Any idea if Apple will choose the single radio interface at a time path that they did with the 5 last year? I really hated losing my data connection while i was on the phone with my 5...
Not sure what you're asking. GSM carriers like AT&T have been able to do this for a while. Verizon, and CDMA in general, cannot because they never implemented the SVDO part of the CDMA standard that would have allowed it. They do, however, plan to implement VoLTE, which would provide the feature you're asking for. Qualcomm's radios support it, so it would simply be a matter of Apple implementing it.
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There's a few more things I wanted to cover before tomorrow's event.
WiFi
I neglected to go over WiFi because I thought there was a fair chance it would retain the Broadcom BCM4334, although a strong possibility remained that Apple would upgrade to the
Broadcom BCM4335, which is essentially the same chip with ac added (same process node @45nm, same feature set except addition of ac). Although support is low in the industry, apple's newest airport extreme router supports it, and the recent macbook airs also support it. Though scenarios that utilize the peak bandwidth of ac are likely to never occur on the iPhone, ac does have increased efficiency over N which could save battery life. Keep an eye out for ac support mentioned in the keynote and the Broadcom BCM4335 in the ifixit teardown.
Display
I've already covered how advanced the iphone 5 display is and how any improvements would likely be towards power savings (via IGZO transistors or GRAM). There has actually been some more information come to light on the GRAM angle. It turns out that Motorola's G2 is not the only phone to feature this. Motorola's new Moto X also features this, as well as the new Nexus 7 tablet. If you follow this
series of tweets, you'll see a discussion between anandtech writers and a qualcomm engineer about the benefits of this method.
The qualcomm engineer points out that the benefit isn't as great as it would seem because android now supports something called "composition bypass." Composition bypass allows openGL apps to draw directly to the frame buffer (the memory that will be written to the display), rather than write to a surface still retained on the software side, which is then written to the framebuffer. This allows the apps to write to only the updated memory locations in the framebuffer rather than having the surface update the entire framebuffer. This just means that you're writing less memory, which saves power. In a full GRAM scenario, the write to the framebuffer would never happen if there was an update, and the display would simply self-refresh from its local GRAM. I don't know if Apple has a similar API that implements a similar framebuffer update paradigm, regardless of their aspirations for display RAM.
I also didn't mention the use of in-cell technology (which laminates touch layer directly to LCD instead of having an intermediary glass layer) because it is expected to be retained for the iphone 5S.
However, there have been developments in cover glass. Since the launch of the iphone 5, which uses gorilla glass 2,
gorilla glass 3 has launched. Of course, it boasts improved damage resistance and scratch resistance. This means either can retain glass thickness and get a tougher screen, or it make the screen even thinner and retain the same level of strength.
There have also been rumors of Apple using
sapphire crystal instead of glass for its displays. While Macrumors notes that it is considerably more expensive than gorilla glass, it does boast higher scratch resistance, albeit with
less strength. There is an argument to be made that strength is eclipsed by scratch resistance once it reaches a certain level. However, the latest reports suggest that
sufficient volume doesn't exist for sapphire crystals as a display material.
Given all of this evidence, it seems as though Apple will stay with Gorilla Glass this generation, likely opting for Gorilla Glass 3. It is also likely Apple will coat the display in an oleophobic coating, something they've done since the iPhone 3GS.
Camera
While I deferred to Macrumors' roundup on the camera rumors, I would be remiss if I didn't mention the possibility of Apple including Optical Image Stabilization (OIS). This is a vibration damping scheme that takes shakiness (and/or blurriness) out of image and video capture. LG's new G2 implements
this, with HTC and Nokia also having implementations in their latest smartphones.
OIS, coupled with a windowed still image capture (such as HTC's "Zoe" feature), 120 FPS recording for slow motion, and dual LEDs would make a compelling camera upgrade package for the 5S along with an increased megapixel camera that retains or improves pixel size and retains or improves aperture size.
Other things to watch out for
Look for an update to the PMIC (power management intregrated circuit). This will be an apple branded chip with Dialog silicon IP in it. An update to this could mean a more aggressive asynchronous clock/voltage management between CPU cores, like the Qualcomm solution, that saves power.
As was discussed on the previous page, also look for an update to the Cirrus audio codec, which could allow for higher bitrate music output.
There are a lot of chips I didn't cover like RF power amplifiers and demultiplexers, gyroscope, accelerometer, touch screen controllers, trackpad controllers (used in conjunction with with the touch screen controller).
I'll try to track all of the things that change and give an explanation of the differences between parts once the teardown is complete.
Happy watching!
