Apple partner Qualcomm pans iPhone 5s A7 CPU as 'gimmick,' yet hints at own 64-bit chip

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  • Reply 121 of 172
    hill60hill60 Posts: 6,992member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by patpatpat View Post

     

    Sure any idiot could add some very power hungry RAM to a design and screw with battery life but why on earth would anyone do that.

     


     

    Because they are making cheap junk, which makes up the bulk of Android "activations" and is usually hidden in "other".

     

    Not much margin in a $49 phone or tablet.

  • Reply 122 of 172
    wizard69wizard69 Posts: 13,377member
    Safari!!

    You don't even need to leave Apple built in software to see a need for more RAM.
    mikejones wrote: »
    The iPhone 5s only has 1GB of RAM because it isn't RAM hungry like Android phones and doesn't need the extra RAM. What exactly are you running on a 5s that truly needs more than the 1GB of RAM available? If you're running something on your 5s that needs more than 1 GB of RAM it's likely not really best run on a phone.
  • Reply 123 of 172
    wizard69wizard69 Posts: 13,377member
    Not the flash used in the iPhone as secondary storage. There are flash chips that can be addressed that way, but you need to think of the flash in the iPhone as sort of a SSD. In this sense the flashed is accessed via a controller that is most likely built into the SoC by now.
    spacekid wrote: »
    Does Flash memory not use the address space? Seems it is larger than 4GB so wouldn't it be able to take advantage of the 64 bits?
  • Reply 124 of 172
    jessijessi Posts: 302member

    Anyone who claims the only reason to go to 64-bit is to address more memory is either an idiot, or being disingenuous.  Hell, the address bus does not always follow the internal archtecture width- it's quite possible to have a CPU with a 64 bit internal bus, 64 bit data bus and a 32 bit address bus-- thus only able to address 4GB of RAM.  Hell, even the A7 may be this way.

     

    Address bus width is only relevant when you need to address more RAM.  Since phones don't need that, he's being an idiot.

     

    It's like saying "A retina display is useless because it doesn't improve your typing speed."

     

    Astounding that the "tech" press reports this stuff without realizing it is idiotic.

  • Reply 125 of 172
    jessijessi Posts: 302member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by sranger View Post

     

    To be fair, with only 1GB or RAM there is a limit as to how much of an advantage a 64 bit OS really is at this point....

     


     

    That's not "being fair", that's showing you haven't the first clue what it means to be a 64 bit CPU or OS.  NOT THE FIRST CLUE.

     

    Addressable RAM is COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT.  64 bit CPUS can have 32 bit address busses, and this one probably does!

  • Reply 126 of 172
    wizard69wizard69 Posts: 13,377member
    cferry wrote: »
    So Qualcomm's Chief Marketing Officer spins self-serving BS. What else is new? Isn't that his job?

    But it's Interesting to see he considers himself an engineering expert too. Perhaps in his next emission he'll explain why this mere "marketing gimmick" inspired such purple prose from Gizmodo, not usually considered an Apple fanboi site.

    "We just ran benchmarks on Apple's new iPhone 5S, revealing that, yup, this is the dopest smartphone silicon ever made. This thing freaking churns, crushing every other smartphone out there on both computational power and graphics."

    http://gizmodo.com/iphone-a7-chip-benchmarks-forget-the-specs-it-blows-e-1350717023

    I'm actually shocked that Gizmodo would report on anything Apple related in such a positive manner.
  • Reply 127 of 172
    wizard69wizard69 Posts: 13,377member
    sranger wrote: »
    To be fair, with only 1GB or RAM there is a limit as to how much of an advantage a 64 bit OS really is at this point....

    However, it does sound like sour grapes at this point....

    The focus on RAM in this discussion is asinine. Look at it this way, how many 64 bit computers out there implement all of the RAM a 64 bit address allows for? More so Apples iOS 32 bit implementations don't implement al the RAM possible with a 32 bit address.

    In this case 64 bit is bringing Apple all sorts of advantages even without a bump in RAM. Tricks with pointers for example improve performance. More registers improve performance. In general it appears that the architecture is more efficient and. No some areas vastly improved.

    In any event you are right about the sour grapes.

    Frankly I'd laugh my ass off if Apple introduces the next iPad with 4GB of RAM. IPad may or may not need it depending upon your perspective but it would shut up a lot of people.
  • Reply 128 of 172
    hill60hill60 Posts: 6,992member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by wizard69 View Post



    Frankly I'd laugh my ass off if Apple introduces the next iPad with 4GB of RAM. IPad may or may not need it depending upon your perspective but it would shut up a lot of people.

     

    5GB would be good for a laugh.

  • Reply 129 of 172
    mechanicmechanic Posts: 805member
    Quote:

     Such claims, though, have been met with skepticism from many in the tech industry, with Chandrasekher being the latest among those.


    Because there all marketing people and there companies are all butt hurt they didn't get there first.

    Quote:

     At the same time, though, Chandrasekher seemed to hint that Qualcomm ? which supplies the LTE chips used inside Apple's mobile devices ? would itself be rolling out a 64-bit mobile processor at some point in the future.


    But wait?  I thought they offered no advantage at all?  Why build one then?

    What a stupid moron.  He contradicts himself in his own interview.

     

    There coming out with one obviously because it is very important as many articles have shown. The least of which is being able to address more than 4 Gig of memory.

  • Reply 130 of 172
    mechanicmechanic Posts: 805member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Jessi View Post

     

     

    That's not "being fair", that's showing you haven't the first clue what it means to be a 64 bit CPU or OS.  NOT THE FIRST CLUE.

     

    Addressable RAM is COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT.  64 bit CPUS can have 32 bit address busses, and this one probably does!


     

    Actually "Cyclone" the A7 does both 32bit and 64bit address busses.  It supports the ARM AAarch32 and ARM AArch64.  Because of ARMv8's new ISA it can do both on one chip.

    To quote Anand Lal Shimpi:

     

    Quote:

     

    Unlike the 64-bit x86 transition, ARM’s move to 64-bit comes with a new ISA rather than an extension of the old one. The new instruction set is referred to as A64, while a largely backwards compatible 32-bit format is called A32. Both ISAs can be supported by a single microprocessor design, as ARMv8 features two architectural states: AArch32 and AArch64. Designs that implement both states can switch/interleave between the two states on exception boundaries. In other words, despite A64 being a new ISA you’ll still be able to run old code alongside it. As always, in order to support both you need an OS with support for A64. You can’t run A64 code on an A32 OS. It is also possible to do an A64/AArch64-only design, which is something some server players are considering where backwards compatibility isn’t such a big deal.

    Cyclone is a full implementation of ARMv8 with both AArch32 and AArch64 states. Given Apple’s desire to maintain backwards compatibility with existing iOS apps and not unnecessarily fragment the ARM ecosystem, simply embracing ARMv8 makes a lot of sense.



    He has a good explanation of it here.

  • Reply 131 of 172
    mechanicmechanic Posts: 805member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by wizard69 View Post





    Frankly I'd laugh my ass off if Apple introduces the next iPad with 4GB of RAM. IPad may or may not need it depending upon your perspective but it would shut up a lot of people.

     

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by hill60 View Post

     

     

    5GB would be good for a laugh.


    I think Apple is laying the ground work for just that,  future options,  one being able to address more than 4 Gig of ram, but that is a minor reason like you have said for going to ARMv8 and 64 bit.  There are a ton of reasons now. That improve everything on the A7.  

  • Reply 132 of 172
    The most important part is that it creates an exclusive, both for Apple and for their new coming gadgets.
    This means exclusive new software and a needed transition by customers over time, thus creating eventual necessity of a purchase upgrade.

    The fragmentation aspect as always is irrelevant. Non fragmentations causes problems of its own doing.
  • Reply 133 of 172
    kzbk81kzbk81 Posts: 29member
    Next Apple will design a chip with 128 bit data path and all the idiots out there will follow as well saying simply it is a marketing trick....
  • Reply 134 of 172

    Unless the device has more than 4GB or memory - it is indeed just marketing fluff (yes the chip has other advantages, but that's not what's being pushed as being so great - it's just that it's a 64-bit chip).

     

    But so what? Apple is the only company where marketing plays up their products to a simplistic consumer?

  • Reply 135 of 172
    bigmac2bigmac2 Posts: 639member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by pondosinatra View Post

     

    Unless the device has more than 4GB or memory - it is indeed just marketing fluff (yes the chip has other advantages, but that's not what's being pushed as being so great - it's just that it's a 64-bit chip).

     

    But so what? Apple is the only company where marketing plays up their products to a simplistic consumer?


     

    Here is some good reading for you, please educate yourself on the matter before claiming anything stupid again.

     

    http://www.mikeash.com/pyblog/friday-qa-2013-09-27-arm64-and-you.html

     

    http://www.anandtech.com/show/7335/the-iphone-5s-review/4

  • Reply 136 of 172
    dilliodillio Posts: 106member
    If Apple set itself up for people to not care about these specs (ex. how much RAM my iPhone has, etc.) then it should live by those expectations. I could care less that the new iPhone has 32 or 64-bit processor in it. Focus on showing me what this phone can do that others don't and don't even mention the 64-bit chip. I'm sure people will find out how many bits it is. But I guess when you only have so many updates to your mid-cycle, even Apple likes to make a big deal of specs.
  • Reply 137 of 172
    bigmac2bigmac2 Posts: 639member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by dillio View Post



    If Apple set itself up for people to not care about these specs (ex. how much RAM my iPhone has, etc.) then it should live by those expectations. I could care less that the new iPhone has 32 or 64-bit processor in it. Focus on showing me what this phone can do that others don't and don't even mention the 64-bit chip. I'm sure people will find out how many bits it is. But I guess when you only have so many updates to your mid-cycle, even Apple likes to make a big deal of specs.

     

    I think most people here are confuse between Apple marketing message and the blogosphere hype one. You should watch the iPhone 5s keynote, beside pointing the A7 has the first 64 bit SoC in mobile phone,  Apple itself has say very little about it, the whole iPhone 5s presentation was focusing on showing features and the 64 bit thing was mention only once, time of one slide for the A7 presentation.  In contrast, Apple has made a way bigger deal before with launching the first 64 bit PowerMac G5.

     

    image 

  • Reply 138 of 172
    akqiesakqies Posts: 768member
    dillio wrote: »
    If Apple set itself up for people to not care about these specs (ex. how much RAM my iPhone has, etc.) then it should live by those expectations. I could care less that the new iPhone has 32 or 64-bit processor in it. Focus on showing me what this phone can do that others don't and don't even mention the 64-bit chip. I'm sure people will find out how many bits it is. But I guess when you only have so many updates to your mid-cycle, even Apple likes to make a big deal of specs.

    Besides what BigMac2 states you really miss the point if you don't understand by now how new ARM instruction set for 64-bit benefits the user over the old. There are 4 pages in this thread that go over every beneficial detail about how we will all benefit from this going forward so I implore to actually read this thread.
  • Reply 139 of 172
    akqiesakqies Posts: 768member
    bigmac2 wrote: »
    I think most people here are confuse between Apple marketing message and the blogosphere hype one. You should watch the iPhone 5s keynote, beside pointing the A7 has the first 64 bit SoC in mobile phone,  Apple itself has say very little about it, the whole iPhone 5s presentation was focusing on showing features and the 64 bit thing was mention only once, time of one slide for the A7 presentation.  In contrast, Apple as made a way bigger deal before with launching the first 64 bit PowerMac G5.

    [video]
     

    It's amazing how outdated those specs are now. I suppose, for me, part of it is that the G5 tower design is still be sold today and it'll still look great once the next Mac Pro launches.
  • Reply 140 of 172
    jragostajragosta Posts: 10,473member
    dillio wrote: »
    If Apple set itself up for people to not care about these specs (ex. how much RAM my iPhone has, etc.) then it should live by those expectations. I could care less that the new iPhone has 32 or 64-bit processor in it. Focus on showing me what this phone can do that others don't and don't even mention the 64-bit chip. I'm sure people will find out how many bits it is. But I guess when you only have so many updates to your mid-cycle, even Apple likes to make a big deal of specs.

    They did.

    2 hour presentation. 15 seconds on 64 bit. One hour, 59 minutes and 45 seconds on other topics.

    Seems to me that Apple didn't hype 64 bit at all.
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