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Code in iOS 7 Suggests Upcoming A7 iPhone Chip Will Include Samsung Components
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I think it's more like Apple needs them more and Samsung is just willing to make more cash off Apple. It's pretty obvious that Apple hates Samsung so why give them more business.
Because no one beside Samsung meet Apple's need? In both quality and quantity requirement.
"Hey, let's sue the crap out of each other and then continue to use your components in our products."
Why are so many folks on here impressed with specs? Who cares if it has 2, 4 or 8 cores if the overall experience sucks?
I have a quad core HTC One X and it feels like an old 3GS at times due to the inefficiencies of Android and an underpowered GPU.
I have a quad core HTC One X and it feels like an old 3GS at times due to the inefficiencies of Android and an underpowered GPU.
Good news. Glad to hear we're acting like adults again. In the end, these two working together is good for everyone.
I'd like to see 2GB of ram as well mainly for the fact that with every new release of iOS there are going to be more and more features that will require more memory. Essentially the more ram the iPhone has the better it will be at running the next version of iOS.
Looks like Apple integrated Samsung's DisplayPort transmitter IP block. Logical given the chip is manufactured by Samsung on their process and this IP is in their process proven library - there is no point in reinventing the wheel or going elsewhere for said IP.
Lightning connector has two generic differential data pairs that can be assigned to any particular use. So far one of them has been used for USB D+/D-, but it's easy to imagine the other one used for a single lane DisplayPort output. Remember the iPhone In-Dash integration where it would drive the car's built-in screen? Make sense, right?
All Apple A series SoC part numbers actually follow Samsung's processor/SoC part numbering scheme - all this S5Lxxxx is a continuation of Samsungs's off-the-shelf SoCs used in iPhone 3GS and prior. I wonder when Apple designs a chip to be made at TSMC, will they change the part number to something unique?
http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/file/product/Mobile_SoC-0.pdf
Lightning connector has two generic differential data pairs that can be assigned to any particular use. So far one of them has been used for USB D+/D-, but it's easy to imagine the other one used for a single lane DisplayPort output. Remember the iPhone In-Dash integration where it would drive the car's built-in screen? Make sense, right?
All Apple A series SoC part numbers actually follow Samsung's processor/SoC part numbering scheme - all this S5Lxxxx is a continuation of Samsungs's off-the-shelf SoCs used in iPhone 3GS and prior. I wonder when Apple designs a chip to be made at TSMC, will they change the part number to something unique?
http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/file/product/Mobile_SoC-0.pdf
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"Code in McDonald's menu points to Heinz ketchup in its hamburgers."
I know the two are pretty much rivals, but Samsung is one of the top chip producers in the world. Even if Apple were to come up with some goal of ridding its products of Samsung components, it would take time. Hell, Google is still the default search engine in iOS 6, and we know how buddy-buddy Apple and Google are.
I know the two are pretty much rivals, but Samsung is one of the top chip producers in the world. Even if Apple were to come up with some goal of ridding its products of Samsung components, it would take time. Hell, Google is still the default search engine in iOS 6, and we know how buddy-buddy Apple and Google are.
Quad core + 2GB = Take my Money!
If none of those, then buying iPhone 5 or HTC One.
apple is, as it's always been, after the user experience -- not specs. I could honestly care less what sort of processor is in my phone as long as it continues to serve me well and offer value.
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sure, buddy. you're on an apple rumor site, but you're going to start boycotting them.
Samsung and Apple are like a [unstable co-depdent] married couple; a love/hate relationship. They sleep in the same bed but play with others, accuse each other of cheating, have public brawls and reconciliations, fight over who's right, "borrow" each others things, never admit to mistakes, yet somehow stay with and depend on each other.
Unfortunately & fortunately they still will (have to) be using Samsung hardware at times in the pipeline. I know they are trying to get away from silly samsungy, especially with the screens... next is some of the chipsets, but they are in a jam(not really though, just an Apple ego ting).
I'm glad Apple is big buds with Sharp now... Sharp is the co that Apple wants/needs for the future, they have the best screens. Pioneered the flatscreen industry as we know it.
Give it 3yrs, and you may see little or no Samsung hardware in any of Apple products. I do believe we will see Samsung for another couple years in the manufacturing hardware pipeline, mainly still chipsets and not screens so much.
I'm glad Apple is big buds with Sharp now... Sharp is the co that Apple wants/needs for the future, they have the best screens. Pioneered the flatscreen industry as we know it.
Give it 3yrs, and you may see little or no Samsung hardware in any of Apple products. I do believe we will see Samsung for another couple years in the manufacturing hardware pipeline, mainly still chipsets and not screens so much.
Yeah, but I think Apple wants it to be as little 'future proof' as possible... Their single goal is to make you buy a new phone as often as possible. So, I would be highly surprised if they offer 2 GB of RAM on this one.
It may very well be possible for Apple to double the performance of its dual core solution with architecture improvements, clock speed increases and more cache. I don't think they need to go quad core to deliver a substantially faster processor. A process shrink alone would allow a significant clock rate increase with out a thermal penalty.
That being said a process shrink also opens up more die area for exploitation by cores or enhanced GPUs. More CPU cores would be immediately put to work by many apps so this is a good thing. I just don't think it is required to make a dramatically faster iPhone.
A manufactures part number often varies from that of the customer. I don't see this as a big deal.
What would be a big deal is Apple supporting Display Port. With a wireless keyboard the iPhone could become a passable desktop solution. I'm not sure if Apple wants to go this route or not.
How would this work with no mouse support and minimal keyboard shortcuts available?
DisplayPort support does not mean any desktop ambitions. Better external display support would become possible though. Currently the Lightning HDMI adapter works over USB and decodes H.264 encoded content much like AirPlay mirroring. Having a DisplayPort would make it possible to use a DisplayPort to HDMI adapter and have uncompressed video output.
This time it may be just DisplayPort, but naturally at some point in the future when it becomes feasible, it will be replaced with Thunderbolt proper, which is using the same physical layer and being packet based, can mix PCI Express and DisplayPort packets over the same data lane. Lightning was conceived with the future in mind.
As for processor - I can hardly imagine gaining 2x performance from a new dual core design. Apple's Swift core already approaches Cortex-A15 performance levels and already clocks quite high - not as high as competing chips, but as high as one can reasonably go without power consumption creeping up considerably. There's a certain sweet spot for performance/watt and most 3rd party SoC's operate past that point mainly to impress with numbers and benchmarks.
Sure it's possible to design a core with higher performance per MHz, but you soon run into diminishing returns for the extra silicon and complexity it requires to achieve it.
Maybe it's time for quad core, carefully managed and mostly shut off by iOS in real world use? If you look at A6 floorplan you'd see the pair of Swift cores does not take that much space, it's not hard to imagine Apple doubling the cores this time around for 5S as has been done with 4S.
Btw. that part number is Apple's official part number, not just Samsung's code for it. Everywhere in iOS it is referred to as S5Lxxxx.
This time it may be just DisplayPort, but naturally at some point in the future when it becomes feasible, it will be replaced with Thunderbolt proper, which is using the same physical layer and being packet based, can mix PCI Express and DisplayPort packets over the same data lane. Lightning was conceived with the future in mind.
As for processor - I can hardly imagine gaining 2x performance from a new dual core design. Apple's Swift core already approaches Cortex-A15 performance levels and already clocks quite high - not as high as competing chips, but as high as one can reasonably go without power consumption creeping up considerably. There's a certain sweet spot for performance/watt and most 3rd party SoC's operate past that point mainly to impress with numbers and benchmarks.
Sure it's possible to design a core with higher performance per MHz, but you soon run into diminishing returns for the extra silicon and complexity it requires to achieve it.
Maybe it's time for quad core, carefully managed and mostly shut off by iOS in real world use? If you look at A6 floorplan you'd see the pair of Swift cores does not take that much space, it's not hard to imagine Apple doubling the cores this time around for 5S as has been done with 4S.
Btw. that part number is Apple's official part number, not just Samsung's code for it. Everywhere in iOS it is referred to as S5Lxxxx.
The irony is, only Windows have the OS that runs on what people consider crap specs today. I was really impressed by the Nokia 925.
I'm trying out a HTC one, really impressed with the performance, had no idea what the X would suffer. Guess it shows Android works as long as your on the latest hardware