Steve Jobs gave a press conference on 16 JULY 10 designed to respond to the growing uproar over Apple’s iPhone 4 antenna problems. His pitch revealed a disconnect between the engineering cultures of computer design and communications system design. Notably, Intel has also  fallen prey to this same culture clash in an even bigger way. We’ll place both Apple and Intel in this culture clash context.

Computing vs Communications

Engineers who design computers must meet many simultaneous and conflicting design goals, such as high CPU speed at low cost and low energy consumption. These engineers are knowledgeable of the various necessary technologies, from computer architecture to semiconductor manufacturing, and know the tradeoffs. While their task is extremely complex, it also is deterministic, in the sense that the assumptions and operating environment of the computer system are only minimally affected by random phenomena. While there is no agreed upon definition of an optimum computer, various system features can be maximized, subject to various constraints as illustrated above.

However, the design framework is profoundly different for communication systems engineers. For them, random processes, such as thermal noise in circuitry and signal multipath phenomena in wireless systems such as the iPhone 4 dominate every aspect of system design. These engineers must use probability theory as the paradigm in which they design. Their core task is to design a system with acceptable bit error probability, subject to cost and technical system constraints similar to the computer constraints, such as low energy consumption, high transmission bit rate and physical size of the chip set.

The mental processes and ways of seeing the world are very different for  computer designers and their managers compared to engineers and managers of communications/wireless systems. Indeed, one of the most annoying and bizarre phenomena for the users of mobile phones is to get a huge, random variation in call quality while both parties are stationary. They, along with computer engineers, don’t appreciate how channels can produce signal fades that reduce received signal power to 1% of the original power level without any motion at all. Making this effect subjectively worse is to note how often the “bars” don’t correspond in any obvious way to the user’s call quality. This effect results from idiosyncratic methods (often required by “marketing”) vendors use to generate bars on their displays.

Apple

Boiled down to the nub of meaning, Jobs:

1. Admitted and explained how the outside antenna could be affected by users touching it across an impedance gap, thereby changing the effective size and impedance. So far so good.
2. Promised all owners either a full refund upon return of the iPhone 4, or a free case for the phone, designed to solve the antenna problem. Again, good business decision.
3. Claimed all Smart Phones have problems with connection quality, and showed some video of how phones made by Samsung, Research in Motion and HTC  behave similarly to the iPhone as a result of hand position. Apparently, this was an attempt to minimize the impact of his design problem by effectively saying “Hey, everybody has antenna and connection problems, not just us.”

However, his pitch was misleading. Point 3 is where he went off the rails, giving us a chance to elaborate on an important culture clash in the electronics world. Jobs ignored the core point that just a change in “signal bars” when the hand changes grip says NOTHING about the quality of the call. Did he know this fact? Did he care? We will ignore this particular speculation and place his actions in a larger context.

We claim the antenna problems of Apple were enabled by a compute culture which, according to EETimes, knew of the antenna problems but simply forged ahead anyway.

It is highly unlikely managers in a communications culture would make this same decision. In fact, wireless system engineers fully appreciate the particular tradeoffs of antenna outside vs inside the phone case. But it was a compute-centric culture within which this disastrous decision was made. Coincidence? We think not.

Intel provides another Example of Communications in a Compute Culture

The clash of these cultures is further exemplified by Intel’s failure to profit in the wireless systems arena, in spite of around $3B invested (Intel spent at least $1B to acquire DSP Communications in the late 1990s, and has since spent at least $1B promoting WiMax, not to mention its $1B investment into Clearwire, a WiMax service operator.) We claim this failure by Intel drives from its corporate DNA which is compute-centric, and thus doesn’t have a workable intuition and value system about the wireless world. In this regard, Intel’s successful compute-centric business ironically caused the huge success of WiFi because of Intel’s huge CPU volume shipping with integrated early WiFi chips.

More Culture Wars

The iPhone, while enormously successful, succeeds because of the excellent compute culture of Apple, just as Intel’s compute culture drives its success. The majority of software and silicon in the iPhone, as in every Smart Phone, is compute centric. Very little of the processor capacity is used for actual cellular or WiFi communications!

Warning to Qualcomm

By exactly the logic of the culture war, Qualcomm will face grave danger as it tries to include more compute centric devices and systems into its own phone designs and product offerings. Qualcomm, for example, purchased a display making firm and now is innovating the nature of cell phone displays. Qualcomm also is trying to promote video content for its video technology. These and other functions are quite different from the work of Qualcomm’s intensely communications centric engineers.