New Multi-Core iPhone with Firmware 3.0?

[MacRumors]

ZDNet reports that the iPhone 3.0 firmware will support quad-core processors in an upcoming iPhone hardware revision. While Apple has not yet detailed iPhone 3.0 firmware, MacRumors has independently heard of this same multi-core support in the 3.0 firmware which should accompany the next iPhone.

Meanwhile, Imagination Technologies is announcing a multi-core GPU that could be suitable for iPhone use. Apple, an investor in Imagination Technologies, presently uses a less powerful version of their PowerVR GPU in the iPhone and iPod touch.

The likely candidate for the new iPhone's CPU, however, is a derivative of the ARM Cortex A9 multi-core processor. The ARM Cortex has excellent power efficiency, well ahead of Intel's Atom offerings. Apple appears to be an ARM architectural licensee and their acquisition of P.A. Semi has brought low-power chip design expertise into the company.

Article Link: New Multi-Core iPhone with Firmware 3.0?

[JLatte]

Interesting. Wonder if they'll ever allow multiple apps to run at once. Guess at the very least it'll add juice to more powerful apps.

[Kilamite]

Woa.

This would be very interesting - and the device would be extremely powerful and definitely put a hole in the mobile gaming market.

[Mal]

What if iPhone software 3.0 was really intended to power the new MacTablet that's going to come out? Maybe that's the device that could really benefit from that type of optimization.

*walks away whistling as the eager kids jump on the remarks*

jW

[mavis]

Wirelessly posted (iPhone 3G (white): Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5G77 Safari/525.20)

Awesome. And maybe while they're at it, they can give the next iPhone enough RAM to actually function well.

[alphaod]

Quad-Core iPhone? Finally we'll be able to run real full OS X! No, not really.

[mgpg89]

When can we expect an iPhone like this? Still in 2009?

[patricksan]

Very good news!

[basesloaded190]

Battery life?

[Bonte]

Bad move to beef up the iPhone or Touch, they need to keep the performance at the same level for a long time to avoid AppStore costumer confusion. Only change it with radically new models or the tablet.

[Trip.Tucker]

Originally Posted by alphaod

Quad-Core iPhone? Finally we'll be able to run real full OS X! No, not really.

We already are. Color me EXTREMELY skeptical with this rumor. Quad-core in a hand held? Come on.

[Small White Car]

Originally Posted by Mal

What if iPhone software 3.0 was really intended to power the new MacTablet that's going to come out? Maybe that's the device that could really benefit from that type of optimization.

*walks away whistling as the eager kids jump on the remarks*

jW

Pretty much.

As far as phones, though, I suspect the next iPhone will allow background process too. The current model COULD do it, and jailbreakers will, but Apple won't enable it in order to encourage upgrades.

[Marx55]

What about the possibility to run Mac OS X instead of just OS X on the iPhone and iPod touch? For the ultimate wired and wireless presentation remote using NATIVE Apple Keynote and Microsoft PowerPoint files.

[longofest]

Originally Posted by Mal

What if iPhone software 3.0 was really intended to power the new MacTablet that's going to come out? Maybe that's the device that could really benefit from that type of optimization.

The latest published rumors have indicated that the tablet would be the same architecture as the iPhone, so this is not an unreasonable suggestion.

[Abu Tech]

But will it run Crysis?

[Small White Car]

Originally Posted by Marx55

What about the possibility to run Mac OS X instead of just OS X on the iPhone and iPod touch? For the ultimate wired and wireless presentation remote using NATIVE Apple Keynote and Microsoft PowerPoint files.

What? Why? So you can have a cursor-arrow and drop-down menus on a tiny screen? How annoying!

Wouldn't it make MUCH more sense to simply write software for the iPhone that can use these files you're talking about?

[jawzzy]

Multi-core, eh? Hmmmm...Crysis on an iPhone?








Weeeeeee!

Edit: Damn, beaten to it.

[NightStorm]

At this rate, we'll probably have quad-core iPhones before quad-core Mac Minis or iMacs.

[riversky]

Originally Posted by Trip.Tucker

We already are. Color me EXTREMELY skeptical with this rumor. Quad-core in a hand held? Come on.

Low powered mobile processors from ARM are designed with multiple cores, up to 4....

Check out the link to the ARM page in the original article and look at the schematics!

[soft]

My guess is an hardware updated iPhone by late 2009.

[armoguy94]

I hope this will be compatible with iPod Touch 1st Gen and they wont leave us screwed like what they usually do for products a few months old!

[reallynotnick]

Originally Posted by Bonte

Bad move to beef up the iPhone or Touch, they need to keep the performance at the same level for a long time to avoid AppStore costumer confusion. Only change it with radically new models or the tablet.

As long as the screen and the usability is the same I don't see it as a huge problem, just like a computer programs run on a variety of different speeds of hardware.
As far as games go the version for the older machines would run with lower poly counts, textures and whatnot. Other productivity apps might just run a little slower.
The speed has been the same for almost 2 years now, they need to up the speed a little or they will fall behind the competition, we don't want just another RAZR.
As long as the apps run on both I don't see a problem, and then they can up the speed again in 2 years which then all the slower iPods/iPhones would become semi-obsolete depending on if developers wanted to support them. And it's not like those iPods would not function anymore they would just get less new apps.

[fendol]

Opening up a whole range of possibilities when it comes to playing games and the sorts. I wonder if we'll start seeing people buying tiny video cards to put on their iPhone

[Nick012]

Should I return the touch I bought this evening? I don't want to get Leo'd...

[gnasher729]

Originally Posted by basesloaded190

Battery life?

That's the reason why you want multiple cores. Power consumption grows with the square of clock speed. If you have four cores, running at a fourth of the clock speed, you get the same performance at a quarter of the power consumption. Four cores at half speed = twice the performance at the same power consumption as a single core.