Apple iPhone Components? No Intel Chip.

sound right, we won't know exactly for sure.. but ah if you have experiance with solid understanding of embedded hardware platforms (ARM processors, SDIO, UARTs, etc), move to apple?

http://jobs.apple.com/index.ajs?BID=1&method=mExternal.showJob&RID=4063&CurrentPage=1

This Reuter's article title bluntly states that the Apple TV has an Intel chip however the iPhone does not. That's big news? Intel isn't the only chip company on the planet.

I'm not surprised - Intel's specialty isn't exactly cell phone processors.

EricNau said:

I'm not surprised - Intel's specialty isn't exactly cell phone processors.

Click to expand...

that was my thought... does intel make a chip that would even work with that type of form factor??

is this even a big deal? is intel gonna be all whiney because apple didn't use their non-existant chip?

let's hear more about what is in the device... this samsung arm deal... is that pretty powerful? my experience with phones today is that they are all underpowered severely for the features they have... hopefully this is not the case here...

EricNau said:

I'm not surprised - Intel's specialty isn't exactly cell phone processors.

Click to expand...

Xscale?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_XScale

It's strange they'd go to a competitor of Intel's in this market for the processor. Must be a cost issue.

Makes sense

jmsait19 said:

that was my thought... does intel make a chip that would even work with that type of form factor??

is this even a big deal? is intel gonna be all whiney because apple didn't use their non-existant chip?

let's hear more about what is in the device... this samsung arm deal... is that pretty powerful? my experience with phones today is that they are all underpowered severely for the features they have... hopefully this is not the case here...

Click to expand...

Samsung has been developing processors for high-end performance
on mobile phones for years. I imagine they would offer the greatest
performance of all chip companies. Imagine and iPhone advertised
with 'liquid cooling.'

GodBless said:

This Reuter's article title bluntly states that the Apple TV has an Intel chip....

Click to expand...

This isn't the first time that Reuters have been seen to be publishing untrue stories and passing them off as real news.

It's not even the first time they've done that about Apple either.

If Reuters say Intel and somebody else says not, I'll go with the somebody else until I hear it from Apple.

I cant believe people try and make a big deal out of something so small.

bah, Apple dont have to use Intel chips in everything they make. End of the day, Apple wants a low powered machine with sufficient battery life. Although thats unknown until its out on the market.

emotion said:

Xscale?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_XScale

It's strange they'd go to a competitor of Intel's in this market for the processor. Must be a cost issue.

Click to expand...

They sold the chip to Marvell

Here's why not Xscale (I'm shocked some of you aren't aware of Xscale btw.)

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060627-7142.html

mccoma said:

They sold the chip to Marvell

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Haha yeah, just found that out.

Another platform for developers

While we all wait for the news on the hardware inside the iPhone (and for the iPhone itself), I can't help to think about what this means for us developers. We have just successfully ported (or, in the case of Adobe and Microsoft developers, will soon port) our applications from PowerPC to Intel, with only minor problems for the most part.

Now we're looking at a new platform that Apple says will be running OS X (albeit stripped down, obviously), so it should be possible to port existing Cocoa apps to the iPhone, but if no further info on the hardware, the OS (kernel and window system), and other available APIs is emerging soon, I think it will take a lot longer before 3rd party developers care to try porting their apps to the iPhone, than it did to start the intel transition.

And, talking of chips and silicon that might be inside the iPhone; I for one would love to see that rumored ARM CPU matched with another (proper) ARM processor; the Mali GPU that ARM got into its portfolio when it acquired Falanx Microsystems last year. That would account for some pretty nice 3D graphics as well on the iPhone.

emotion said:

Xscale?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_XScale

It's strange they'd go to a competitor of Intel's in this market for the processor. Must be a cost issue.

Click to expand...

Intel no longer produces these chips. The division has been sold to Marvell.

Com isnt it clear to you guys..
its a G5 Processor

So having read the arstechnica article i quote above:

"I think Core is likely to wind up in a future must-have mobile gadget—the 2008 or 2009 equivalent of an iPod or a Blackberry. "

Would this solve the OSX porting problem?

Interesting.

So they ported OS/X to ARM processors as well? Very, very interesting.

dernhelm said:

So they ported OS/X to ARM processors as well? Very, very interesting.

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OSX is very portable. Sure there will have been kernel work but large sections of the OS should just be a cross-compile away. Note that they never claimed this was Mac OSX, just OSX. There appears to be no Finder, no Carbon...

Call me crazy...

I swear the Apple iPhone page (either the Overview or Tech Spec page) said "Intel Processor" Tuesday night when I looked at it, and sure enough now it doesn't. It never said which one, but I know it "did" say Intel processor. Oh well, I guess we'll find out in June.

Funny, the Apple reps on the floor apparently said it has an Intel chip...

I'm fairly certain that Jobs said himself during the keynote that it's an intel processor.. maybe he meant intel compatible, which is quite vague.

I wouldn't be surprised. Apple helped Acorn Computers develop ARM chips in the past. A huge order of 946 series processors has been bought by the company making the iPhone. Incidentally, same processor used in Nintedo DS. I doubt a 10 year old processor will be behind it all though.

dagger01 said:

I swear the Apple iPhone page (either the Overview or Tech Spec page) said "Intel Processor" Tuesday night when I looked at it, and sure enough now it doesn't. It never said which one, but I know it "did" say Intel processor. Oh well, I guess we'll find out in June.

Click to expand...

The appleTV has an Intel processor, iPhone page never mentioned such a thing.

EricNau said:

I'm not surprised - Intel's specialty isn't exactly cell phone processors.

Click to expand...

i'm a little surprized. but i guess it isn't too big of a deal

Willis said:

I cant believe people try and make a big deal out of something so small.

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It's not that anyone's complaining, it's just it adds more to the puzzle of what, exactly, the system runs as an OS.

Yes, it runs "OS X". But it's not "Mac OS X". And various PDAs run "Windows", but not "Windows XP". There's no evidence anyone's noticed that the current Darwin builds are cross compilable for anything but PowerPC and Intel.

Maybe this is why Apple closed XNU? Seems improbable, given they opened it again, and I'm having a hard time believing XNU is the right kernel for this anyway.

Or perhaps Leopard doesn't use XNU. Now there's speculation!

BTW the ARM chip in the DS, which according to one of the posts above is a candidate for the Apple-branded Telephonic Device (with apologies to Cisco in case of any unintentional trademark violations) does not have an MMU.

It's very, very, very, hard to see how something can run Mac OS X, even a stripped down version (but one with the CoreAnimation framework nonetheless) without an MMU. That would take some amazing refactoring.

The more we know, the less we know...