Apple iPhone Components? No Intel Chip.

[MacRumors]

Despite Apple's introduction of the iPhone, few hardware details of the device were revealed. One analyst produced a list of likely vendors for the parts that go into the iPhone. The list is as follows:

Samsung Electronics (applications/video processor), Marvell (802.11), Infineon Technologies (baseband), Broadcom Corp. (touch screen controller), and Cambridge Silicon Radio (Bluetooth)

Of interest, the CPU of the iPhone was never explicitly mentioned by Apple, but Intel has flatly denied that it is producing the processor for the iPhone. Buzz around the Macworld floor has suggested that a Samsung ARM processor is at the heart of the device.

[Benjamin]

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=...&CurrentPage=1

[GodBless]

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.

[AlanAudio]

Originally Posted by GodBless

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

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.

[EricNau]

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

[jmsait19]

Originally Posted by EricNau

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

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...

[DMann]

Originally Posted by jmsait19

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...

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.'

[erikh]

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.

[ChrisA]

Originally Posted by jmsait19

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

Intel makes several that could have been used
http://developer.intel.com/design/pc...sors/index.htm

But lots of companies make ARM processors. It's becone a kind of standard

[emotion]

Originally Posted by EricNau

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

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.

[Willis]

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]

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

Originally Posted by mccoma

They sold the chip to Marvell

Haha yeah, just found that out.

[peharri]

Originally Posted by Willis

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

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...

[Claymore]

I’m wondering what CPU the AppleTV uses

[ChrisA]

Originally Posted by peharri

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.

You are right about the amazing refactoring but we have one example of this being done: uClinux http://www.uclinux.org/ Linux is enough like Mac OSX that it makes a good proof that it could be done.

Also I seem to remember using a UNIX that ran in some early PCs. Possibly the 286 or 8086? Remember "Xenix" it ran on 16-bit PCs. I remember at the time being very impressed that they could get UNIX to run on such low end hardware. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenix

[mccoma]

Originally Posted by emotion

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.

They sold the chip to Marvell

[iW00t]

Originally Posted by emotion

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.

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

[appleguy]

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

[emotion]

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.

[twoodcc]

Originally Posted by EricNau

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

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

[Bill Gates]

Even if Apple had used an Intel chip, more likely than not it wouldn't have been x86, so they would have had to port OS X either way.

[dernhelm]

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

[robbieduncan]

Originally Posted by dernhelm

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

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...

[dagger01]

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.

[123]

http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/83492