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Right now, 64bit is just marketing fluff and nothing else!
- Thread starter prism
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People will still but the phone, so its a waste of time writing things up like this.... It wont put people off.... but i suppose its a nice to know.
You have to transition to 64-bit at some point. I imagine that this is the innitial first step and in 2-3 years time we will see the full benefit of the move to 64-bit.
In short, I would rather have a more future proof phone so I don't see it as a gimmick.
In short, I would rather have a more future proof phone so I don't see it as a gimmick.
Good point, but also in favor or waiting for the iPhone 6 instead of jumping on the bandwagon today. By that time we should start to see some of the benefits of 64bit.
The extra registers could provide a small gain, maybe 2-3% for some tasks and 4-5% for other tasks, on the iPhone. I wouldn't expect much more than that. The applications that would benefit most from the extra registers aren't the type of applications that you typically find on a phone.
I suspect the real reason for Apple's 64-bit push may be to distinguish dual-core (IP5/IP5C and earlier) and quad-core (IP5S) Apple platforms. I suspect compiling 64-bit for the IP5S will enable additional optimizations for multithreading.
Also, this way when Samsung releases the GALAXY S 27 with IGZO HD MAXX LAZER 10" display, NEBULA ROCKETSHIP 50.8 GHZ cpu, PLASTECH shell, and 60 MP LAZER TRUPIX camera and decides to add a 64 bit chipset, people can't say Apple is playing catchup.
Couple of things:
1) Classic example of a headline not matching the content. In the first paragraph they admit there are performance benefits to moving to ARMv8. There's also going to be performance improvements from the design of the chip itself.
2) The argument is based around there being no benefit if you're the first person that moves because you need apps to be 64 bit, not just the OS. This is correct... but incredibly short sighted. Delivering the potential to run 64 bit apps in conjunction with a massive redesign of iOS is going to encourage a lot of developers to take advantage of that functionality. It's the perfect time to start making this switch and - here's the important thing - it's a switch that every single mobile manufacturer is going to have to make. Apple are now ahead of the game and within... what, two years or so every iOS device they sell will be 64 bit capable.
It's the equivalent of saying that the Mac moving to Intel was just marketing. In the beginning, yes for the most part it was, but the long term benefits were instantly obvious. Same thing with iOS going 64 bit. Though that said the big benefit is likely to be the iPad rather than the iPhone. It's going to be fascinating to see what the A7X can do and, more importantly perhaps, if Apple introduce new software to take advantage of that power...
I dont agree, the article mentions the longer term benefits you allude to but emphasises that we wont notice much of a difference in the shorter term. The iPhone 5s is the only iPhone with a 64bit chip, compared with the installed base of 32bit ios devices, it is an insignificant fraction of the total. That will of course change in time as new 64bit devices are rolled out. If I were a developer, right now I would feel no urgency to create a 64bit version of my app, unless, of course, it is a simple push button exercise to convert.
Yes but trolls like specs and numbers - for some reason people on this forum deem it necessary to have 4 cores inside of a device the size of an iPhone - neglecting to understand 2 things - something like the Galaxy S4 has the room for this, but more importantly, iOS couldn't run any smoother, Android on the other hand isn't optimised for any one handset so the more power you can run for it the better - 4 cores in my testing is still not as silky smooth as an iPhone 5. So again, its pointless specs which mean nothing as its relative to user experience.
At the moment 64bit won't impact that but for every Android fan that shouts "ive got the fasters CPU" an iPhone 5S owner can reply "Ive got the worlds only 64bit smartphone" - both of which make no difference to their end experience.
But still, its worth making a point that Apple were the first 64bit phone, the first dual flash and the first finger print sensor. When this is normal on other devices it'll be forgot and Android fans will claim it was all coming anyway
At the moment 64bit won't impact that but for every Android fan that shouts "ive got the fasters CPU" an iPhone 5S owner can reply "Ive got the worlds only 64bit smartphone" - both of which make no difference to their end experience.
But still, its worth making a point that Apple were the first 64bit phone, the first dual flash and the first finger print sensor. When this is normal on other devices it'll be forgot and Android fans will claim it was all coming anyway
sure. go play angry birds
i saw infinity blade 3, and besides the special addons like lens flares etc, i didnt see moving grass or better textures.
While not a simple flip switch the message that Apple gave to developers yesterday via the Infinity Blade demo was 'it's borderline trivial'. I seem to remember the devs mentioning 2 hours to convert the code from 32 bit.
And here's the thing, the 5s is the only device *now* but:
a) there's a unique opportunity with iOS7 for new apps to challenge the incumbents in (almost) any area. If there's any potential benefit to devs using 64 bit apps for that particular task then I suspect you'll see them go that route. Plus, let's be fair here, devs tend to be geeks too and they're going to want to convert just to see if they can!
b) the iPad's are coming
At the very least the next iPad will surely have an A7-derived SoC and I wouldn't be at all surprised to see one in a retina iPad Mini (actually, I suspect it'll be a standard A7 as that'd be roughly equivalent to an A6X if Apple are accurate with their 2x performance boost on GPU claims). We'll have to see what the A7 is actually packing under the heatsink (I suspect we may be in for a surprise when it comes to number of cores) but an A7X could be a massively powerful SoC if Apple have the battery capacity to go that route. It's always tricky to work out exact sales figures but the iPhone 5 sold somewhere north of 30 million between its introduction and the end of 2012. The iPad sold around 23 million in the last quarter of 2012 (albeit that's ALL iPad's not just the 4 and mini). It's therefore not unreasonable to predict more than 50 million 64 bit iOS devices will be sold between now and the end of the year.
That's a potentially huge market and there's a part of me that still thinks Apple aren't done with the A7 this year. I keep going back to a phrase used in the presentation of "desktop class architecture". That struck me as odd at the time and still does. Yeah, it's a great bit of marketing but it's rare that Apple throw something like that in without *some* bit of functionality to go with it. They just made iPhoto and iMovie free... how would an A7X coupled with iOS versions of Aperture and Final Cut Pro look? More importantly, what signal would it send to the watching world about the sort of apps you can deliver on the platform?