Apple Inc.'s Helplessness

Everyone stared blankly at the Origin Mobile lying on the floor.

"Well, that's just great. Now she has to pay for it herself."

"It must've shattered. The only question is how badly."

"Spending thousands on a lousy phone—she's probably heartbroken!"

The girl who had been trying it out earlier looked as though she were about to cry. She had already been scared half to death, and when someone suddenly bumped into her, she reflexively threw the phone in her hand. It looked like she was really going to lose money today.

At that moment, a staff member from the experience store came over, asked what had happened, and picked up the phone from the floor.

"I... I'll pay for it."

Though the girl had been flushed red by everyone's murmuring and was aching over the cost, she still took responsibility. She did not throw a tantrum or make a scene, and everyone began to sympathize with her.

"It's fine. No need. The phone isn't damaged."

The staff member's words stunned everyone.

"It wasn't damaged after being thrown that far? Are you kidding me? Last time, my phone fell off a table and its screen shattered."

"Exactly. Phone casings are all alloy these days, and they dent at the slightest bump. This phone doesn't even have a case on it, so how could it—"

The crowd began discussing it heatedly. The television station's cameras faithfully recorded the moment. They were not afraid of problems; they were afraid there would be no problems. That was how TV news came about.

"You'll know if you take a look." The staff member showed the phone to everyone.

Everyone examined it closely. Sure enough, the screen was completely intact, while there was only a tiny dent at one corner of the casing.

Yet before everyone's eyes, that tiny dent slowly repaired itself as if by magic. A moment later, there was a soft pop, and it was completely flawless again.

"Memory metal? How did it recover so quickly?"

"That's incredible! We won't need those bulky phone cases anymore."

"A phone that isn't afraid of being dropped? That's amazing. I'm buying one."

The girl who had already resigned herself to paying for it looked at the phone in delight as well.

No one had expected such a small detail to reveal another powerful feature of the Origin Mobile—the iridescent back panel could restore itself at any time!

The atmosphere in the experience store grew even more heated, and sales surged as well.

Meanwhile, at Apple Inc.'s headquarters in Cupertino City.

Beneath the third underground level of the futuristic ring-shaped Apple Inc. headquarters lay the mysterious Apple Inc. Research Center.

A group of researchers was tensely gathered around a phone, carefully taking it apart.

The phone was the Origin Mobile that had been sent back to Apple Inc. headquarters.

But after probing it for two hours, they could not even remove the casing. The rear casing and the screen were perfectly fused together.

In the end, they had no choice but to slowly peel it apart by hand with a thermal cutting blade. Only then did they finally see its true form.

The outer screen, touch screen, display screen, and fingerprint-recognition layer together measured only 0.7 millimeters thick. Moreover, the display screen itself was layered, and they could not separate those layers at all.

"That's impossible!"

"This is unbelievable!"

"How did they do it?"

The researchers' cries of amazement made Tim Cook's already gloomy face turn even darker.

Apple Inc. had believed that reducing the screen to two millimeters was the absolute limit. Yet a tiny Origin Mobile screen had utterly shattered their pride.

As they continued dismantling it, Tim Cook's heart gradually sank to the bottom of the sea.

They could not figure out the screen's principles, but Apple Inc.'s display resolution was 1920×1080, while the Origin Mobile's was 7680×4320.

One was 2K, while the other had leaped straight to 8K. It completely crushed them.

As a result, Apple Inc.'s phones were utterly inferior in screen resolution, color saturation, and refresh rate.

Apple Inc. finally got a taste of what it felt like to be an entire generation behind someone else.

As for the iridescent back panel, they could only determine that it contained many metallic components. Why it could change colors was beyond them.

Its storage was also unlike most others, reaching a capacity of 1TB—enough to drive people to despair. Apple Inc. generally offered only 128GB of storage, and customers had to pay extra for 256GB. Yet the Origin Mobile had launched with 1TB as its standard configuration. It was simply inconceivable. Combined with its unique algorithms, data transmission was more convenient and more compact. Large files could even be placed on cloud-processing terminals, giving it limitless possibilities.

In terms of processor performance, Apple Inc. used the A12 Processor, further improving performance and power efficiency. Of course, this benefited from TSMC's latest 7nm process. The A12 Processor used Apple Inc.'s self-developed Fusion Architecture. According to Apple Inc.'s data, its two high-performance cores improved by 15%, while the power efficiency of its four low-power cores improved by 50%. Its GPU used a new generation of self-developed chips, with the core count rising to four and performance increasing by 50%. But the largest upgrade was undoubtedly the Neural Network Engine, which leaped from two cores to eight and could perform 5 trillion calculations per second.

However, the Origin Mobile used a self-developed processor. Neither its architecture nor its manufacturing process was known, and its process had actually reached 5nm. Wasn't 7nm currently the smallest manufacturing process?

Everyone knew that chips were made up of transistors. The more transistors integrated into a chip of the same size, the more powerful its performance! Take Apple Inc.'s A11 Processor and A12 Processor, for example. The A12 Processor used 7nm and had 6.9 billion transistors, while the A11 Processor used 10nm and had only 4.3 billion transistors—a difference of around 70%.

The differences in CPU, GPU, and AI performance were all at least 50%. In AI especially, the gap was at least threefold!

Thus, every improvement in chip manufacturing processes increased chip performance by more than 50%.

Compared to Apple Inc.'s 7nm processor, the Origin Mobile's 5nm Process had directly crossed an entire era. Its performance utterly crushed Apple Inc.'s in every regard.

Since when had China's transistor technology become so advanced? And the technology was so mature that it could already be widely applied?

Had they been playing the fool to catch the tiger all along?

As for Wireless Charging, they understood it even less. Why could such a tiny integrated board be fitted with wireless charging equipment?

And it could even support paired charging, meaning other devices could not charge without permission from the primary device. Since when had electricity become so obedient? Could it really be directed wherever they wanted?

As for the system, Apple Inc.'s much-prided iOS was even more unbearable to look at, whether in terms of operating speed or usability.

They did understand the camera, though. It used a Leica Cinema Triple Camera with a 40-megapixel ultra-light-sensitive camera. Its handling of details and dark areas was flawless, and the final result practically broke through two-dimensional technology. It could intelligently distinguish between the subject and the background, presenting a vivid sense of depth like 3D. Yet this function was even more baffling. Everyone guessed that it might be the effect of the built-in Basic Artificial Intelligence algorithm, but that brought them back to the same old problem.

They did not understand Basic Artificial Intelligence!

That was why they had suppressed Origin Company in the first place—because they had wanted to obtain Basic Artificial Intelligence and had no other way. They had never expected to make an enemy for themselves instead.

Tim Cook and the group of executives returned to the conference room, all deeply troubled.

Seeing everyone before him remain silent, Tim Cook could only speak first.

"Everyone, stop staying silent. You all know what's going on. Apple Inc. has developed to this point by relying on technological advantages over others. Now, a product that has basically surpassed us across the board in technology has appeared. And as a domestic Chinese brand, it will definitely be embraced by China. The company's first-quarter 2015 earnings report showed that iPhone sales in the Chinese market reached 16.8 billion Citibank Currency, a significant 71% increase from 9.835 billion Citibank Currency during the same period last year. IPhone sales in China also surpassed those in the USA for the first time. Although China ranked second in its contribution to Apple's first-quarter revenue, it was the only region where revenue increased quarter over quarter. So we cannot afford to lose the Chinese market."

"Can we find a patent loophole? It's impossible that Origin Mobile hasn't used any of our technology at all, right? Then we can demand a patent exchange!"

One executive said this with absolute confidence.

It was rather shameless, considering Apple Inc. itself was also highly skilled at repeatedly wielding patent rights.

On October 16, 2015, a US jury ruled that Apple Inc. had used the University of Wisconsin's patented chip technology in the iPhone and iPad without authorization, and therefore ordered Apple Inc. to pay $234 million in damages.

The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation had demanded $400 million in compensation from Apple Inc. In the end, after the jury's deliberation, Apple Inc. was found liable to pay $234 million in damages to the patent licensing department of the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

But Apple Inc. had also used this tactic to suppress many other products. The most famous case was its dispute with Microsoft in 1988. Because Microsoft had used icons similar to those on the Mac in Windows 2.0.3, Apple Inc. sued Microsoft and HP, accusing them of infringing Apple's copyright. That lawsuit dragged on for six years. It was not until August 24, 1993, that the court formally ruled on Apple's 1985 lawsuit against Microsoft: Windows 2.0.3 did not constitute infringement. Their earlier belief that "Apple would easily win any lawsuit against Microsoft" vanished into thin air with the judge's ruling.

Still, there was good reason for that executive to speak so confidently. In 2013, Apple Inc. obtained a total of 1,775 patents, raising its ranking from twenty-second to thirteenth.

That was because smartphones had basically settled into their current form. Making them too distinctive instead made it harder to gain public acceptance and recognition.

The patent barriers set by Apple Inc. were all sorts of things: the body and model of the device, display stands, even the rubber tips at the ends of earphones all had patented technical filings.

So this executive believed that Origin Mobile could never possibly bypass the patent barrier established by Apple Inc.

"I'm sorry to tell you that, so far, we haven't found a single patent that resembles or conflicts with ours, because we still haven't even figured out the principles behind the things they made."

Tim Cook's words abruptly silenced the conference room.

"What did the government say, then? Back then, we accepted the government's proposal to blockade Origin Company. Are they just not going to do anything now?"

One executive spoke somewhat angrily.

Back then, the CIA had proposed that everyone jointly blockade Origin Company, intending to force Origin Company to hand over the source code for Basic Artificial Intelligence. Now Origin Company was doing perfectly fine and had even released a product that completely crushed Apple's phones, leaving many shareholders gritting their teeth in frustration.

Tim Cook shook his head helplessly. The USA had always been extremely practiced in wielding its sanctions stick, but this time was different.

"Have you all forgotten? Origin Company is no longer an independent Chinese company. It is now cooperating with Microsoft."

Although Apple Inc. ranked first among global technology companies with a valuation of 1.1 trillion Citibank Currency, while Microsoft ranked third with 883 billion, both were American companies. One was the palm, the other the back of the hand—both mattered.

Origin Company's cooperation with Microsoft also made it impossible for the USA to bring down its sanctions stick.

It seemed they had reached another dead end.

Happy New Year! An extra chapter for the friends who supported me—Egg Burger, Your Divine One, hezigang, and others. Thank you for your recommendation votes.