A7 Processor to Be 31% Faster and 64-Bit, iPhone 5S to Support Motion Tracking?

[york2600]

64-bit seems unlikely since it would require a complete re-write of the iOS kernel, and existing 32-bit applications would need to be run in emulation. Wouldn't we have seen some signs in the developer toolkit if it were 64-bit?

A) iOS kernel is the OS X kernel, which obviously runs just fine in 64bit
B) There's no emulation required for 32bit apps running on a 64bit kernel. The OS pads the address space with an additional 32bits. There's no performance hit. There's tons of 32bit apps that run on 64bit OS X without issue

 

[ogremoustro]

a fingerprint scanner is a gimmick, a larger screen is not.

there are more people that want a larger screen than people who want a fingerprint scanner. this is a fact.

Is it now?

 

[viperGTS]

Jesus... People are complaining about a processor which isn't confirmed for being "only" 30% faster...

Seriously what can't you do on the iPhone 5 now? What are you hoping to do on the 5S which needs more than 30% speed improvements? Want it to replace the Hadron Colider?

Sure the iPhone 5 is fast, but there is plenty of room for speed improvement, in both graphics and CPU performance. Some people, like me, want a really fast phone so they can have the best experience. I know I'm not the only one who wants an even more powerful iPhone. Plus, speed improvements are typical to S-model updates.

 

[Detrius]

a fingerprint scanner is a gimmick, a larger screen is not.

there are more people that want a larger screen than people who want a fingerprint scanner. this is a fact.

If I can wave my phone over something to spend my money, I sure want some assurance that it knows I'm the one doing it. I don't want people to be able to drain my account just because they sat down next to me at a restaurant or just because my phone happens to be unlocked. It's only a gimmick if you don't understand the big picture.

Also, sometimes, people don't know what they want. Sometimes you have to show them the better way despite their insistence they want something else rather than giving them what they asked for.

I definitely do NOT want a monstrous screen on my phone. That's what my iPad and my 27" monitor are for. My phone is supposed to fit in my pocket.

 

[goobot]

a fingerprint scanner is a gimmick, a larger screen is not.

there are more people that want a larger screen than people who want a fingerprint scanner. this is a fact.

opinion is opinion

 

[Gmaster]

I wait until the A10

With Thunderbolt support, no doubt

A-10 would be Thunderbolt II (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairchild_Republic_A-10_Thunderbolt_II)

 

[Carl Sagan]

So A8 will be a Quad ? So makes sense to wait for next year ?

The year after the iPhone 6S. Next year will be the 7X on the iPhone 6.

 

[gothamm]

if A7 is indeed only 31% faster, then its got nothing on the upcoming slew of snapdragon 800 phones. Or even tegra 4 for that matter...

 

[Renzatic]

That's not why Apple hasn't bumped the ram. iOS doesn't need 2 GB + ram to run fast on the current hardware thats being released at the time. Apple writes iOS to take full advantage the ram thats available.

That's the thing. Having more ram isn't about making the OS perform better. It'd probably run fine on 512MB. The reason I'd want to see at least 2GB on an iOS device is for the apps that can take advantage of it.

 

[Smutchings]

a fingerprint scanner is a gimmick, a larger screen is not.

there are more people that want a larger screen than people who want a fingerprint scanner. this is a fact.

Apple doesn't give people what they ask for, it gives people features they never thought to ask for, but suddenly can't live without. Like the iPhone.

 

[runeapple]

Sure the iPhone 5 is fast, but there is plenty of room for speed improvement, in both graphics and CPU performance. Some people, like me, want a really fast phone so they can have the best experience. I know I'm not the only one who wants an even more powerful iPhone. Plus, speed improvements are typical to S-model updates.

What do you need the extra power for? (not a dig just curious!)

My iPhone 5 runs smoothly on everything thrown at it (running iOS7) - I personally haven't found any situations yet where I wish it did something faster (I guess on iOS6 I wish the shutter animation was faster but that's solved in iOS7)

 

[acfusion29]

opinion is opinion

which is unfortunately what a lot of people on this forum don't understand.

i'm saying it's nice to have a BIGGER PHONE. did i say "get rid of the 4" phone?"

absolutely not.

keep that small phone for the complainers, although most of them would probably get a bigger phone once they try it

and to the people that are gonna say 'fragmentation', if you're a developer and you can't figure out how to optimize your app, then you simply shouldn't be developing.

it's nice to have options. i wonder if this was a big deal with 13", 15", 17" laptops. there are people who think 17" is too big and useless but there are a TON of users who wish apple would re-release the 17"

 

[Smutchings]

if A7 is indeed only 31% faster, then its got nothing on the upcoming slew of snapdragon 800 phones. Or even tegra 4 for that matter...

Tegra 3 flopped in performance. The HTC ONE X was outperformed in every day use by the ONE S, and that's where true performance matters. iOS is more frugal than the other OSes in the market, and gets more out of a dual-core CPU than android can get out of a quad (especially when you include the bloatware OEMs add in)

 

[57004]

From the article:

It’s unclear if 64-bit will make the cut, but it’s been in testing. We’re told that the 64-bit processing will make animations, transparencies, and other iOS 7 graphical effects appear much more smoothly than on existing iOS Devices…

That sounds a bit strange... Why would 64-bit be better graphically? The advantage of 64-bit is just more memory address space and larger integer operations. 32-bit is already enough to cover the required pixel space and colour space.

Also, animations usually aren't integer math and most of these animations are run by the GPU anyway.

It sounds like Apple is also including a special vector engine similar to AltiVec or SSE in this chip to increase animation performance, but that wouldn't necessarily be related to it being 64-bit.

 

[juanmanas]

This is crap.
Apple is banking 50% of its revenue, on a 30% speed bump??
At a time when the market is like red hot with competitors with various innovations??

Here we go. The apocalyptic man.

 

[ArtOfWarfare]

64-bit seems unlikely since it would require a complete re-write of the iOS kernel, and existing 32-bit applications would need to be run in emulation. Wouldn't we have seen some signs in the developer toolkit if it were 64-bit?

You might be a bit more up on this than I am, but my understanding is that all this would entail would be adding a flag to the compiler to say its 64 bit instead of 32 bit. Then you'd have to recompile all your existing apps. Pack the 32 and 64 bit executable in the same app package like they did for the transaction in OS X and the users never notice.

Or they could even one up that. Since everything in iOS is installed via the App Store, it could have both versions and automatically deliver only the correct one.

I've never taken a compiler class, so maybe this isn't as already solved as I think it is. I'm a computer engineer so it's not a required class, but I think I'll take one as an elective next semester.

 

[littyboy]

What do you need the extra power for? (not a dig just curious!)

My iPhone 5 runs smoothly on everything thrown at it (running iOS7) - I personally haven't found any situations yet where I wish it did something faster (I guess on iOS6 I wish the shutter animation was faster but that's solved in iOS7)

Here's how I'm looking at it. Speed is always a plus, especially if you put a lot of things inside your iphone like I do. Sure the iphone is fast, but if you store lots of videos and music and take up the space, you start to feel the actual lag. A lot of people use their iphones, but many of them just use a few apps, nothing that really slows down the phone so to them, the iphone 5 is blazing fast.

Another reason why you would want a speed boost is to assure you that the iOS will be progressing. You're going to need more processing power if you want to add more things to iOS. If Apple doesn't substantially upgrade the CPU, it'll give you an idea that iOS won't be going anywhere for a while...

 

[iJed]

Unless iOS is already written so that it can be compiled for both architectures (it would make sense from a forward-thinking perspective). But yes, 32-bit apps would need to run in emulation mode, not that the performance impact use to be noticeable, really. But the performance benefits from going 64-bit is often not noticeable either! Surely not for Instagram or Flipboard! So I'm also doubting this. Sure, it makes sense with desktops requiring 8 GB RAM and more, but I don't think phones are going to have an architectural problem this soon. And besides lifting the RAM roof, we aren't really speaking of huge benefits. iPhones aren't known to run CPU intensive apps like rendering farms or Matlab...

Sorry but this is simply incorrect. Emulation is effectively interpreting one instruction set, translating it to another and then executing the translated instructions. ARM64 on the other hand allows native execution of 32 bit ARM instructions since it fully implements the 32 bit ARM instruction set. It would be moronic to develop an instruction set in any other way.

Just look at history for other examples of this. PowerPC 64 could natively run 32 bit PowerPC code and operating systems. AMD64 CPUs could natively boot in 32 bit mode and natively run 32 bit Windows.

 

[GFLPraxis]

64-bit seems unlikely since it would require a complete re-write of the iOS kernel, and existing 32-bit applications would need to be run in emulation. Wouldn't we have seen some signs in the developer toolkit if it were 64-bit?

This is not true. 64-bit processors can run 32-bit binaries.

Core 2 Duo (64-bit) Macs did not need recompiled binaries to run apps that ran on Core Duo Intel Macs (32-bit).

G5 (64-bit) Macs did not need special software to run G4 (32-bit) Mac software.

 

[Zerilos]

Why does it need to be quad?

Exactly. People get caught up on meaningless numbers sometimes. Fact is, most Apps released for the next 2 year will run on the A5 and every app will run on the A6 for at least 2 more years.

 

[parapup]

May be Apple will finally put in more than 4GB RAM in iDevices - Hurray for no page reloads and disappearing streaming apps

Jokes aside - there really isn't an upside to putting AArch64 capable processors in a Phone/Tablet. Those were meant for servers. But no downside either since they can execute existing stuff just fine.

 

[Michael Goff]

May be Apple will finally put in more than 4GB RAM in iDevices - Hurray for no page reloads and disappearing streaming apps

Jokes aside - there really isn't an upside to putting AArch64 capable processors in a Phone/Tablet. Those were meant for servers. But no downside either since they can execute existing stuff just fine.

Why stop a 4GB?

They could be the first company with an 8GB RAM phone!

And 16GB in their iPad!

 

[viperGTS]

What do you need the extra power for? (not a dig just curious!)

My iPhone 5 runs smoothly on everything thrown at it (running iOS7) - I personally haven't found any situations yet where I wish it did something faster (I guess on iOS6 I wish the shutter animation was faster but that's solved in iOS7)

Personally, I want the extra power for even better graphics in games. I also want the apps I use to load faster (I'm definitely noticing some wait on apps like Twitter and Chase). Although, I come from a 4S so I'm probably not the best example. My 4S is pretty decent with speed, but I want it to be faster, I know the potential is there!

 

[cmChimera]

Exactly. People get caught up on meaningless numbers sometimes. Fact is, most Apps released for the next 2 year will run on the A5 and every app will run on the A6 for at least 2 more years.

It's not about the need to have one, it's WANTING one. Most games run fine on my Playstation 3, but games can do more on Playstation 4.

which is unfortunately what a lot of people on this forum don't understand.

i'm saying it's nice to have a BIGGER PHONE. did i say "get rid of the 4" phone?"

absolutely not.

keep that small phone for the complainers, although most of them would probably get a bigger phone once they try it

and to the people that are gonna say 'fragmentation', if you're a developer and you can't figure out how to optimize your app, then you simply shouldn't be developing.

it's nice to have options. i wonder if this was a big deal with 13", 15", 17" laptops. there are people who think 17" is too big and useless but there are a TON of users who wish apple would re-release the 17"

Keep the 4" for the complainers? Don't you mean make a bigger screen for the complainers? Aren't you the one complaining about the screen size right now?

Also I would think it's pretty obvious to see the difference in laptop screen size and smartphone screen size. It's a bit of a pointless comparison.

 

[parapup]

Why stop a 4GB?

They could be the first company with an 8GB RAM phone!

And 16GB in their iPad!

Aha! That may indeed be Apple's cunning plan to fix iCloud - if they can get millions of unsuspecting iPhone and iPad users to run their iCloud servers - say goodbye to outages!