Rumor: Apple may re-architect iOS to utilize more processor cores ahead of iPhone 6

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Comments

  • Reply 21 of 56

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Galbi View Post


    This is to...



     


    ... show that you have no idea what you are talking about?

  • Reply 22 of 56


    You guys are hilarious; Obviously Apple is trying to play catch-up on Samsung's Quadcores /s

  • Reply 23 of 56
    sflocalsflocal Posts: 6,092member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Galbi View Post


    This is to all those fans who said iOS doesnt need "multi-core" CPU to run its OS because its "efficient" and "fast".


     


    Who is talking now?


     


     







    Galbi... wean yourself off of whatever you're smoking.



    I don't recall anyone ever saying the iOS doesn't need a multi-core CPU's because of iOS' speed and efficiency.  Nice try at spewing nonsense.



    What I do remember CLEARLY back in the earlier days were the single-core iPhones and dual-core iPads slapping-around the dual-core Android phones and quad-core Android tablets.

     


    Why?? Because iOS was much more efficient in taking advantage of all available resources.

     


    What's that sound I hear?  Must be your ego deflating....

  • Reply 24 of 56
    The comments saying iOS will just use all the cores efficiently no matter how many there are, are a little naive. Just because there is some GCD special sauce sprinkled on the system does not mean it will just automatically scale efficiently to large core counts. Most parallel implementations have scalability limitations, and building a sytem that performs well with 2 or 4 cores does not just automatically continue to scale further forever. Look at the constant reworking of the Linux kernel to improve scalability on very large systems. So while that aspect of the article may well be nonsense, it is not necessarily so. :-)
  • Reply 25 of 56

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by otri View Post



    Apple Insider, you guys are reporting an awful lot of noise from analysts these days. Anyone who's an analyst gets airtime. And it's getting positively silly that great than 50% of the posts are disappointing because of the junk that's getting thrown out there.



    More meat, less vapour please.


     


    It certainly isn't helping their credibility, but obviously dropping analyst disinfo bombs here all the time rallies the troops.

  • Reply 26 of 56
    nasseraenasserae Posts: 3,167member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by martinp View Post



    The comments saying iOS will just use all the cores efficiently no matter how many there are, are a little naive. Just because there is some GCD special sauce sprinkled on the system does not mean it will just automatically scale efficiently to large core counts. Most parallel implementations have scalability limitations, and building a sytem that performs well with 2 or 4 cores does not just automatically continue to scale further forever. Look at the constant reworking of the Linux kernel to improve scalability on very large systems. So while that aspect of the article may well be nonsense, it is not necessarily so. :-)


    Go read GCD documentation on Apple developers website.

  • Reply 27 of 56
    wizard69wizard69 Posts: 13,377member


    I does make you question the technical abilities of the people working for Appleinsider.   iOS has been multicore friendly for ages now.   At best they may be alluding to new power management strategies such as turning off a number of cores completely when no user app is running but this is hardly re-architecting the operating system.\


     


    In the end is everybody asleep at the wheel at AI?


    Quote:

    Originally Posted by dcr View Post



    Doesn't anyone even proof the titles of these post?

  • Reply 28 of 56
    jragostajragosta Posts: 10,473member
    martinp wrote: »
    The comments saying iOS will just use all the cores efficiently no matter how many there are, are a little naive. Just because there is some GCD special sauce sprinkled on the system does not mean it will just automatically scale efficiently to large core counts.

    And simply dismissing a technology that you obviously don't understand is naive, too.

    Whether this rumor is true or not is irrelevant. Apple has a solid history of properly developing and supporting their products. If the current iOS doesn't properly handle x processors, then Apple will undoubtedly have refined the OS before they ship a system with x processors.

    And, frankly, no one but a few spec-driven geeks cares. iOS on the current dual core A6 outperforms Android on quad core processors, so there's a lot more involved than the number of cores.
  • Reply 29 of 56
    wizard69wizard69 Posts: 13,377member


    It isn't naive at all.   iOS already supports multiple processors just fine The issue of scalability is a problem domain one not an issue for the OS.   By their nature some apps won't scale no matter what you do, that has little to do with the OS or its already strong support for multiple cores.   In essence your position is misleading here because scalability of an app has nothing to do with the OS.   The fact is many apps would take advantage of the additional cores with little to no effort on the part of the developer if a new machine where to come out with more cores.


    Quote:

    Originally Posted by martinp View Post



    The comments saying iOS will just use all the cores efficiently no matter how many there are, are a little naive. Just because there is some GCD special sauce sprinkled on the system does not mean it will just automatically scale efficiently to large core counts. Most parallel implementations have scalability limitations, and building a sytem that performs well with 2 or 4 cores does not just automatically continue to scale further forever. Look at the constant reworking of the Linux kernel to improve scalability on very large systems. So while that aspect of the article may well be nonsense, it is not necessarily so. :-)


    Even your reference to Linux is nonsense here.   We aren't talking about installations of hundreds of processors here, we are talking about leveraging multiple cores in cell phone and iPad like devices.   In this context iOS doesn't need much work at all.


     


    If Apple where to change the OS at all for future multi core processors it is very likely that such changes would be made to manage power in the overall device.   

  • Reply 30 of 56


    How many cores can you really need to make those silly Keynote presentations or play some idiotic videogame on iOS?... This is like putting rocket engines on a Kite.


     


    How about getting a new MacPro out the door first.

  • Reply 31 of 56
    slurpyslurpy Posts: 5,382member
    "Feeling the heat from Samsung in the smartphone market, Apple is constantly exploring ways to improve its edge on the South Korean electronics giant"

    What an asinine, idiotic headline. So if Samsung wasn't around, Apple would stop improving it's CPUs? Why is the assumption, made as fact, that Apple might do this because it's "feeling heat" from Samsung, and wants to "improve it's edge" over them? I honestly don't think anyone is choosing a Samsung phone over an iPhone 5 because the Samsung is faster. The iPhone 5 is the fastest phone I've ever used, and much more responsive than the S3. This site is obsessed with framing everything Apple does as some sort of defensive maneuver, or to "catch up" to Samsung. It's ridiculous, childish, and most important, most probably untrue.
  • Reply 32 of 56
    richlrichl Posts: 2,213member


    It seems like 8-core systems are going to become standard very quickly. Everything I read suggests that eight cores is the sweet spot between processing power and the bandwidth overhead needed to keep them all talking. 


     


    The Playstation 4 and Xbox 3 are both rumoured to contain 8-core CPUs. This could make porting games to iOS very straightforward!

  • Reply 33 of 56
    wizard69wizard69 Posts: 13,377member


    It is almost like people have forgotten what happened when Mac OS introduced GCD and what happened when iOS devices added another processor.   In both cases Apple prepared the developer community well in advanced and as a result apps suddenly worked better when these improvements arrived.   Some times the results where ho hum but other times the results where very impressive.   It really comes down tot he app and the developers ability to extract parallel methods from the structure of the app.


     


    Short memories seem to generate a lot of useless chatter on this site.


    Quote:

    Originally Posted by jragosta View Post





    And simply dismissing a technology that you obviously don't understand is naive, too.



    Whether this rumor is true or not is irrelevant. Apple has a solid history of properly developing and supporting their products. If the current iOS doesn't properly handle x processors, then Apple will undoubtedly have refined the OS before they ship a system with x processors.



    And, frankly, no one but a few spec-driven geeks cares. iOS on the current dual core A6 outperforms Android on quad core processors, so there's a lot more involved than the number of cores.


    This is the other point.   IOS represents some of the best code running on portable devices.   Apple already has a sound system in place for digesting the potential of multiple processors so re-architecting for that doesn't seem to be required.   It is far more likely that Apple will leverage their technical excellence here to find ways to better manage those processors power wise.

  • Reply 34 of 56
    wizard69wizard69 Posts: 13,377member


    Memory bandwidth is always a problem, it is something that both Intel and AMD have had to deal with in their respective APU's.    However shrinking geometries often lead to innovations that deal with current design issues.   For example large caches can deal with some of the bandwidth issues or you can simply change those caches into main memory.   For many devices the need for a external memory chip may simply go away.   We already are seeing this reality in the embedded world.


     


    However i'm not even convinced that apples next move will be many core machines.   Instead I see them moving towards 64 bit computing as soon as they can implement a reasonable core.    That might be a quad core machine of maybe not, the important thing is that 64 bit positions Apple with an iOS platform upon which to build upon for years even decades.   Combine the long term goals with the fact that they now have the very best 32 bit ARM implementation going and you have a good argument for a 64 bit move.


     


    Interestingly the 64 cores apparently don't take up a lot of room on the SoC.   Apple could easily make a very interesting processor for 2014 while getting by with derivatives of the current SoC for 2013.


    Quote:

    Originally Posted by RichL View Post


    It seems like 8-core systems are going to become standard very quickly. Everything I read suggests that eight cores is the sweet spot between processing power and the bandwidth overhead needed to keep them all talking. 


     


    The Playstation 4 and Xbox 3 are both rumoured to contain 8-core CPUs. This could make porting games to iOS very straightforward!


  • Reply 35 of 56
    iOS uses the XNU kernel, Cocoa always supported multithreading, GCD is built in, etc... do these "analysts" know anything at all? Why do their stupid statements get republished by tech websites?
  • Reply 36 of 56


    Re-architect? Please, what the heck is wrong with re-designing.  Architect is a noun, not a verb.

  • Reply 37 of 56
    jragostajragosta Posts: 10,473member
    wizard69 wrote: »
    However i'm not even convinced that apples next move will be many core machines.   Instead I see them moving towards 64 bit computing as soon as they can implement a reasonable core.    That might be a quad core machine of maybe not, the important thing is that 64 bit positions Apple with an iOS platform upon which to build upon for years even decades.   Combine the long term goals with the fact that they now have the very best 32 bit ARM implementation going and you have a good argument for a 64 bit move.

    Why? What benefit does 64 bit offer on an iPad or iPhone?

    Obviously, on a desktop system with 4 or 8 or 16 GB of RAM, it's important. Similarly, when the system is manipulating multi-GB images, it can help. But the iDevices generally don't do that kind of heavy lifting and it's not clear that the benefits would outweigh the disadvantages (larger code, more overhead, etc).
  • Reply 38 of 56

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by jmgregory1 View Post


    Anytime I see things written that say Apple is doing anything to compete with xyz company, I know it's complete rubbish.  Does anyone really think that people within Apple are doing anything to "compete" with anyone but themselves?  If that is how Apple was operating, I'd say sell your stock right now, because that is a recipe for disaster.


     


    Apple plans their work and works their plan - they're not trying to do what anyone else is doing, unless that means re-imagining a product or category.  I'm sure they're cognizant of what is on the market, but to think or suggest they're working laterally to what others are doing is complete crap.



              ^


    +++ This

  • Reply 39 of 56

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Galbi View Post


    This is to all those fans who said iOS doesnt need "multi-core" CPU to run its OS because its "efficient" and "fast".


     


    Who is talking now?


     


     


     


    The game has certainly changed. What once Apple's boasting about them not "following the market trend", now without Jobs, they are certainly "following the trend".


     


    First, the iPad mini. Many thought within the Apple camp there would NEVER, I repeat NEVER be a smaller iPad. BAM iPad Mini.


     


    Second, there would NEVER be a need for a multi-core CPU chip for the iOS because "its so efficient" BAM. Rumors of a multi-Core chip comming.


     


    Third, there would NEVER be a cheaper iPhone to serve the developing markets (where most of the growth is). BAM. Rumors of a cheaper "plastic" (!!) iPhone. NEVAR!!


     


    And fourth, there would NEVER be a need for a larger iPhone than the 3.5" display as it is "perfect" for one handed use. BAM. iPhone 5 with 4" display.


     


     


    BTW, Apple lost their "iphone" trademark in Brazil today. How ironic.



     


    Who are these people you are referring to?   I happy that you and I move in different circles!

  • Reply 40 of 56
    GCD was designed to prevent developers from needing to recode their apps to be multithreaded. It's not about support cores. Given iOS is UNIX based, like OS X, it has always supported multiple cores from day one. GCD helps but GCD depends on the kernel. I don't think there has ever been a UNIX kernel that can't cope with as many cores as you can throw at it.

    Yep... we're in a new era where total ignoramuses are writing this crap and all the stupid people are lapping it up. The sad thing is, some of this is now affecting the share price.
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