threshold has already been exceeded. It is similar to the PC market in that respect - whether AMD can beat Intel is irrelevant to about 90% of the market for whom PCs have been more than fast enough for years. It matters to AMD & Intel though, because the 10% for whom more performance is relevant are willing to pay much higher prices to get it so that's where the bulk of the industry profit is made.

Anyway, the real reason Apple's performance lead doesn't matter at all anymore because it has been the case for so long that anyone willing to switch from Android to iPhone for more performance will have already done so.