Microsoft developing own smartphone - report

[rocketpig]

famousringo said:

rocketpig said:

famousringo said:

rocketpig said:
Why do companies refuse to build flagship phones with screen sizes that are reasonable?

It's one of the big reasons why I headed back to iPhone with my last upgrade... I have no need or want for a phone larger than 4.3" (the size of my last Android phone).

LTE, lots of RAM, powerful SoCs, they all chew up lots of power. You need a bigger battery to power all that stuff. And the only acceptable way to fit a larger battery inside a phone these days is to hide it behind a bigger screen.

Apple managed to do it so it's definitely possible.

Possible, but first Apple had to be patient for an LTE baseband chip that didn't guzzle power. Apple has the money to get contractual or de facto exclusivity to a part like that for now, but other handsets will get efficient LTE sooner or later, but for now, other OEMs will have to keep pairing LTE with big batteries.

Second, Apple has to manage its software stack to keep the RAM footprint low, which is not an option that most OEMs have. In fact, the software efforts of most OEMs end up increasing the memory footprint.

And finally, Apple can tweak the SoC design so that it best suits iOS and the way people use it, or go back and change the software to make the best use of the SoC. Most OEMs don't have the licensing or the resources to do things like that.

Apple's just playing by a different set of rules than most other handset manufacturers. Apparently it's a set of rules that Microsoft itself would like to play by.

And it's the reason why a strong Apple is good for the industry (contrary to fanboy notions that it should die). The company is uniquely positioned as both a hardware and software manufacturer and they can drive the market in different directions and improve our experiences. Being able to control every facet of their product allows them to implement new UI, new hardware, and other innovations that MS and Google simply cannot do in a timely fashion. MS and Google need to prod their third party partners along and that can be a slow process. Apple skips that step and just makes the damned thing themselves.

Right now, Apple has too much power for their own good (and when that happens, they tend to implement Draconian policies) but wishing death on the company is just stupid.

People love to bash the new iPhone/iPad but they're beastly machines that only Apple could have built in 2012. To get that kind of battery life out of those packages is truly phenomenal.