Id really like more info on what the A6 actually is, if not the A15 id love to know what apple did, seems kind of odd that they didn't make mention of customizing it themselves, they are usually quick to pat themselves on the back for design work.
And yet they also like keeping secrets. This could be a secret worth keeping as long as they can -- it's a safe bet that if they did something good here, people will try to copy it.
Maybe, but now they might have to concede that Apple actually invents their own stuff. What could be worse for an Apple hater than to find out Apple engineered their own processor?
The latter, but it will take them a while to figure it out. Funny the things that apple-hate can do to cognitive abilities.
Speed, reliability and service life issues aside -- I find micro SD cards are antithetical to the concept of a "grab and go always with you" smart phone.
Do the cards protrude from the phone when in use -- snagging on pockets?
Do you need a special phone case to accommodate a protruding card?
Where do you put them and their individual little cases when you are on the go -- do you need a separate bag or case for the SD cards?
How do you keep track of what data/content/apps are on which SD card -- do you need to carry and maintain index cards or somesuch?
How do you manage/move/delete the contents from card to card
I find the whole process too "fiddley" -- too much busy work and another thing to clutter your mind and pockets.
Not to mention all the design issues. Adding a card reader adds bulk (and power consumption) to the device. No wonder Android phones are so huge.
There's also the reliability concern. A card reader is a space for moisture and dirt to enter the phone and also a source of possible problems when the card is damaged or the contacts get dirty.
Overall, it's just a lousy idea. Not to mention an unnecessary one. Unless you plan to take your entire movie collection with you everywhere you go, there's no need for it.
"NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition!
Our chief weapon is surprise...
surprise and fear...
fear and surprise....
Our two weapons are fear and surprise...
and ruthless efficiency....
Our three weapons are fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency..
and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope....
Our four...no...
Amongst our weapons....
Amongst our weaponry...
are such elements as fear, surprise....
I'll come in again."
Id really like more info on what the A6 actually is, if not the A15 id love to know what apple did, seems kind of odd that they didn't make mention of customizing it themselves, they are usually quick to pat themselves on the back for design work.
And yet they also like keeping secrets. This could be a secret worth keeping as long as they can -- it's a safe bet that if they did something good here, people will try to copy it.
That is one area of patent law where there is no wiggle room. Even Samsung cannot copy CPU architecture. They already know everything about the chip. They made it.
Speed, reliability and service life issues aside -- I find micro SD cards are antithetical to the concept of a "grab and go always with you" smart phone.
Do the cards protrude from the phone when in use -- snagging on pockets?
Do you need a special phone case to accommodate a protruding card?
Where do you put them and their individual little cases when you are on the go -- do you need a separate bag or case for the SD cards?
How do you keep track of what data/content/apps are on which SD card -- do you need to carry and maintain index cards or somesuch?
How do you manage/move/delete the contents from card to card
I find the whole process too "fiddley" -- too much busy work and another thing to clutter your mind and pockets.
An iPhone has no use for an SD card except to import photos, however, Android allows file system access so they can use the SD card as a sort of sneaker net to move files from one device to another. It is a poor way of providing general storage though, because it is not contiguous with the built in device storage and you cannot use it to store or run apps. (although there are hacks to allow apps on SD card they are often problematic)
Maybe, but now they might have to concede that Apple actually invents their own stuff. What could be worse for an Apple hater than to find out Apple engineered their own processor?
They block it out of their memories like it never happened, so they can continue to claim Apple never invents anything and just repackages other companies' components and dresses it up in stale designs and stale UIs.
Unless they paid Qualcomm for IP or subcontracted some of the work to Q I doubt apple made a Krait like custom core. It took qualcomms army of engineers years to develop the first snapdragon processor, they're first custom SOC with a custom core. As much as I believe in apples innovative abilities I just doubt they built a krait like processor of there first try at a custom core.
Also, if they did build a krait type cpu then why didnt they incorporate the radio into the chip like qualcomm did? That would have been very apple-like to put it all in the same piece of silicon and they're already buying the chip from qualcomm so why not license it from them and just build it into the SoC.
You're missing many facts here, and the semantics are really unnecessary. What you don't seem to understand is that the NAND storage of the iphone does not in any way compare to the performance of what most people think of as an SSD. If we assume an SSD refers to a notebook class device, you won't find it in a phone. Micro SD should be on par with what is available to the iphone is close enough for bulk storage. I remember Micro SD being around 15 MB/s write. Both are a far stretch from what we think of as SSDs. Take a look at the Anandtech review. This was the 4s, but the NAND found in phones will not perform at the level of the SATA drives in your macbook pros and airs. It won't even compare favorably with notebook class HDDs. Power consumption is most likely a much bigger concern than absolute performance for these kinds of devices.
The flash in the better smartphones is much faster than that in cheap sticks or SD cards. One thing that holds them back is the lack of a drive controller like what we see in an SSD. The memory is also more reliable than in those cards. So, yes, for starters, it's more expensive. The last time Anand compared memory speeds between devices was Witt he new iPad and others. The iPad memory wp was much faster. That's not just memory though. It's limited by the SoC's memory channel capabilities.
There are also several ways of implementing that. Apple's is one of the faster ones.
And yet they also like keeping secrets. This could be a secret worth keeping as long as they can -- it's a safe bet that if they did something good here, people will try to copy it.
Apple isn't a chip producer, selling to others. So there's no need for them to detail what they're doing, ala Intel.
They usually do give us some info though. This year, they were stingier than usual. SJ may have given us somewhat more, and Shiller usually does tell us something.
We do see x-rats of these chips at some point when others do that work, and a very general idea of how the chip is allocated can be seen, but that's about it.
We know, for example, because we were told this, is that the A5, at least, has a processing area for photography, as we see in many cameras. How many other SoC's have that I don't know,but it's responsible for the cameras excellent performance in a number of areas.
I'm against the concept of removable memory for mobile devices.
Android has a problem with this, which Google acknowledges. They are just now addressing this with Jelly Bean. A problem is that the user had little control as to what went where, in many instances. You could end up with required info on the card which would make apps, or even the device inoperable if the card were to be removed, or damaged.
Most people never used the cards at all, or just kept the one that came with the device, if it were included.
The flash in the better smartphones is much faster than that in cheap sticks or SD cards. One thing that holds them back is the lack of a drive controller like what we see in an SSD. The memory is also more reliable than in those cards. So, yes, for starters, it's more expensive. The last time Anand compared memory speeds between devices was Witt he new iPad and others. The iPad memory wp was much faster. That's not just memory though. It's limited by the SoC's memory channel capabilities.
There are also several ways of implementing that. Apple's is one of the faster ones.
THere are some (expensive) micro-sd's that are very fast, like 90mb/s fast. Although most that you see in the checkout line of your local staples are much slower and cheaper. You cant make a blanket statement that all micro-sd's are slower than all internal phone memory.
I'm against the concept of removable memory for mobile devices.
Android has a problem with this, which Google acknowledges. They are just now addressing this with Jelly Bean. A problem is that the user had little control as to what went where, in many instances. You could end up with required info on the card which would make apps, or even the device inoperable if the card were to be removed, or damaged.
Most people never used the cards at all, or just kept the one that came with the device, if it were included.
You certainly would not use the card that came with the device for running an app since those default cards are usually like Class 2, not the Class 10 cards that Android fanatics boast about.
THere are some (expensive) micro-sd's that are very fast, like 90mb/s fast. Although most that you see in the checkout line of your local staples are much slower and cheaper. You cant make a blanket statement that all micro-sd's are slower than all internal phone memory.
True in most cases the SD memory is considerably faster than the internal device memory which is designed for minimal power consumption rather than speed. Reading and writing to a large SD card will use up more battery even if it is faster.
THere are some (expensive) micro-sd's that are very fast, like 90mb/s fast. Although most that you see in the checkout line of your local staples are much slower and cheaper. You cant make a blanket statement that all micro-sd's are slower than all internal phone memory.
Yes, I know, I keep pointing that out to people, both here and other places, who whine about 32GB sticks and SD cards for $20. Those cards that are truly using higher quality flash are very expensive, up to $150 for a 32Gb card. The cheap cards that claim to be fast aren't. I've tested a big bunch over th years.
But please don't tell me that people who want memory cards are going to buy those expensive cards, because they aren't. They are the ones who complain about the prices of built-in memory, and who are using those cheap, crappy sticks as examples. I didn't think it was necessary to mention really high quality cards.
And, by the way, even many of those cards don't use the most reliable flash. They are intended for uses that don't do tens of thousands of writes every month, or even week. They are intended for cameras, or for music, or for back-up, where writing isn't constantly being done in a computer, which, or course, is what these phones, and tablets are.
And yet they also like keeping secrets. This could be a secret worth keeping as long as they can -- it's a safe bet that if they did something good here, people will try to copy it.
Apple isn't a chip producer, selling to others. So there's no need for them to detail what they're doing, ala Intel.
They usually do give us some info though. This year, they were stingier than usual. SJ may have given us somewhat more, and Shiller usually does tell us something.
We do see x-rats of these chips at some point when others do that work, and a very general idea of how the chip is allocated can be seen, but that's about it.
We know, for example, because we were told this, is that the A5, at least, has a processing area for photography, as we see in many cameras. How many other SoC's have that I don't know,but it's responsible for the cameras excellent performance in a number of areas.
I suspect that we might see the A6 used in a iPad Mini, come October... Possibly the next ATV, depending on what they do for games, etc.
I think that any new chip for the next iPad will require more RAM, more powerful GPU, and (possibly) more CPU cores.
If Apple has taken this direction in designing their own CPUs, conceivably, they could tailor the number of CPU cores on an A chip to suit the usage needs of a particular iDevice.
Another big advantage is that Apple could select different foundries to manufacture the chip -- and not be dependent on a competitor.
If Apple has taken this direction in designing their own CPUs, conceivably, they could tailor the number of CPU cores on an A chip to suit the usage needs of a particular iDevice.
We've already seen this. It is apparently more cost effective to simply disable a core as they did in the latest aTV.
Unless they paid Qualcomm for IP or subcontracted some of the work to Q I doubt apple made a Krait like custom core. It took qualcomms army of engineers years to develop the first snapdragon processor, they're first custom SOC with a custom core. As much as I believe in apples innovative abilities I just doubt they built a krait like processor of there first try at a custom core.
Also, if they did build a krait type cpu then why didnt they incorporate the radio into the chip like qualcomm did? That would have been very apple-like to put it all in the same piece of silicon and they're already buying the chip from qualcomm so why not license it from them and just build it into the SoC.
Apple has been working on these processors for years as well. Only the first phone didn't have their stamp on it. Every phone since then has seen increasing Apple IP. It's not difficult to believe this. Apple now owns three proccessor companies.
And don't forget that Apple and Acorn, together, formed ARM specifically for the purpose of designing a mobile chip for a computer. That computer was the Newton, the first tablet, and the first device to use a mobile ARM chip. In fact, Apple owned half of ARM, until they gradually sold off the stock. Too bad about that too.
But Apple has had plenty of experience designing chips over the decades. They wrote much of the microcode for the PPC, and we're instrumental in combining the Power architecture with the Motorola architecture way back then.
Apple has a whale of a lot of knowledge about chip technology. Remember that they even designed their own chipsets for many years. And they bough a couple of GPU design companies.
They likely have at least as much knowledge as any other ARM manufacturer, and probably more than some, such as Nvidia, who came late to the game.
Ahh, yes... I'd forgotton about that! It also allows Apple to manufacture targeting the highest capacity chip, then use "rejects" for devices with lower requirements... Increasing overall yields.
Comments
Don't worry : next iPhone will probably double storage capacity, and then again, and then again ....
Quote:
Originally Posted by xRCx
Id really like more info on what the A6 actually is, if not the A15 id love to know what apple did, seems kind of odd that they didn't make mention of customizing it themselves, they are usually quick to pat themselves on the back for design work.
And yet they also like keeping secrets. This could be a secret worth keeping as long as they can -- it's a safe bet that if they did something good here, people will try to copy it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by EricTheHalfBee
Maybe, but now they might have to concede that Apple actually invents their own stuff. What could be worse for an Apple hater than to find out Apple engineered their own processor?
The latter, but it will take them a while to figure it out. Funny the things that apple-hate can do to cognitive abilities.
Not to mention all the design issues. Adding a card reader adds bulk (and power consumption) to the device. No wonder Android phones are so huge.
There's also the reliability concern. A card reader is a space for moisture and dirt to enter the phone and also a source of possible problems when the card is damaged or the contacts get dirty.
Overall, it's just a lousy idea. Not to mention an unnecessary one. Unless you plan to take your entire movie collection with you everywhere you go, there's no need for it.
Funny but I prefer this
[VIDEO]
Quote:
Originally Posted by Blastdoor
Quote:
Originally Posted by xRCx
Id really like more info on what the A6 actually is, if not the A15 id love to know what apple did, seems kind of odd that they didn't make mention of customizing it themselves, they are usually quick to pat themselves on the back for design work.
And yet they also like keeping secrets. This could be a secret worth keeping as long as they can -- it's a safe bet that if they did something good here, people will try to copy it.
That is one area of patent law where there is no wiggle room. Even Samsung cannot copy CPU architecture. They already know everything about the chip. They made it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dick Applebaum
Speed, reliability and service life issues aside -- I find micro SD cards are antithetical to the concept of a "grab and go always with you" smart phone.
Do the cards protrude from the phone when in use -- snagging on pockets?
Do you need a special phone case to accommodate a protruding card?
Where do you put them and their individual little cases when you are on the go -- do you need a separate bag or case for the SD cards?
How do you keep track of what data/content/apps are on which SD card -- do you need to carry and maintain index cards or somesuch?
How do you manage/move/delete the contents from card to card
I find the whole process too "fiddley" -- too much busy work and another thing to clutter your mind and pockets.
An iPhone has no use for an SD card except to import photos, however, Android allows file system access so they can use the SD card as a sort of sneaker net to move files from one device to another. It is a poor way of providing general storage though, because it is not contiguous with the built in device storage and you cannot use it to store or run apps. (although there are hacks to allow apps on SD card they are often problematic)
They block it out of their memories like it never happened, so they can continue to claim Apple never invents anything and just repackages other companies' components and dresses it up in stale designs and stale UIs.
Unless they paid Qualcomm for IP or subcontracted some of the work to Q I doubt apple made a Krait like custom core. It took qualcomms army of engineers years to develop the first snapdragon processor, they're first custom SOC with a custom core. As much as I believe in apples innovative abilities I just doubt they built a krait like processor of there first try at a custom core.
Also, if they did build a krait type cpu then why didnt they incorporate the radio into the chip like qualcomm did? That would have been very apple-like to put it all in the same piece of silicon and they're already buying the chip from qualcomm so why not license it from them and just build it into the SoC.
The flash in the better smartphones is much faster than that in cheap sticks or SD cards. One thing that holds them back is the lack of a drive controller like what we see in an SSD. The memory is also more reliable than in those cards. So, yes, for starters, it's more expensive. The last time Anand compared memory speeds between devices was Witt he new iPad and others. The iPad memory wp was much faster. That's not just memory though. It's limited by the SoC's memory channel capabilities.
There are also several ways of implementing that. Apple's is one of the faster ones.
Apple isn't a chip producer, selling to others. So there's no need for them to detail what they're doing, ala Intel.
They usually do give us some info though. This year, they were stingier than usual. SJ may have given us somewhat more, and Shiller usually does tell us something.
We do see x-rats of these chips at some point when others do that work, and a very general idea of how the chip is allocated can be seen, but that's about it.
We know, for example, because we were told this, is that the A5, at least, has a processing area for photography, as we see in many cameras. How many other SoC's have that I don't know,but it's responsible for the cameras excellent performance in a number of areas.
I'm against the concept of removable memory for mobile devices.
Android has a problem with this, which Google acknowledges. They are just now addressing this with Jelly Bean. A problem is that the user had little control as to what went where, in many instances. You could end up with required info on the card which would make apps, or even the device inoperable if the card were to be removed, or damaged.
Most people never used the cards at all, or just kept the one that came with the device, if it were included.
Quote:
Originally Posted by melgross
The flash in the better smartphones is much faster than that in cheap sticks or SD cards. One thing that holds them back is the lack of a drive controller like what we see in an SSD. The memory is also more reliable than in those cards. So, yes, for starters, it's more expensive. The last time Anand compared memory speeds between devices was Witt he new iPad and others. The iPad memory wp was much faster. That's not just memory though. It's limited by the SoC's memory channel capabilities.
There are also several ways of implementing that. Apple's is one of the faster ones.
THere are some (expensive) micro-sd's that are very fast, like 90mb/s fast. Although most that you see in the checkout line of your local staples are much slower and cheaper. You cant make a blanket statement that all micro-sd's are slower than all internal phone memory.
Quote:
Originally Posted by melgross
I'm against the concept of removable memory for mobile devices.
Android has a problem with this, which Google acknowledges. They are just now addressing this with Jelly Bean. A problem is that the user had little control as to what went where, in many instances. You could end up with required info on the card which would make apps, or even the device inoperable if the card were to be removed, or damaged.
Most people never used the cards at all, or just kept the one that came with the device, if it were included.
You certainly would not use the card that came with the device for running an app since those default cards are usually like Class 2, not the Class 10 cards that Android fanatics boast about.
Quote:
Originally Posted by WESALLEN
THere are some (expensive) micro-sd's that are very fast, like 90mb/s fast. Although most that you see in the checkout line of your local staples are much slower and cheaper. You cant make a blanket statement that all micro-sd's are slower than all internal phone memory.
True in most cases the SD memory is considerably faster than the internal device memory which is designed for minimal power consumption rather than speed. Reading and writing to a large SD card will use up more battery even if it is faster.
Yes, I know, I keep pointing that out to people, both here and other places, who whine about 32GB sticks and SD cards for $20. Those cards that are truly using higher quality flash are very expensive, up to $150 for a 32Gb card. The cheap cards that claim to be fast aren't. I've tested a big bunch over th years.
But please don't tell me that people who want memory cards are going to buy those expensive cards, because they aren't. They are the ones who complain about the prices of built-in memory, and who are using those cheap, crappy sticks as examples. I didn't think it was necessary to mention really high quality cards.
And, by the way, even many of those cards don't use the most reliable flash. They are intended for uses that don't do tens of thousands of writes every month, or even week. They are intended for cameras, or for music, or for back-up, where writing isn't constantly being done in a computer, which, or course, is what these phones, and tablets are.
Quote:
Originally Posted by melgross
Quote:
Originally Posted by Blastdoor
And yet they also like keeping secrets. This could be a secret worth keeping as long as they can -- it's a safe bet that if they did something good here, people will try to copy it.
Apple isn't a chip producer, selling to others. So there's no need for them to detail what they're doing, ala Intel.
They usually do give us some info though. This year, they were stingier than usual. SJ may have given us somewhat more, and Shiller usually does tell us something.
We do see x-rats of these chips at some point when others do that work, and a very general idea of how the chip is allocated can be seen, but that's about it.
We know, for example, because we were told this, is that the A5, at least, has a processing area for photography, as we see in many cameras. How many other SoC's have that I don't know,but it's responsible for the cameras excellent performance in a number of areas.
I suspect that we might see the A6 used in a iPad Mini, come October... Possibly the next ATV, depending on what they do for games, etc.
I think that any new chip for the next iPad will require more RAM, more powerful GPU, and (possibly) more CPU cores.
If Apple has taken this direction in designing their own CPUs, conceivably, they could tailor the number of CPU cores on an A chip to suit the usage needs of a particular iDevice.
Another big advantage is that Apple could select different foundries to manufacture the chip -- and not be dependent on a competitor.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dick Applebaum
If Apple has taken this direction in designing their own CPUs, conceivably, they could tailor the number of CPU cores on an A chip to suit the usage needs of a particular iDevice.
We've already seen this. It is apparently more cost effective to simply disable a core as they did in the latest aTV.
Apple has been working on these processors for years as well. Only the first phone didn't have their stamp on it. Every phone since then has seen increasing Apple IP. It's not difficult to believe this. Apple now owns three proccessor companies.
And don't forget that Apple and Acorn, together, formed ARM specifically for the purpose of designing a mobile chip for a computer. That computer was the Newton, the first tablet, and the first device to use a mobile ARM chip. In fact, Apple owned half of ARM, until they gradually sold off the stock. Too bad about that too.
But Apple has had plenty of experience designing chips over the decades. They wrote much of the microcode for the PPC, and we're instrumental in combining the Power architecture with the Motorola architecture way back then.
Apple has a whale of a lot of knowledge about chip technology. Remember that they even designed their own chipsets for many years. And they bough a couple of GPU design companies.
They likely have at least as much knowledge as any other ARM manufacturer, and probably more than some, such as Nvidia, who came late to the game.
Ahh, yes... I'd forgotton about that! It also allows Apple to manufacture targeting the highest capacity chip, then use "rejects" for devices with lower requirements... Increasing overall yields.