Except that, at the time, 64bit hardware wasn't yet ready for the consumer market. It was prohibitively expensive.
Once the hardware started becoming feasible for the home consumer to purchase, we next ran into the issue that there were no good tools to convert 32 bit software to take advantage of 64 bit. It was a manual, laborious, and risky process. It took a long time to break through the inertia of 32 bit.
What Apple's done with the 5S and the iOS development tools, though, is remove that inertia. It's a brilliant move on their part. The Infinity Blade developers were able to get a single developer to port their newest iOS game to native 64 bit in /two hours/. That's ridiculously nothing. The PC world had /nothing/ like that. Don't look at how long it took for 64 bit architecture to take hold in the PC consumer market as an indication of its merits and flaws.
That impressed the hell out of me as well, and I'm surprised that it hasn't been picked up on very much (or at all).
Too bad we can't have a policy that prevents people that clearly don't understand the full implications of a true 64 bit architecture (from a hardware, software, and hardware/software integration point of view) from posting on this topic.
I know people mean well when they way it's rubbish, or propaganda, or hype. I know they think they have the whole package when they mention 4GB of ram, or doubling of pointer sizes ... but there is so, so much more to 64 bit architecture than just directly accessing >4GB of RAM, or the fact that pointer sizes double.
The size of the bus, the reduction in trips out to memory and back, the dramatic reduction in cycles required for any math requiring 64 bit (or larger) data types, the doubling of registers. There is so much that, done right, can take good advantage of the new architecture. Much of the underlying OS that the phone runs on, for example. Many types of applications will benefit. Anything that involves encryption will greatly benefit.
Don't believe people that say it's just a marketing bullet point. It's not. Will it suddenly make your phone achieve Warp Factor 10? No. But it will have a very real impact and opens up more possibilities not only for the OS but for new hardware, applications, and design considerations.
I also just read a few things in articles that mentioned that the 64 bit CPU is theoretically very useful for the camera processing and image capturing stuff, and also for the finger print ID stuff. They were quite clear that--if implemented correctly--the 64 bit CPU
would make these tasks easier and faster.
I've also read people speculating that this early move to 64 bit on a mobile CPU has a lot to do with moving the macbook airs to the A-series processors.
Honestly, for anyone who really knew about the CPU industry (pre-swift cores and pre-PA semi acquisition) the move to a
custom made, hand laid out CPU was shocking. I read a whole long article saying why Apple wouldn't want to get into the CPU design business just for the cell phones. And yet they did!
There are two types of ARM licenses. One type allows you to use an ARM core, and from what I can tell it's fairly common and easy to buy. The other type allows you to use the ARM
instruction set in your own
custom cores. Palo Alto Semiconductor has one of those rare second types of licenses, and is presumably part of the reason Apple bought them, along with the fact that they are said to have over 100 of the best chip designers on the planet working for them.
The CPU's in both the 5 and now the 5S have had custom designed cores as well as SOC's. It's really quite remarkable. And it allows Apple to be 6 months ahead of the competition in their CPU's. Or so I've read.
And yet Apple seems to get very little credit for going to all this trouble! Or not on MR, anyway. Well, I for one am freaking impressed. And I do think it's very likely that Apple is deliberately working towards the day when they will make not only their mobile chips, but their laptop ones as well. At least on some of their lineup, e.g. the Airs.
Who knows what they are up to? But to just write it all off as "marketing hype" is a bit dense. Was there marketing hype in the Sept. 10th address? Certainly there was! Is that the main reason they went to all the trouble to design a 64 bit CPU? I highly freaking doubt it. If Apple went for that, a lot of things would have been presented (and done) differently in the past. There would be a 10 or 12 MP camera in the iPhone, for example. Apple knows what they are doing. They rarely make a misstep.
