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Qualcomm Marketing Executive Calls Apple's 64-Bit A7 Chip a 'Marketing Gimmick'
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I think we're all having a good discussion without all the nonsense fan boy crap.
Because it's only fan boy rhetoric that leads to played out arguments that have been done before. Unless you really think Apple is the only one that innovates. Or do you?
Sometimes it feels that way. Apple is the industry leader and everytime they do something others follow.
Really? How is that fingerprint sensor working out for you? Been there & done that before on mobile.
Edit - and with that I'm done, as I will not derail this thread
You mean the Motorola atrix? How did that work out for Motorola? Apple creates good products, why won't you give them credit.
I'd agree here.
64-bit makes no-sense on a mobile device, since no app currently can address over 3Gig.
Makes sense on desktop, but not tablets, (for now anyway)..
Apple may run into trouble 'thinking too far ahead'.
It's not like it makes the device run faster at all, just means apps can address more memory. How far in the future does Apple wanna bait this one??
64-bit makes no-sense on a mobile device, since no app currently can address over 3Gig.
Makes sense on desktop, but not tablets, (for now anyway)..
Apple may run into trouble 'thinking too far ahead'.
It's not like it makes the device run faster at all, just means apps can address more memory. How far in the future does Apple wanna bait this one??
There's always someone who comes late, doesn't read or understand any arguments on the thread, and posts the same old nonsense.
Just ask someone who understands these things or google how Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR) works, why it is important for security of devices, and how it benefits from larger address space even if the RAM size is small. Or ask what "memory mapping" is and how it benefits from 64 bit address space even with limited RAM. That's just to demonstrate that your argument is _wrong_.
On top of that, this thread is full of examples how 64 bit arithmetic gives sometimes dramatic speed improvements, which demonstrates that your last argument is rubbish as well.
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That's what is called a strawman. You put up a wrong argument for your opponent, then tear it down. Simple. But nobody sane claimed "64 bit code runs twice as fast across the board". People were refuting that the A7 chip is a "Marketing Gimmick". You don't need twice the speed for that.
And I wouldn't be surprised if a bignum library as it is used for RSA public key encryption would run more than twice as fast
Wouldn't 64 bit be better to 'force' people to upgrade now for some potential goodies down the road? I have a feeling we won't even begin to really see 64bit utilization until about 3 years from now (5 users and late comers have time to upgrade). Plus the iPad.
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Didn't Motorola create the RAZR creating one of the first 'it' phones. Please clean your mouth before you speak.
Sure Apple creates products that are great. But they rarely come up with something 'new'. Apple will take an old concept and make it awesome and USER friendly.
You seriously need to learn how to debate better because you completely dodged the question and back peddled. The fact is that the fingerprint sensor was on an ANDROID phone FIRST. Regardless of the implementation. Apple 'took'....or according to these forums STOLE the idea and made it work on their favor.
Just like what will happen when Apple decides to embrace NFC. Suddenly it's cool. Pls go.
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Didn't Motorola create the RAZR creating one of the first 'it' phones. Please clean your mouth before you speak.
Sure Apple creates products that are great. But they rarely come up with something 'new'. Apple will take an old concept and make it awesome and USER friendly.
You seriously need to learn how to debate better because you completely dodged the question and back peddled. The fact is that the fingerprint sensor was on an ANDROID phone FIRST. Regardless of the implementation. Apple 'took'....or according to these forums STOLE the idea and made it work on their favor.
Just like what will happen when Apple decides to embrace NFC. Suddenly it's cool. Pls go.
Did I say no other company has ever made a good product? Please clean your mouth before you speak.
Did I say that they come up with something new? I said they create great products and people copy them.
I didn't backpedal though. I said Apple creates great products and others follow. I never once said Apple does everything first. Your arguing an incorrect argument that I never argued.
It will be cool, because Apple will do it correctly, and everyone will start to adopt it. That's what makes it cool, not just being the first to do it...
That's what is called a strawman. You put up a wrong argument for your opponent, then tear it down. Simple. But nobody sane claimed "64 bit code runs twice as fast across the board". People were refuting that the A7 chip is a "Marketing Gimmick". You don't need twice the speed for that.
And I wouldn't be surprised if a bignum library as it is used for RSA public key encryption would run more than twice as fast
Well, it's really more reductio ad absurdum.
See, you're missing one important thing when it comes to 64-bit programs, and the potential for speed increases. You're not wrong necessarily, everything you've mentioned previously are advantages to making the big bit-jump. But...and here's what you're missing...
...it's only good for programs that need it.
I'll try and make a really bad analogy here. Say you're a gardener. Every day you're required to take two liters of water from your patio to your garden to water a specific plant. This plant always needs two liters of water. No more, no less. To do this, you buy a 1 gallon jug at the local Costco. It works fine for you since this jug provides almost double what you need.
So then one day your friend comes up and says "hey, I bought this two gallon jug for you. It'll carry twice as much water and increase your efficiently by 100%". Yeah, it's a bigger jug, and yeah, it can carry more water. But you only ever need 2 liters a day, so all that extra room isn't going to do you any good. It's a nice thing to have, this bigger jug, but for your specific task, you'll never take full advantage of it.
This is pretty much the way it is with iPhone apps and 64-bit. They now have considerably more room to play in, but really, they never took full advantage of the processing power 32-bit provided as it is. The jump to 64-bit isn't going to make it so developers can suddenly make their apps much faster or more efficient.
Thought there are advantages, such as quicker encryption calculation and whatnot, the vast majority of what you use your iPhone for doesn't need 64-bit, and won't perform better now that it has it.
64-bit is for the future of the iDevice line. For now? It's just there.
It's so funny that in the forum there are always people likes to "argue simply for the purpose of arguing". There have been so many comments above describing the details of other benefits of 64-bit architecture, and you still trying to make meaningless analogy with the over-simplified mind (implication) that "64-bit is ONLY useful for systems with 4GB or more RAM".
Please, at least you should try to understand people who replied you, with the polite expression trying to whisper to you what you have missed before your STUPID big-mouth sudden statement.
Okay, then explain to me in detail why 64-bit is a massive upgrade compared to 32-bit on the iPhone. Don't just throw benchmarks and articles at me. Spell it out for me in big block letters.
And when you explain it to me in these big block letters, I want you to go into excruciating detail about how or why it not only will, but has currently opened up an entirely new world of possibilities for iPhone apps. If you talk about 64-bit address space, memory mapping, headers, anything, I want you to drill down to the bare metal and throw everything you know at me as to why it's so much better than 32-bit for iPhones apps.
...because if you're gonna call me stupid, I at least expect you to know a helluva lot more about the subject than I do.
So let's hear it. Humble me.
Too many people seem to confuse the fact that arm64 is simply a better ISA, and the A7 is an improved, faster CPU -- with the fact that the A7 has a 64-bit mode.
Consider that a Haswell running x86 code would be far faster than a Core 2 running x64 code. What does that say about the "magical" 64-bits?
Must agree - Apple has lifted and/or copied plenty from others. They ALL do it. Period. Nothing to see here
No one is emphasizing that it is "massive upgrade" for every app. Being not "massive upgrade" does not mean that it's "gimmicks" or "won't perform better". A 10% improvement is still "better".
There have been so many different posts above listing the different aspects of the improvement useful to most apps, the ARMv8 architecture, the instruction set, the register, the optimizations that becomes practical, as well as those from the nature of 64-bit-ness. I don't think I want to spend a whole lot of time to repeat them. Go read them yourself.
There have been a few people hyping up 64-bit like it's the second coming. Thing is, most apps won't even see a 10% increase in performance. Most iPhone style apps will run about exactly the same. There will be some that do run better, which is what I've been saying since day one, but you won't see across the board improvements.
Like Aidenshaw said, most of the performance gains you're seeing are from the A7 just being a better chip, not just because it's 64-bit.
And like I've said previously, I don't think 64-bit is a gimmick. I just know we won't see any direct benefits from it for a couple years yet. For iPhone class apps, it offers no advantages over 32-bit.
I've read 'em. Thing is, it's mostly people going down the 64-bit feature list, and throwing them into the discussion. Such as it can do X, which means it'll automatically make Y better without understanding exactly what it does.
Like memory mapping. I see it getting tossed around a lot. It's a great feature, sure...for multithreaded applications running across multiple processors. It's there so all your processors can work together more efficiently, pooling from a common set of data mapped to a specific address space. For programs running one or two threads, likely working on entirely separate processes, it won't offer any performance advantages. From what I know of it, it's more important for bucket rendering and multiple processors crunching through blocks of heavy data than it is making webpages load faster.
It all pretty much backs up my original opinion of the issue. 64-bit can offer huge performance advantages...for applications that need it. The vast, vast, vast majority of iPhone apps don't. For right now at least, 64-bit is just there, not offering any pluses or minuses to the platform.
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Have a look at the actual performance test data for each iOS app for 32-bit vs. 64-bit, running on the same 5s hardware, you will be surprised how many of them do get real improvements. A lot of normal users will sure benefit when more and more apps release their 64-bit versions, which won't be long.
Perhaps you need to fact check before railing on somebody else:
A fingerprint sensor on a phone was definitely not an Android first.
It's on Motorola Windows Mobile phone before the first Android shipped.
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Motorola-Napoleon-Q9-Prepared-by-Verizon-89229.shtml
It was on a Toshiba in 2007.
http://it.slashdot.org/story/07/02/15/0159242/toshiba-puts-fingerprint-readers-on-cell-phones
It was on a Fujitsu in 2003.
http://fingerchip.pagesperso-orange.fr/biometrics/types/fingerprint_products_pdaphones.htm
(And yes, I own one of these.)
Then why make it? It *is* a bad analogy, and just plain wrong.
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i t ' s d e m o n s t r i b l y f a s t e r.
Sorry, but MacRumors doesn't seem to like all-caps. And so I don't think they would really appreciate IEFSD095 either:
http://www.mainframe.eu/mvs38/asm/Job Sheduler (IEF)/IEFSD095
You know that putting spaces in a word keeps the spell checker from letting you know that you've misspelled demonstrably, no?
And if you've been reading the threads on this topic - you'd know that most posters acknowledge that the A7 is faster - but say that it's faster because it's a new chip with a better ISA. Few apps are faster purely because it's 64-bit, but many are faster because it's a faster chip.
True. Even in the keynote they talked about how they doubled the registers and made other improvements. They never said "this is twice as fast because we made it 64-bit."
Besides, who cares why it's twice as fast? IT'S TWICE AS FAST. Apple didn't have to do that. Most iPhone buyers don't care about specs the way people who post to Apple and Android forums do.