Schematics Allegedly Reveal M7 Successor Chip 'Phosphorus'

That makes sense, looking to increase the functionality of the M7 and include more biometric info

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I imagine that in the future they could make a much useful device just with that processor. It would easily last days, too.

Working? On the processor for a phone currently being manufactured? Don't you think the work on the successor to a component to the iPhone 6 was done a long time ago?

Not to mention

They also have to somehow beef or add a processor to enable the "hey siri" feature without the need of being plugged in. I mean if they keep it that way it'd be stupid to introduce that feature. I think they introduced it because it will be a key feature for iPhone 6 / iWatch... but the phones before can't do it without losing MASS battery because how it sucks off the processors.

Very curious as to how this will work without an iWatch or device that is constantly tethered to your body.

tliede20 said:

They also have to somehow beef or add a processor to enable the "hey siri" feature without the need of being plugged in. I mean if they keep it that way it'd be stupid to introduce that feature. I think they introduced it because it will be a key feature for iPhone 6 / iWatch... but the phones before can't do it without losing MASS battery because how it sucks off the processors.

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Maybe the coprocessor can do it all, like the Moto X?

pedromcm.pm said:

Maybe the coprocessor can do it all, like the Moto X?

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Hey Siri is probably intended for CarPlay in the beginning..

Phosphorus?

Maybe the "killer feature" of the iPhone 6 will be that it glows in the dark — even when the screen is turned off!

rosalindavenue said:

Working? On the processor for a phone currently being manufactured? Don't you think the work on the successor to a component to the iPhone 6 was done a long time ago?

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Given how they just replaced the screen (According to rumor), why shouldn't they also change this?

In any way, this is really nitpicking about details..

How far can Apple go in the health space without requiring FDA approval?

MacRumors said:

[. In one scenario, data from the Health app could be shared with a health insurance companies in order to lower a healthy subscriber's monthly premium.

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This sounds like a terrible idea to me, if not downright scary in its implications.

Rogifan said:

How far can Apple go in the health space without requiring FDA approval?

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With their wallet, about as far as they want.

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Cougarcat said:

This sounds like a terrible idea to me, if not downright scary in its implications.

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Only if it were forced.

Rogifan said:

How far can Apple go in the health space without requiring FDA approval?

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that's a great question, i would assume as long as they don't claim that their product can heal or cure you of a disease they wouldn't really ever need approval.

cocky jeremy said:

With their wallet, about as far as they want.

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Meaning what? Healthcare industry is highly regulated. I'm skeptical how much Apple will be able to do in this space without being up to their eyeballs in regulations and FDA approvals. Which means rollout of some grand health initiative could take a long time.

Cougarcat said:

This sounds like a terrible idea to me, if not downright scary in its implications.

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You can read the several pages of posts on this topic since this was brought up last week. No need for this debate again here.

cocky jeremy said:

Only if it were forced.

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Not only. Would it be right for someone to have access to a lower premium just because they own an expensive phone?

This chip is a pressure sensor

So here's what's in the schematic in the article:

TLDR: This is a barometric pressure sensor, and most definitely not a processor of any type. I think it's safe to assume that we can expect a pressure sensor in the next iPhone- many other phones have found uses for them.
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The first thing that threw me off- if this was the M7 or some kind of other 'processor', it would tend to communicate with sensors in a master-slave fashion over a serial protocol like SPI or I2C. It would also need some kind of data link back to the A7 (or A8 or whatever), most likely another serial line. That's not present in this diagram.

The stuff on this schematic is labelled like SPI, or a similar protocol. The line coming in from the top left is labeled MOSI- this stands for master out, slave in- it's a serial data line (going one way). It's connected to the SDI pin of the chip (serial data in), meaning that this chip must be a slave to the master SPI controller, and not the M7 or successor.

It is common to have multiple 'slave' chips hooked up to the same master (sharing data lines, one MISO and one MOSI). The master selects which chip it wants to talk to with a CS line (chip select). This is the line at the bottom left, the only one with 'PHOSPHORUS' in the net name. Since that CS line would be selecting PHOSPHORUS, and PHOSPHORUS is a slave, that tells me that PHOSPHORUS must be whatever this chip, probably a sensor (see more below!).

OSCAR was the code name of the M7, and the serial lines are labelled such that they go from sensors (e.g. the IMU) to the M7. I'm not making much of the fact that the serial lines going to this chip have labels saying they go from OSCAR (the M7) to the IMU, but are actually connected to this chip- I think they are probably just shared serial lines.

The chip pictured has the part number BMP282. I'm 99.99% sure this is a Bosch barometric pressure sensor, similar to this part BMP280 . Variants of one part often have slightly different part numbers- if Apple got Bosch to customize the chip for them with different packaging, or a slightly different measurement range, that would explain the difference in part number.

EDIT:
Here's what Bosch says the BMP280 chip is commonly used for:
* Enhancement of GPS navigation (e.g. time-tofirst-fix improvement, dead-reckoning, slope detection)
* Indoor navigation (floor detection, elevator detection)
* Outdoor navigation, leisure and sports applications
* Weather forecast
* Health care applications (e.g. spirometry)
* Vertical velocity indication (e.g. rise/sink speed)

Spirometry is measuring breath/lung function.

Cougarcat said:

This sounds like a terrible idea to me, if not downright scary in its implications.

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There is a rather similar situation in the UK: If you are a teenager and want to drive a car, you will find that the insurance cost is astronomical (to some degree justified, because 18 year olds seem to have 10 times higher accident rates than some other groups). You can significantly decrease your insurance cost by installing a box that will send information about speed, hard braking, time when you are driving etc. to the insurance company.

Let's say you have diabetes. No big deal if it's not too bad, you eat healthily and take your tablets regularly. So someone with well-controlled diabetes isn't expensive. Someone with diabetes who doesn't give a ****, drinks six cans of beer every day, that person will be expensive. If I could get an app that observes my health, makes me do the right things, decreases the cost for the health insurance company, and at the same time decreases the cost _for me_ while improving my health, there's nothing wrong with that.

Cougarcat said:

Not only. Would it be right for someone to have access to a lower premium just because they own an expensive phone?

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Not just because they own an expensive phone. Because they own a device, no matter what the cost, that observes and helps improving their state of health. But then you can improve insurance premiums by adding anti-theft measures to your car, or by installing an alarm system in your house. Do you disagree with that as well?

tliede20 said:

...because how it sucks off the processors.

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Oh my. Let's keep this G-rated.

They will add stair climbing tracking and voice analysis (to detect "hey Siri" when the phone isn't plugged into power).

You heard it here first.

gnasher729 said:

Let's say you have diabetes. No big deal if it's not too bad, you eat healthily and take your tablets regularly. So someone with well-controlled diabetes isn't expensive. Someone with diabetes who doesn't give a ****, drinks six cans of beer every day, that person will be expensive. If I could get an app that observes my health, makes me do the right things, decreases the cost for the health insurance company, and at the same time decreases the cost _for me_ while improving my health, there's nothing wrong with that.

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That's the "half full" view. Now look at it the other way: If "I" could get an app that observes my health relative to many others using the same app, makes me do the right things but I can't do them as well as all others, decreases the cost of the health insurance company by them being able to use relative data like that to weed out those customers likely to be less profitable, and at the same time, decreasing or maybe increasing the cost for me (relative to everyone else) while improving my health, there's nothing-to-much wrong with that.

In your view of it, there is an assumption that this could drive down health insurance costs for everyone. However, why would the insurance companies want to make less money? If you put yourself in their shoes, it seems the better use of stuff like this would be to weed out those customers that are more likely to cost them money while retaining those likely to cost them less. Sometimes the group into which we would fall is controllable by us based upon diet, exercise, etc. However, sometimes health issues pop up that have nothing to do with such choices.

So, if such a thing could genuinely lower health costs for all of us- AND KEEP THEM DOWN- I'm right there with you. But I don't see the health insurance industry happy at the idea of driving their sales down. One might counter with "but this could drive their profits up"- which is true- but eventually cost cutting to grow profits runs dry and revenue growth is required.

What is the thinking behind "Phosphorus?"

The definition of Phosphorus is "Phosphorus is a nonmetallic chemical element with symbol P and atomic number 15. A multivalent pnictogen, phosphorus as a mineral is almost always present in its maximally oxidised state, as inorganic phosphate rocks. It is poisonous."

What are they thinking behind the code name for this?

It's just a name. Look up the definition of Apple, Ivy Bridge, Lizard Head Pass, Fat Man & Little Boy, or consider these: http://mentalfloss.com/article/31168/11-product-names-mean-unfortunate-things-other-languages and http://articles.chicagotribune.com/...0906_1_code-names-superman-movie-batman-movie or a rich list of Apple code names: http://applemuseum.bott.org/sections/codenames.html where they called a monitor Mai Tai one of their early Apple computers E.T., another Spock, and another Carl Sagan (which got them sued), Tesseract, Moses, etc.

And if you are worried about destruction and Tesseract doesn't do it for you (that was shortened to TNT by the way), Apple has used code names like Typhoon, Tsunami, Omega, Terminator, M80, Darth Vader, Dragon, and Diet Coke too

maflynn said:

That makes sense, looking to increase the functionality of the M7 and include more biometric info

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I was honestly not ever all that clear on what the M-chip did. Doesn't it stand for "Motion Processor" or something?

Unless it's like, *really* specialized or something (such that it can do in many fewer cycles and at a much lower power consumption what the CPU can't do in certain important tasks) I don't really get why it's needed. Tbh I was kind of puzzled when they introduced it.