The fundamental disadvantage of outsourcing your OS (or, in general for any industry, pursuing non-integrated design and development of your major components) is that eventually, the intensity of competition will impel you to seek out every possible ounce of additional performance by tweaking and refining those components so as to optimize their interaction. It is much easier to tweak an OS when you are optimizing it for 3 basic models versus 20, much less a hundred. A generic OS might be able to compete with a model-optimized one early on but eventually we will see some separation. (Google and Microsoft know this, they confront it everyday hence the Moto and Nokia acquisitions.) I believe with the A7, significant separation between iOS and Android has begun.
I'm glad that we have DUD telling us how it is and not those other experts.
I've seen no expert opinion on the topic. Everything said comes from tech journalists, most of whom are totally incompetent.
On the other hand, a lot of people are now touting how 64-bit Android is coming soon. And I've read a couple of articles (a few months old) on how beneficial 64-bit Android will be.
Now, fandroids should make up their minds. 64-bit is either pointless, or there are benefits. Or maybe 64-bit CPU will only be good for Android, not for iOS?
Terrible, baseless FUD on Android. 64-bit mobile ARM processors have been in the pipeline for a long time. Everyone in the industry has known this because ARM are very good at communication their long-term strategy. If you don't think that Google has been aware of this coming event for many years then you're highly deluded. Google and ARM both have large dev teams in the UK and there's a lot of staff who've worked for both organisations.
I'm certain that Google has been building and testing a 64-bit version of Android for years, just like they've been doing with their x86 port.
Wow, talk about reality distortion. The tech media is shooting FUD at Apple's real 64-bit iPhone while you're telling us that your faith in Google is unshakeable? Are you kidding me? Between Apple and Google only one of those companies is selling a 64-bit phone this Friday, and the other has nothing, not even a promise, and you know how much Google likes to show off its half-baked beta products for the tech media to adulate. If they haven't bragged about 64-bit already it's because they're not working on it. (But I can believe it's about to suddenly get real, now that Apple has shown the way.) Now taste the FUD.
Re-read what DED wrote. He said that no-one even predicted that there would be a move to 64-bit processors for smartphones.
EDIT: If you want proof, here's a presentation from ARM engineers written in 2011. ARM has been working on 64-bit CPUs since 2007 and one of the prime motivations is "a future need in ARM’s traditional markets" (e.g. smartphones, not servers).
From an online article dated Oct 2012. The a53 is 64-bit.
ARM Cortex-A53 processor core is the most efficient ARM application processor ever, delivering today’s superphone performance while using a quarter of the power, thus enabling low-cost advanced smartphones of tomorrow. The core also incorporates reliability features that enable scalable dataplane applications to maximize performance per mm2 and performance per mW. The Cortex-A53 is optimized for throughput processing for modest per thread compute applications.
Also an article from The Verge "predicting" the tremendous performance advantages of moving to 64 bit arm for smartphones.
Re-read what DED wrote. He said that no-one even predicted that there would be a move to 64-bit processors for smartphones.
EDIT: If you want proof, here's a presentation from ARM engineers written in 2011. ARM has been working on 64-bit CPUs since 2007 and one of the prime motivations is "a future need in ARM’s traditional markets" (e.g. smartphones, not servers).
You know ARM doesn't sold CPU, they sold IP , in 2011 Symbian was already dead. ARM has finalize their AArch64 spec in mid 2012 and Apple is currently the only one with a ARMv8 in commercial production.
Will I agree, someone could a predicted the 64bit switch, neither Microsoft or Android has put their effort there yet, no AArch64 version of Android (official of not) has ever been seen on the net, no phone mfg has ever talk about 64 Bit SoC before Apple last week announcements. Everything else is only speculation.
Let's all pray you're wrong. Nobody in their right mind wants locked down iOS garbage on a real piece of hardware.
iOS is a great OS. At a certain point you need that level of curation to fight malware. No one's complaining about the Mac App Store, in fact they seem to like it.
Terrible, baseless FUD on Android. 64-bit mobile ARM processors have been in the pipeline for a long time. Everyone in the industry has known this because ARM are very good at communication their long-term strategy. If you don't think that Google has been aware of this coming event for many years then you're highly deluded. Google and ARM both have large dev teams in the UK and there's a lot of staff who've worked for both organisations.
I'm certain that Google has been building and testing a 64-bit version of Android for years, just like they've been doing with their x86 port.
I'm interested in reading a good honest article about 64-bit and what this means for Apple vs Windows vs Android, unfortunately this DED guy is really crazy and I can't trust a single word he says. Actually I just couldn't read more than a few paragraphs. He makes me sick.
I think people don't get the "64-bit in a phone" thing:
This is about transitioning up a base of thousands of developers to a brave new world:
iPhone:
- 2013: 64-Bit in 5S, 2014: 64-Bit in 6C, 2015: All iPhone lineup is A7/64-bit minimum
- iPhone/iOS 10 (2016/2017) when high-end phones have more than 4GB RAM, Apple can push a 64-Bit only iOS on pretty much all iPhones that are younger than 3 years (5s or higher)
- At the same time Android wills till be all over the shop with different processors, different bitness, different graphics architectures, screen sizes, co processors - you name it.
iPad:
2013: iPad 5 in 64-Bit, 2014 64-Bit in iPad mini, 2015 Apple requires all iPad apps to have a 64-bit fork in the fat binary to get the last developers understand the importance.
AppleTV 4
2014: Apple TV 4 with A7 and 64 Bit with the ImagTech graphics engine
- New Apple TV App Store
- Positioned as casual game console
- Developers can port iPad/iPhone games to the big screen with no ramp up time
- Controlled via iPhone/iPad, new Apple Game controller or 3rd party Controller via BT
Macbook Air (ARM Edition) --> Think Chromebook, just in useful and with software
2015:
- Apple announces new Macbook Air with MacOS for ARM on A8 processor (8GB RAM) & touchscreen
- All new Mac Appstore applications need to provide fat binary (x86, ARM)
- Can run iPad apps in a window.
- Roadmap for all Mac to transition to ARM architecture until 2018
Okay. This is all a bit over the top, but this is what I believe the A7 stands for: An unprecedented move to a unified eco system of phone, tablet, set top box and desktop OS.
One company doing it all with the biggest developer community getting one 64-bit architecture for processor and graphics for all platforms with minimum transition time, QA & testing obstacles and supported by 500M credit cards registered by Apple.
Take that, Microsoft, Google and Samsung.
Cheers Max
I suspect you are pretty close to the mark. You left out take that Intel!
JavaME had also existed for years when Android was conceived ~2005, but it still took 3 years to get Android into production.
Also, 64-bit Java is not designed with any intent to run on mobile devices. It runs like crap on desktop PCs, making the platform only ever successful in server deployment.
Also: let me remind you about Adobe Flash, which similarly "existed" years before Google & Adobe decided to make it work on mobiles. After years of trying 2008-2011, they shipped something but then abandoned it because it made no sense.
You also forget that the technical "realm of possibility" needs a viable business model backing it up.
Hopes and dreams of Android fans haven't resulted in app sales, And it's not enough to replicate the work of a company making 75% of the profits of the mobile industry.
1. Google didn't use JavaME. They rolled their own. That takes time. Not to mention the development time in building a phone, then changing course and revamping the design when the iPhone launched.
2. I could say that OS X wasn't designed for a phone either. I'm sure the Rhapsody teams were really focused on mobile in 1997. And Java is still used in servers because server architectures are not homogeneous. You might need to run on POWER (AIX), SPARC (Solaris), PA-RISC (HP/UX), Itanium (Windows or Linux) or Intel (Windows or Linux). So it makes sense there. The desktop is one environment...x86. So writing a native application will run faster and deploy most everywhere, especially since most people aren't running Java on the desktop.
3. Flash had a lot of design problems limiting its success on mobile. I think it's safe to say that Google has been pretty successful on the whole Dalvik thing.
4. For Google, "Keeping Up with the Apples" is a good enough business model.
5. The reason while app sales in the Android universe are lousy (versus free apps) is because Android customers are poor customers in general. Once they buy a phone, they don't like opening their wallets for anything else. And they are much more likely to pirate a release.
Of course ARM (a corp co-founded by Apple and Acorn Computer) discuss a lots with their partner, since they doesn't sold any hardware, they only licences their hardware to anyone who want to mfg. Problem is Google doesn't do any ARM development internally, they got no production hardware to work on a 64 bit version of Android and Samsung and Qualcomm, 2 of the most prominent ARM SoC maker chooses the cores multiplication way, look at the Exynos 5 Octa non-sense.
It's a good thing you are working right there at Google's most secret facilities and you can tell us with certainty what Google is working on.
I've seen no expert opinion on the topic. Everything said comes from tech journalists, most of whom are totally incompetent.
On the other hand, a lot of people are now touting how 64-bit Android is coming soon. And I've read a couple of articles (a few months old) on how beneficial 64-bit Android will be.
Now, fandroids should make up their minds. 64-bit is either pointless, or there are benefits. Or maybe 64-bits will be only be to Android, not for iOS?
Apple haters will say its pointless until they have it, then they will all believe they had it first and theirs is better.
I've seen no expert opinion on the topic. Everything said comes from tech journalists, most of whom are totally incompetent.
On the other hand, a lot of people are now touting how 64-bit Android is coming soon. And I've read a couple of articles (a few months old) on how beneficial 64-bit Android will be.
Now, fandroids should make up their minds. 64-bit is either pointless, or there are benefits. Or maybe 64-bits will be only be to Android, not for iOS?
Android will have to move to 64-bit sooner or later, because some of the high end devices have RAM creeping uncomfortably close to 4gb. The Moto X, Nexus 7, and pretty much every other flagship phone or tablet all have 2gb RAM. The Galaxy Note 3 has 3gb RAM. A transition to 64 bit would happen primarily for memory reasons, not for some magic performance increase.
Will I agree, someone could a predicted the 64bit switch, neither Microsoft or Android has put their effort there yet, no AArch64 version of Android (official of not) has ever been seen on the net, no phone mfg has ever talk about 64 Bit SoC before Apple last week announcements. Everything else is only speculation.
Where's your evidence neither Google or Microsoft are not working on 64-bit. Until a few days ago there was no evidence apple were working on it either.
Android will have to move to 64-bit sooner or later, because some of the high end devices have RAM creeping uncomfortably close to 4gb. The Moto X, Nexus 7, and pretty much every other flagship phone or tablet all have 2gb RAM. The Galaxy Note 3 has 3gb RAM. A transition to 64 bit would happen primarily for memory reasons, not for some magic performance increase.
It will be that plus a natural progression to a more efficient process and core. There's no rush.
Yes, that was SJ's original plan and this is how he sold it to developers (from 9to5mac . com):
Only later was he persuaded to change his mind.
That's not completely true.
He did say that the only way at the time to create 3rd party apps was to write web apps.
He also said that they would like to offer a native SDK, when they can figure out how to do it right
He never had to be persuaded to change his mind. People who like to make up history by following events rather than details always argue that the jailbreaking community forced Apple to release an SDK. The fact is, Apple has always tested APIs in the wild before releasing them to developers. There are many private APIs that eventually become available to developers once Apple has run them through their course and finalized them - the reason for not letting developers use them, is because Apple may determine to deprecate them or change them for whatever reasons, which would break apps when users upgraded the OS on their devices.
"built the company a fan base of users who don't like to pay for things, and in particular, software." -speaking of Google's Android platform.
DAMN, you hit the nail RIGHT on the head with this one! It's funny because ALL Android lovers I know are cheap bastards and is EXACTLY the reason they swear by Android and talk trash about iOS. Because they want sh** for free. How about their boss says "I want you to do this, that and the other for me everyday, M-F, 9-5....for FREE! I'm not paying you for it." Hmmm....
I am personally stoked to see that my new phone will be 64-bit. That was the big one on my wish list. The moment I read it from the live blogs I literally shouted "fuckin' eh"!
I don't understand how people argue that 64-bit will is not monumental in its scope. Saying that it's just a little bump up and that it won't see any big developments compared to their 32-bit counterpart is completely short sighted. I ask you what differences did one see from the original 4-bit atari to the 8-bit nintendo to the 16-bit super nintendo to the 32-bit playstation to current gaming consoles? If anyone argues that the changes weren't staggering, then to the ignore list you go.
If the gaming arguenment still doesn't do it for you, then I direct your attention to word processing. Why is it that programs today are leaps and bounds better than years past? Is it more creative code writing that has made these significant improvements or is it that there are more possibilities to describe shadows, textures, fonts, graphics, links, etc only possible by 32-bit and even greater in 64-bit machines. I would agree that we have only started to see the benefits to 64-bit programming on the PC side of things. But what's been learned thus far is easily transferred to the mobile landscape.
Apple gets this, they've started to utilize that in their camera app. Yes some of the things seen can be done on a 32-bit processor but one can't argue the benefits to utilizing those benefits in 64-bit. Just imagine taking a picture in 16-bit. You get a whopping +65 000 colours. With 32-bit you get the full +16 million colors plus other bits to play with. (i.e. face recognition, geotagging, etc). If you try to do geo-tagging with a 16-bit camera you will inevitably lose some of the already few +65 000 colors. Bringing things into the 64-bit range will allow everything you can do with 32-bit and a whole lot more. One of the additions I already want apple to incorporate is the ability to voice tag photos. You've just taken some photos of a particular site where something funny happened, let's say your significant other just fell in the water. The (32-bit and 64-bit) camera has taken the date, time, place, and face of that particular photo. You then tag with your voice on your (64-bit) camera, "Sue completely bailed off of the dock, she looks hilarious. I don't know where we'll be able to dry off". Those tags can now be used for later. Flash forward 8 years, you're reminiscing about that vacation and you laugh at that memory. Instead of wasting time looking for the photo all you have to do is say, "Sue falling off the pier." and the memory (picture) is displayed.
64-bit is going to be awesome! 128-bit will be out of this world!!!!!
Android will have to move to 64-bit sooner or later, because some of the high end devices have RAM creeping uncomfortably close to 4gb. The Moto X, Nexus 7, and pretty much every other flagship phone or tablet all have 2gb RAM. The Galaxy Note 3 has 3gb RAM. A transition to 64 bit would happen primarily for memory reasons, not for some magic performance increase.
It's not magic, data can be processed faster. Instead of 32-bits per cycle the CPU processes 64-bits. Is it a huge increase in speed, no it's not. I think when Intel Macs went from 32-bit to 64-bit, the OS saw an overall increase of 10-15%.
A 64-bit CPU can process twice as many bits as a 32-bit CPU. Addressing is NOT what determines the "bitness" of a CPU, it's how many bits of data it can process per cycle. This also has a side effect of making the CPU more efficient, requiring less power.
The ARMv8 ISA only uses a 48-bit addressing space (256TB), but it is in fact a 64-bit processor.
It's too bad EVERYONE just focuses on the "64-bit" part of the A7 when there's so much more to it that can and will increase the speed of apps optimized for it.
Comments
I'm glad that we have DUD telling us how it is and not those other experts.
I've seen no expert opinion on the topic. Everything said comes from tech journalists, most of whom are totally incompetent.
Wow, talk about reality distortion. The tech media is shooting FUD at Apple's real 64-bit iPhone while you're telling us that your faith in Google is unshakeable? Are you kidding me? Between Apple and Google only one of those companies is selling a 64-bit phone this Friday, and the other has nothing, not even a promise, and you know how much Google likes to show off its half-baked beta products for the tech media to adulate. If they haven't bragged about 64-bit already it's because they're not working on it. (But I can believe it's about to suddenly get real, now that Apple has shown the way.) Now taste the FUD.
From an online article dated Oct 2012. The a53 is 64-bit.
ARM Cortex-A53 processor core is the most efficient ARM application processor ever, delivering today’s superphone performance while using a quarter of the power, thus enabling low-cost advanced smartphones of tomorrow. The core also incorporates reliability features that enable scalable dataplane applications to maximize performance per mm2 and performance per mW. The Cortex-A53 is optimized for throughput processing for modest per thread compute applications.
Also an article from The Verge "predicting" the tremendous performance advantages of moving to 64 bit arm for smartphones.
http://www.theverge.com/2012/10/30/3576560/arm-cortex-a57-cortex-a53-cpu-core
Re-read what DED wrote. He said that no-one even predicted that there would be a move to 64-bit processors for smartphones.
EDIT: If you want proof, here's a presentation from ARM engineers written in 2011. ARM has been working on 64-bit CPUs since 2007 and one of the prime motivations is "a future need in ARM’s traditional markets" (e.g. smartphones, not servers).
You know ARM doesn't sold CPU, they sold IP , in 2011 Symbian was already dead. ARM has finalize their AArch64 spec in mid 2012 and Apple is currently the only one with a ARMv8 in commercial production.
Will I agree, someone could a predicted the 64bit switch, neither Microsoft or Android has put their effort there yet, no AArch64 version of Android (official of not) has ever been seen on the net, no phone mfg has ever talk about 64 Bit SoC before Apple last week announcements. Everything else is only speculation.
Let's all pray you're wrong. Nobody in their right mind wants locked down iOS garbage on a real piece of hardware.
iOS is a great OS. At a certain point you need that level of curation to fight malware. No one's complaining about the Mac App Store, in fact they seem to like it.
Mdriftmeyer
Terrible, baseless FUD on Android. 64-bit mobile ARM processors have been in the pipeline for a long time. Everyone in the industry has known this because ARM are very good at communication their long-term strategy. If you don't think that Google has been aware of this coming event for many years then you're highly deluded. Google and ARM both have large dev teams in the UK and there's a lot of staff who've worked for both organisations.
I'm certain that Google has been building and testing a 64-bit version of Android for years, just like they've been doing with their x86 port.
I'm interested in reading a good honest article about 64-bit and what this means for Apple vs Windows vs Android, unfortunately this DED guy is really crazy and I can't trust a single word he says. Actually I just couldn't read more than a few paragraphs. He makes me sick.
I suspect you are pretty close to the mark. You left out take that Intel!
JavaME had also existed for years when Android was conceived ~2005, but it still took 3 years to get Android into production.
Also, 64-bit Java is not designed with any intent to run on mobile devices. It runs like crap on desktop PCs, making the platform only ever successful in server deployment.
Also: let me remind you about Adobe Flash, which similarly "existed" years before Google & Adobe decided to make it work on mobiles. After years of trying 2008-2011, they shipped something but then abandoned it because it made no sense.
You also forget that the technical "realm of possibility" needs a viable business model backing it up.
Hopes and dreams of Android fans haven't resulted in app sales, And it's not enough to replicate the work of a company making 75% of the profits of the mobile industry.
1. Google didn't use JavaME. They rolled their own. That takes time. Not to mention the development time in building a phone, then changing course and revamping the design when the iPhone launched.
Of course ARM (a corp co-founded by Apple and Acorn Computer) discuss a lots with their partner, since they doesn't sold any hardware, they only licences their hardware to anyone who want to mfg. Problem is Google doesn't do any ARM development internally, they got no production hardware to work on a 64 bit version of Android and Samsung and Qualcomm, 2 of the most prominent ARM SoC maker chooses the cores multiplication way, look at the Exynos 5 Octa non-sense.
It's a good thing you are working right there at Google's most secret facilities and you can tell us with certainty what Google is working on.
Apple haters will say its pointless until they have it, then they will all believe they had it first and theirs is better.
I've seen no expert opinion on the topic. Everything said comes from tech journalists, most of whom are totally incompetent.
Android will have to move to 64-bit sooner or later, because some of the high end devices have RAM creeping uncomfortably close to 4gb. The Moto X, Nexus 7, and pretty much every other flagship phone or tablet all have 2gb RAM. The Galaxy Note 3 has 3gb RAM. A transition to 64 bit would happen primarily for memory reasons, not for some magic performance increase.
Where's your evidence neither Google or Microsoft are not working on 64-bit. Until a few days ago there was no evidence apple were working on it either.
There's no limit to the stupid.
Yes, that was SJ's original plan and this is how he sold it to developers (from 9to5mac . com):
Only later was he persuaded to change his mind.
That's not completely true.
He did say that the only way at the time to create 3rd party apps was to write web apps.
He also said that they would like to offer a native SDK, when they can figure out how to do it right
He never had to be persuaded to change his mind. People who like to make up history by following events rather than details always argue that the jailbreaking community forced Apple to release an SDK. The fact is, Apple has always tested APIs in the wild before releasing them to developers. There are many private APIs that eventually become available to developers once Apple has run them through their course and finalized them - the reason for not letting developers use them, is because Apple may determine to deprecate them or change them for whatever reasons, which would break apps when users upgraded the OS on their devices.
DAMN, you hit the nail RIGHT on the head with this one! It's funny because ALL Android lovers I know are cheap bastards and is EXACTLY the reason they swear by Android and talk trash about iOS. Because they want sh** for free. How about their boss says "I want you to do this, that and the other for me everyday, M-F, 9-5....for FREE! I'm not paying you for it." Hmmm....
I am personally stoked to see that my new phone will be 64-bit. That was the big one on my wish list. The moment I read it from the live blogs I literally shouted "fuckin' eh"!
I don't understand how people argue that 64-bit will is not monumental in its scope. Saying that it's just a little bump up and that it won't see any big developments compared to their 32-bit counterpart is completely short sighted. I ask you what differences did one see from the original 4-bit atari to the 8-bit nintendo to the 16-bit super nintendo to the 32-bit playstation to current gaming consoles? If anyone argues that the changes weren't staggering, then to the ignore list you go.
If the gaming arguenment still doesn't do it for you, then I direct your attention to word processing. Why is it that programs today are leaps and bounds better than years past? Is it more creative code writing that has made these significant improvements or is it that there are more possibilities to describe shadows, textures, fonts, graphics, links, etc only possible by 32-bit and even greater in 64-bit machines. I would agree that we have only started to see the benefits to 64-bit programming on the PC side of things. But what's been learned thus far is easily transferred to the mobile landscape.
Apple gets this, they've started to utilize that in their camera app. Yes some of the things seen can be done on a 32-bit processor but one can't argue the benefits to utilizing those benefits in 64-bit. Just imagine taking a picture in 16-bit. You get a whopping +65 000 colours. With 32-bit you get the full +16 million colors plus other bits to play with. (i.e. face recognition, geotagging, etc). If you try to do geo-tagging with a 16-bit camera you will inevitably lose some of the already few +65 000 colors. Bringing things into the 64-bit range will allow everything you can do with 32-bit and a whole lot more. One of the additions I already want apple to incorporate is the ability to voice tag photos. You've just taken some photos of a particular site where something funny happened, let's say your significant other just fell in the water. The (32-bit and 64-bit) camera has taken the date, time, place, and face of that particular photo. You then tag with your voice on your (64-bit) camera, "Sue completely bailed off of the dock, she looks hilarious. I don't know where we'll be able to dry off". Those tags can now be used for later. Flash forward 8 years, you're reminiscing about that vacation and you laugh at that memory. Instead of wasting time looking for the photo all you have to do is say, "Sue falling off the pier." and the memory (picture) is displayed.
64-bit is going to be awesome! 128-bit will be out of this world!!!!!
Android will have to move to 64-bit sooner or later, because some of the high end devices have RAM creeping uncomfortably close to 4gb. The Moto X, Nexus 7, and pretty much every other flagship phone or tablet all have 2gb RAM. The Galaxy Note 3 has 3gb RAM. A transition to 64 bit would happen primarily for memory reasons, not for some magic performance increase.
It's not magic, data can be processed faster. Instead of 32-bits per cycle the CPU processes 64-bits. Is it a huge increase in speed, no it's not. I think when Intel Macs went from 32-bit to 64-bit, the OS saw an overall increase of 10-15%.
A 64-bit CPU can process twice as many bits as a 32-bit CPU. Addressing is NOT what determines the "bitness" of a CPU, it's how many bits of data it can process per cycle. This also has a side effect of making the CPU more efficient, requiring less power.