Apple iPhone 5 To Flaunt New A8 Processor

An anonymous reader writes "The release of iOS 4.3 beta for developers has revealed updates to gesture-based navigation, AirPlay and Personal Hot Spot in the next edition of iPad and iPhone. However, not all changes are UI-related; it is reported that Apple is due to add an ARM Cortex A8 processor to its iPhone 5. Apple Daily, a Hong Kong-based newspaper, reported that Apple's iPhone 5 will be powered by a dual core processor with SGX543 graphics. It is reported that Apple is in contact with a Taiwanese component maker for the A8 SoC. Currently Apple uses a custom made A4 SoC in its iPad and iPhone 4 and uses SGX535 graphics and video support."

Not A8

[Microlith]

Holy cow that article is written from ignorance. Never put it past a business rag to get technical details entirely wrong.

However not all changes are UI related; it is reported that Apple is due to add an ARM Cortex A8 processor to its iPhone 5.

Holy shit they're stupid. The A4 processor IS a Cortex-A8. I suppose Apple can be blamed for their stupid marketing garbage, though.

Also, Engadget reported that the next edition of iPad and iPhone will run on A9 multi-core chips designed by Qualcomm.

Goddamnit, no. Qualcomm does not use the ARM designed Cortex cores.

Apple Insider reported that the SGX543 is designed to parallel as many as 16 cores together thus the developers do not have to rewrite the apps to optimize multiple-cores.

Apparently the author of this article is just throwing around words, instead of being aware that there's a difference between the actual processor core and the on-die GPU core.

Basically, this article is filled with flawed writing based on the author's almost total ignorance of the subject. They know just enough, however, to be completely and totally wrong.

Flaunt?

[gstoddart]

Seriously, "flaunt"?

So, does "having" this processor mean it is going to be "flaunted". "Flaunt" has a kind of negative connotation of waving something around to be sure everybody can see it.

Maybe words like "have", "sport", "use", "be built with", or "ship with" might be more applicable.

TFA doesn't have the word "flaunt" in it. Maybe a little less editorializing in the headlines would be good here. In this case, it's just plain not applicable -- no more than my desktop machine is "flaunting" it's quad-core Intel CPU.

The RDF is strong with this one...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

You really have to hand it to Apple: Very few other companies garner headlines for what amounts to "Pre-release software build indicates that version N+1 of product X will incorporate version N+1 of the assorted off-the-shelf hardware that went into version N".

Seriously. There is a reasonably limited set of companies with performance-oriented ARM SoC designs. There is a similarly fairly limited set of GPU options for power constrained scenarios. Shockingly enough, Apple(just like everybody else) is pretty much going to combine the most recent one of each that they can shoehorn into their design and production process and go from there.

In other news, the next Mac Pro will probably have a newly released Xeon in it...

Uh, no, no it's not.

[seebs]

Unless the package says "Now with A8 Processor!" or something similar, it's not flaunting the A8. Given Apple's general refusal to put any kind of hardware specs they can avoid on packaging for these devices, it seems very, very, unlikely that they will "flaunt" anything so meaningless to the average reader.

Re:flaunt?

[cgenman]

If you have pop-ups enabled, it appears in the middle of your screen as it happens. You click on the pop-up to get to the message. Going back is a bit more convoluted. You have to tap the home button twice to bring up the list of running applications, then tap the app you were in to go back. It's not bad, though the double-tap of the home button for multitasking is not that intuitive.

Remember, though, that Android and other platforms are building from what was learned on iOS. The closest thing to an iOS type operating system was Palm, and there are many reasons why that was light years different. Don't get me started on the royal crap that was smartphones at the time of the iPhone launch.

It's a bit like The Matrix. If you go back and re-watch it now, you have to wonder what was so special about it. "They're doing eastern mysticism, hong-kong kung-fu wirework, and slow-mo fight scenes. So what? Every movie does that." Well yes, every movie does that because they're all based on The Matrix. Similarly, there are several good portable smartphone operating system choices out there, which all do certain things better than iOS. They all also happen to exist because they copied iOS. And then they built out, did some things better, and became their own animals. But credit where credit is due: nobody was copying Windows Mobile 6. Everyone built from the basis established in iOS.