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Apple is just another hardware company and to build a true ecosystem with a wide moat needs Crossbar or 3DxPoint memory as a platform to build a robust ecosystem around the iPhone. This would allow one to carry all their work product, music, medical files, movies and etc. in their phone on which to build a wide and deep ecosystem. These examples are just a few of the uses and functions both these new types of memory would allow in a phone. Apple is still in a superior position to pull this off and avoid becoming another GoPro with a 90% stock drop. The number of uses this new memory has combined with the new processors TSM is making for Apple could give them a platform that would have the potential to build ecosystems that would give them a wide moat again. It is up to Apple to come up with new hardware and additions to their ecosystem that are hard to duplicate with a wide moat. If not we can expect Apple to follow GoPro. I think medical offers a huge opportunity for Apple to achieve this in the here and now.
....What are you talking about? Apple will sink unless they get some hypothetical "crossbar memory" from TSMC that we know nothing about, or 3DXpoint?
Apple doesn't seem to be in a position to get much benefit from Xpoint or anything like it in terms of productization, so why do you think it would be necessary for them to "not become another GoPro"? GoPro is a 1-trick pony that hit market saturation - while Apple will slow down as people stop replacing IPhones on an 18 month cycle, it's not like they're going to crash any time soon - what would new memory tech open up for them?
I still don't understand your theory that Apple and TSMC have some crazy new "crosspoint memory" coming any time soon either, seems like just a bunch of speculation without any basis in fact
The 3D Xpoint technology will be provided by both Micron and Intel, so let's see if Apple can find some benefits of doing business with either of these silicon suppliers. Apple certainly has migrated from hard drives to SSD for consumer storage in their Mac series of desktop and laptop devices, while the iPhones are using NAND Flash for storage. TSMC could certainly create a similar type of memory to 3D Xpoint, hopefully without starting another patent war.
In general many consumer devices are depending more on cloud storage, and less on local storage, so I'm not convinced that we need more local storage when WiFi and the cloud are so convenient.
Not everyone will want everything in the cloud for privacy and latency reasons and maybe even cost and stability in the future. I feel the cloud will have growing security issues among other things and we have only seen the very tip of the iceberg in this area. Being able to off the cloud for many things I feel will become critical and in the near future devices will have cloud functions strictly partitioned from the rest of your device. For this reason high capacity flash of some type will become a must have selling point on high end devices as Apple sells. If one is going to build their life more and more around a device on board secure memory of ever larger capacity will be a key selling point. The cloud is great, but it is the wild west out there and we will see abuses by governments and various black hats and terrorist groups that will be the cloud equivalent of the thermo nuclear bomb, it's not a matter of if, but when.
Cyber warfare, criminal attacks and just plain mass failure for a number of reasons are inevitable. Check out the link below.
Apple does need a product feature that further differentiates them from the rest and a separate, secure Mobil Data Vault in these days of hacking, spying and outright data theft would provide us a way we could carry our digital lives with us in a far more secure manner than the cloud or net. With our digital lives becoming a greater part of our lives and work every year even to the point of containing extremely valuable digital assets for some (Remember when the chairman of a prominent tech company lost his laptop). This memory data vault would be accessed by an entirely separate controller and security protocol that would be multilayer, diverse input (voice, video, thumbprint, pass code, physical key) that could even be varied by the rights granted each level of code. A data vault of this type allows us to carry our digital identity with us and provide an additional back up, which is becoming a larger and larger part of our every day lives (financial, medical, work product, photos, videos, important documents, passport, relationships and just about anything else that makes up our lives). This would give the iPhone differentiation for a generation or two and a definite lead for a while longer. Apple has the finances, skill, partners and the mind set to pull this off in record time.
I also envision where data could only be transferred to or taken from the Data Vault when the phone or tablet is off line, providing a further measure of security. It could also have additional security features if not accessed for a period of time which would cover the phone being lost or stolen.
