Analog Kid
macrumors G3
Did you read the article? Look at the stock? I don't think PortalPlayer (PLAY) voluntarily took a more than 40% hit to their stock price as part of an elaborate ruse...Oats said:
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
PortalPlayer Losing Apple's iPod Business?
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
MrCrowbar said:
we already got the 8 pounder.... ipod hi-fi
We need to remeber that apple droppend symantics or whatever they were called and started making there own click wheels
Analog Kid said:
Errr... sounds to me like the scenario he played out would definitely warrant a 40% hit in stock. ESPECIALLY if they R&D'd a chip that won't be used. And any move by Apple to go somewhere else for chips means they'll most likely be tapering off their use of PP chips. At least at the end of product cycle.
PP's sugar daddy is going away, and they just announced it. One way or the other.
Evangelion said:
The iPod already contains not one but two "full blown CPUs" the ere are two ARM cores in that little gadget. It's the Same CPU that is used in some routers. People have ported Linux to the iPod as there is am Arm/Lnux port.
MarkCollette
macrumors 68000
Because of the small size of iPods, they have to use a SoC (System on Chip) solution, and not a general purpose CPU + Northbridge + Southbridge chipset like a regular computer.
From the PortalPlayer website, they say their products use 32 bit ARM 7 cores, which might lead to Apple using an Intel XScale (previously called StrongArm). But who knows? Maybe Samsung, etc...
So we might as well conjecture MacRumors style 🙂 I say these are possible scenarios:
- A new asynchronous logic CPU that uses even less power
- Some new chip with hardware H.264 or whatever video decoding
- Some other boringly similar chip that's $1 less
- A GPU baby, and everything's coded in pixel shader language! 😉
- What, no one's mentionned Cell yet?! Finally, OS X ported to Cell, running on an iPod
- From the dungeons of Transmeta... Are they still in business?
From the PortalPlayer website, they say their products use 32 bit ARM 7 cores, which might lead to Apple using an Intel XScale (previously called StrongArm). But who knows? Maybe Samsung, etc...
So we might as well conjecture MacRumors style 🙂 I say these are possible scenarios:
- A new asynchronous logic CPU that uses even less power
- Some new chip with hardware H.264 or whatever video decoding
- Some other boringly similar chip that's $1 less
- A GPU baby, and everything's coded in pixel shader language! 😉
- What, no one's mentionned Cell yet?! Finally, OS X ported to Cell, running on an iPod
- From the dungeons of Transmeta... Are they still in business?
Cless said:
I think you are referring to the nvidia goforce 5500. I would really like to see that chip in an iPod paired with an intel Monahans cpu. This could enable high definition playback on the iPod, it could also enable higher quality audio.
http://www.nvidia.com/page/goforce_5500.html
http://www.palminfocenter.com/news/8044/intel-announces-next-generation-xscale-processors/
http://www.digitimes.com/mobos/a20060308PR200.html
Micron is producing newest ipod chips
There is a Micron plant near Lehi, Utah that has been there for around 10 years, it is just barely being reopened and a friend of mine who will be working there has told me they are producing things for ipods could this be who apple switched to?
There is a Micron plant near Lehi, Utah that has been there for around 10 years, it is just barely being reopened and a friend of mine who will be working there has told me they are producing things for ipods could this be who apple switched to?
Analog Kid
macrumors G3
Hm. Maybe I misread the ALL CAPS emphasis, but I thought his implication was that PortalPlayer wasn't losing any business from Apple ("losing 0% or Apple's business") and this was all a semantics game causing confusion around the use of the term "Flash based players".bretm said:
One chip development that didn't go anywhere wouldn't have this kind of impact on the stock. Losing your principle customer would.
brayden2544 said:
That plant is for flash memory; not the controller chips like Portal makes.
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,635163146,00.html
ChrisA said:
By "full-blown CPU" I'm referring to CPU's that people actually use in laptops and desktops. And Core Solo (even at ULV-configurations) is such a chip. No, the iPod will use a proper EMBEDDED CPU, such as Arm or Xscale.
Compare that "full-blown" CPU in iPod (Arm) to Core Solo and see the difference.
Cless said:
Fair enough - I have a very powerful PDA (Dell Axim x50v) with a VGA screen. When you say move AT LEAST to SD - SD is quite sufficient for such a small screen. I watch XviD shows at 640x480 on their and it looks gorgeous - you don't need any more than 640x480 (Standard Definition) on such a small screen!
On another note, the movie playback on my Axim is amazing, and it has a Intel Xscale (624mhz) inside, coupled with the reasonably new Intel 2700G graphics card. The software I use for playback actually has drivers for the 2700G, and is very comfortable at playing back 350mb XviD shows.
Of course, all of this is all on one chip. I think it could be quite feasible to cram something similar into a new touchscreen iPod - The CPU wouldn't need to be so powerful if backed up by a dedicated card...
See here for 2700g: http://www.intel.com/design/pca/prodbref/300571.htm
And here specific for Axim x50v: http://www.aximsite.com/articles/link.php?id=200
Videos? Mobile phones? BLAH!
Just give me an audio player that *works*. No clicks and pops on Lame-encoded material (like the nano) and, above all, gapless playback. What's the point of tagging on feature after another if the thing doesn't work as it should?
Just give me an audio player that *works*. No clicks and pops on Lame-encoded material (like the nano) and, above all, gapless playback. What's the point of tagging on feature after another if the thing doesn't work as it should?