Considering, someone like Samsung with actual hell of a lot of hardware experience is not even close to matching the A9, I think this rumor is beyond crazy. Who the hell will design this crap? Only one desperate enough would maybe be AMD. Apple should buy AMD just for that even if it is to shut it down...
I agree but unfortunately Apple can't buy ADM for various reasons. (AMD invented the X-86 64 while Intel did the IA-64) (X86-64 won)
Apple is correctly focused on ARM and may very well have the best processor / SOC team in the world at this point.
It's basically CISC vs RISC but the ARM architecture is superior and much more flexible.
Here are a couple of articles that lay it all out.
X86 CPU's are mostly RISC internally anyway, but these were designed for a desktop architecture, scaled well to workstations and servers, and has been repurposed to mobile. ARM has generally catered to low cost and/or low power devices since its inception, an advantage if you don't require all of the overhead of a desktop. In this respect, iOS and Android are a better fit for ARM and avoid the higher cost of X86.
Whether ARM can scale well to the desktop (acknowledging clients for Chrome OS) is unknown, but if it happens, I expect Apple will lead the effort as a means of avoiding the high cost of Intel Inside where possible. The iPad Pro points to the performance of ARM, but until we see some iOS version or variant of the Mac Book, it's all just speculation. One thing that is obvious is that ARM has been experiencing a continued growth spurt benefitting both iOS and Android OS.
I am really disappointed that MS has essentially failed with ARM, as it is to me a competitive advantage in mobile versus X86, but that ship has sailed.
As for Google's entry, there are lots and lots of thorny issues to navigate, and they will likely piss off just about all the OEM's, not to mention that Apple, Qualcomm and Samsung will redouble their efforts in development in order to maintain their advantages in the market.
Better that Google publicly provide a roadmap of features and specs that they would like to see, and let the chips fall as they may.
Herein lies one of Google's problems... They are trying to compete with the current Ax processor. By the time they put out a chip that can complete with an Ax, Apple will be on the Ax 2 chip.
You need to lead the target or you are always playing catch up.
No, but that's hardly relevant when Android actually uses, and benefits from, all 8 cores (Anandtech).
I always found it interesting how people jump back to the "one core" argument. Similarly, the Nexus 9 (Tegra K1 - Denver) had higher single core performance than the iPad Air 2 (A8X), but the Air 2 had 3 cores, not 2, so its overall performance was higher.
The problem isn't the chip. it's Android. iOS runs better on a slower chip because it's properly coded.
Making faster chips to try and make up for crap coding is a bad choice.
If you could run Android on an iPhone, it would be very slow.
If you could run iOS on an Android phone, it would be very fast (not taking into account Metal etc).
Sort out the problem instead of bodging it. However, Android has come too far and been too screwed up with add ons, widgets and layers to try and make it work that it would be better to just start again with a clearer goal of what you wanted, not a hacked OS meant for a phone with a physical keyboard.
Android and Fandroids are all about the specs, so why can't somebody, somewhere, just release a 16 core Android phone with 8 GBs of Ram?
A few vocal Android geeks are focused on specs and openness, but the vast majority of Android users are all about cheap. Sure, you could make a 16 core, 8 GB phone but you would have to charge $1000 for it so it would only sell to a couple of serious Android fanatics. Totally not worth it. At this point Android OEMs are mostly focused on selling billions of super cheap phones to India and China.
By the time this partnership bears fruit, they will be competing with the A11 processor. One thing Intel showed is that when it comes to desiging processors, it is good to be the king. You can invest heavily in new fabs and buy or develop all the best new chip technology to stay ahead of the competition. That worked great for Intel until they missed the mobile revolution and then sabotaged their high end CPU performance to try to win back low power CPU dominance.
No, but that's hardly relevant when Android actually uses, and benefits from, all 8 cores (Anandtech).
I always found it interesting how people jump back to the "one core" argument. Similarly, the Nexus 9 (Tegra K1 - Denver) had higher single core performance than the iPad Air 2 (A8X), but the Air 2 had 3 cores, not 2, so its overall performance was higher.
Most apps are single threaded; so most will benefit from a high single core. Not many apps will use all 8 cores, and for a fact, the only 8 core SoC's are big / little implementations, so wasteful of die.
Thanks always for showing the old Tegra Love; but you do know that nVidia is no longer in mobile; likely as the Tegra was a hot running SoC.
Compare that with A 9 which hardly throttles in even heavy gaming; the definition of balanced design.
Tegra sucks for mobile, every generation was power hungry, so bringing that argument is B.S.
Edit,
So I read your Anandtech link; basically it only demonstrates that Android can take advantage of multiple cores; it doesn't really answer the question of what is actually better in actual use, nor is any of it applicable to iOS. I will retract my "wasteful of die" statement; it would appear that this is a successful strategy for Mediatek which sells to the low and midrange OEM's.
The issue here is that Google open pandora's box and now they trying to close it, and hopes no one notice it was ever open in the first place.
Google bought Andriod and Andy Rubin and Andy had no idea why MS and Intel were successful. Andy understood the MS part but failed on the Intel part. MS wrote and OS which only worked on the Intel X86 plateform even though there were other processor technologies out there. Apple went to Motorola processor which at the time were better than Intel they were 16 bit processors. but we leave that argue to another thread.
What MS did was to work with Intel to agree that they would agree to work together, when this happen the PC companies had to buy from MS and Intel to make a computer. They could not buy another processor because it would not work with DOS then Windows and Office. Other here talked about AMD as a competitor to Intel as if they both were equal, they are not. AMD was able to reverse engineer a chip which work with DOS and windows. It is not like Intel and AMD got design spec for a processor from MS and decide to compete against each other.
Andy forgot to lock in a Chip to his software. He thought it would be a good idea to have his OS work on anything and everything and people would just tweek the code to work with the processor they want to use. Well we all know the end result of that decision. At this point there is no going back and the whole situation will continue to get worse because more idiots with money will think they know how to make the next cheapest andriod phone and will win the war.
For some reason this makes no sense to me. Am I missing something? When did Qualcomm and MediaTek start fabbing their own chips? Aren't they both fabless chip designers? They design chips but don't actually make them. Apple also designs chips but does not make them either.
Both chip makers and chip designers are dealing with a commodity product already. Chips and their designs have been commodities for decades. If one chip or design is not working out, you switch to another chip design. There are tons of chips and designs to interchange for all manner of uses and price points.
DED or someone else at AI needs to write an article explaining how chip are made, since there's still lots of confusion about it. Chip manufacturing/fab is a commodity but chip design is not. You can compare fab to a printer, you could either buy one and print at home (expensive) or you can go to Kinkos and they'll print it for you (cheaper). There are plenty of "Kinkos" in the world (http://bit.ly/1PfiesU) but they only specialize in printing, not designing what's being printed. Design by itself is not a commodity.
The issue here is that Google open pandora's box and now they trying to close it, and hopes no one notice it was ever open in the first place.
Google bought Andriod and Andy Rubin and Andy had no idea why MS and Intel were successful. Andy understood the MS part but failed on the Intel part. MS wrote and OS which only worked on the Intel X86 plateform even though there were other processor technologies out there. Apple went to Motorola processor which at the time were better than Intel they were 16 bit processors. but we leave that argue to another thread.
What MS did was to work with Intel to agree that they would agree to work together, when this happen the PC companies had to buy from MS and Intel to make a computer. They could not buy another processor because it would not work with DOS then Windows and Office. Other here talked about AMD as a competitor to Intel as if they both were equal, they are not. AMD was able to reverse engineer a chip which work with DOS and windows. It is not like Intel and AMD got design spec for a processor from MS and decide to compete against each other.
Andy forgot to lock in a Chip to his software. He thought it would be a good idea to have his OS work on anything and everything and people would just tweek the code to work with the processor they want to use. Well we all know the end result of that decision. At this point there is no going back and the whole situation will continue to get worse because more idiots with money will think they know how to make the next cheapest andriod phone and will win the war.
Almost certainly a no win situation for Google and the OEM's, but handy for Apple which appears to have accelerated its gain of Android Switchers.
The issue here is that Google open pandora's box and now they trying to close it, and hopes no one notice it was ever open in the first place.
Google bought Andriod and Andy Rubin and Andy had no idea why MS and Intel were successful. Andy understood the MS part but failed on the Intel part. MS wrote and OS which only worked on the Intel X86 plateform even though there were other processor technologies out there. Apple went to Motorola processor which at the time were better than Intel they were 16 bit processors. but we leave that argue to another thread.
What MS did was to work with Intel to agree that they would agree to work together, when this happen the PC companies had to buy from MS and Intel to make a computer. They could not buy another processor because it would not work with DOS then Windows and Office. Other here talked about AMD as a competitor to Intel as if they both were equal, they are not. AMD was able to reverse engineer a chip which work with DOS and windows. It is not like Intel and AMD got design spec for a processor from MS and decide to compete against each other.
Andy forgot to lock in a Chip to his software. He thought it would be a good idea to have his OS work on anything and everything and people would just tweek the code to work with the processor they want to use. Well we all know the end result of that decision. At this point there is no going back and the whole situation will continue to get worse because more idiots with money will think they know how to make the next cheapest andriod phone and will win the war.
Almost certainly a no win situation for Google and the OEM's, but handy for Apple which appears to have accelerated its gain of Android Switchers.
Not almost, it is a no win situation no matter what Google and the OEMs do. The smartphone war is over.
Not almost, it is a no win situation no matter what Google and the OEMs do. The smartphone war is over.
Pretty much. They're also on their way to commodity status over the next few years. Not a whole lotta "wow" remaining and hardware is getting progressively less expensive. There's a good reason you see Apple reaching their fingers everywhere in the search for the next billion. In-car services, autonomous vehicles, watches, medical devices, TVstreamer, pseudo-cable provider, search, ads, shopping, music streaming, home control, cloud service provider, etc. etc.
They're also not the only tech having a look at the landscape to see where they build a home. Dollar signs everywhere, just gotta sort out which ones are counterfeit and which ones to take to the bank.
They're also on their way to commodity status over the next few years.
Maybe some phones but not iPhones. That is why you see such attention to the case design and materials. People will continue to pay for quality and luxury. Almost all Android phones are already a commodity.
Maybe some phones but not iPhones. That is why you see such attention to the case design and materials. People will continue to pay for quality and luxury. Almost all Android phones are already a commodity.
We should tag these two posts to look at 10 years out. I hope we're both still around to claim we were right afterall!
If Google really wanted to follow the Wintel model, they should have focused entirely on the OS. They should have worked more closely with Samsung as a hardware manufacturer.
They have emasculated Samsung who was and continues to remain the most competent hardware manufacturer in the business outside of Apple. If Samsung exits the smartphone business, a Android will become a total mess as the remaining companies are simply in a race to the bottom. At least Samsung is actually trying to release a high end and compelling product. But Samsung's priorities and google's priorities really don't mesh.
Google should have had the foresight to see that they really need to have a strong hardware manufacturer. Else Android phones will be perceived as junk like they currently are in China. So much so that Samsung, which makes high quality hardware is taking a beating, because of that perception while Apple phones are viewed as high quality and aspirational products. Now Google is trying to eliminate all distinction between their Android products and make them all inexpensive and "cheap." How is Samsung or any company who wants to make high end hardware supposed to compete? Google doesn't care as getting their handsets into as many users as possible will bring more eyes and more advertising dollars. Except that people who don't have money can't spend any and therefore poor advertising targets.
They are now realizing that Android phones are being perceived as junk. The only hardware outside of Apple that I find enticing are Samsung and LG. But Google is attacking the individual brands. They want everything to be known as Google's Android only with the actual manufacturer a non-entity. Why any handset manufacturer would want to be a part of that ecosystem defies logic.
What Samsung needs to do, is bury their animosity with LG and perhaps bring Sony and HTC to the table. They need to pool their resources and turn either WebOS or Tizen into a viable platform that is able to run Android applications. Or perhaps incorporate an Android runtime environment that can operate Android apps. They can then design their own CPUs and build in high end functionality into their handsets. They can leave Google and perhaps entice the developer community to build apps for their own OS.
Huawei and Xiami phones are junk. I love the OLED screens of Samsung and LG along with their cameras. However, as long as they run the spyware OS known as Android, they will never be considered for purchase by me. Since the manufacturers are interested in winning over customers that have more in the way if disposable income, it would behoove them to leave Android and develop an alternative platform.
Google is going to contract. That is an inevitability. Their model is no sustainable. What is happening in China will be duplicated elsewhere. India won't save them. And neither will attempting to get into processor design. Intel x86 CPUs will never be cost competitive. They will be forced to do it on the ARM platform. Maybe Qualcomm or Mediatek would be willing to work with Google. So what happens when Google's new processor gets fabbed on TSMC's manufacturing lines? Does Apple take it's considerable business and move it all back to Samsung? Samsung could manufacture such a CPU, but why would they want to? The low end phones are destroying Samsung's handset business. Perhaps Intel will do it with Google providing considerable contrarevenue of their own. Maybe Global Foundries?
None of this makes sense. But it does show that Google is getting desperate. And how smart technical minds can be extremely poor businessmen.
Comments
Fixed that for you
... Android and Google are sinking to the bottom
I see that as like saying therefore Insects will rule the planet ...
Considering, someone like Samsung with actual hell of a lot of hardware experience is not even close to matching the A9, I think this rumor is beyond crazy. Who the hell will design this crap? Only one desperate enough would maybe be AMD. Apple should buy AMD just for that even if it is to shut it down...
I agree but unfortunately Apple can't buy ADM for various reasons. (AMD invented the X-86 64 while Intel did the IA-64) (X86-64 won)
Apple is correctly focused on ARM and may very well have the best processor / SOC team in the world at this point.
It's basically CISC vs RISC but the ARM architecture is superior and much more flexible.
Here are a couple of articles that lay it all out.
http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/04/02/will-apple-buy-amd-out.aspx
https://www.quora.com/Whats-the-difference-between-ARM-and-X86-processors
I agree but unfortunately Apple can't buy ADM for various reasons. (AMD invented the X-86 64 while Intel did the IA-64) (X86-64 won)
Apple is correctly focused on ARM and may very well have the best processor / SOC team in the world at this point.
It's basically CISC vs RISC but the ARM architecture is superior and much more flexible.
Here are a couple of articles that lay it all out.
http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/04/02/will-apple-buy-amd-out.aspx
https://www.quora.com/Whats-the-difference-between-ARM-and-X86-processors
X86 CPU's are mostly RISC internally anyway, but these were designed for a desktop architecture, scaled well to workstations and servers, and has been repurposed to mobile. ARM has generally catered to low cost and/or low power devices since its inception, an advantage if you don't require all of the overhead of a desktop. In this respect, iOS and Android are a better fit for ARM and avoid the higher cost of X86.
Whether ARM can scale well to the desktop (acknowledging clients for Chrome OS) is unknown, but if it happens, I expect Apple will lead the effort as a means of avoiding the high cost of Intel Inside where possible. The iPad Pro points to the performance of ARM, but until we see some iOS version or variant of the Mac Book, it's all just speculation. One thing that is obvious is that ARM has been experiencing a continued growth spurt benefitting both iOS and Android OS.
I am really disappointed that MS has essentially failed with ARM, as it is to me a competitive advantage in mobile versus X86, but that ship has sailed.
As for Google's entry, there are lots and lots of thorny issues to navigate, and they will likely piss off just about all the OEM's, not to mention that Apple, Qualcomm and Samsung will redouble their efforts in development in order to maintain their advantages in the market.
Better that Google publicly provide a roadmap of features and specs that they would like to see, and let the chips fall as they may.
By the time they put out a chip that can complete with an Ax, Apple will be on the Ax 2 chip.
You need to lead the target or you are always playing catch up.
On one core performance?
No, but that's hardly relevant when Android actually uses, and benefits from, all 8 cores (Anandtech).
I always found it interesting how people jump back to the "one core" argument. Similarly, the Nexus 9 (Tegra K1 - Denver) had higher single core performance than the iPad Air 2 (A8X), but the Air 2 had 3 cores, not 2, so its overall performance was higher.
Apple's A8 was better than that in many aspects.....
Do tell.
The problem isn't the chip. it's Android. iOS runs better on a slower chip because it's properly coded.
Making faster chips to try and make up for crap coding is a bad choice.
If you could run Android on an iPhone, it would be very slow.
If you could run iOS on an Android phone, it would be very fast (not taking into account Metal etc).
Sort out the problem instead of bodging it. However, Android has come too far and been too screwed up with add ons, widgets and layers to try and make it work that it would be better to just start again with a clearer goal of what you wanted, not a hacked OS meant for a phone with a physical keyboard.
Android and Fandroids are all about the specs, so why can't somebody, somewhere, just release a 16 core Android phone with 8 GBs of Ram?
A few vocal Android geeks are focused on specs and openness, but the vast majority of Android users are all about cheap. Sure, you could make a 16 core, 8 GB phone but you would have to charge $1000 for it so it would only sell to a couple of serious Android fanatics. Totally not worth it. At this point Android OEMs are mostly focused on selling billions of super cheap phones to India and China.
By the time this partnership bears fruit, they will be competing with the A11 processor. One thing Intel showed is that when it comes to desiging processors, it is good to be the king. You can invest heavily in new fabs and buy or develop all the best new chip technology to stay ahead of the competition. That worked great for Intel until they missed the mobile revolution and then sabotaged their high end CPU performance to try to win back low power CPU dominance.
No, but that's hardly relevant when Android actually uses, and benefits from, all 8 cores (Anandtech).
I always found it interesting how people jump back to the "one core" argument. Similarly, the Nexus 9 (Tegra K1 - Denver) had higher single core performance than the iPad Air 2 (A8X), but the Air 2 had 3 cores, not 2, so its overall performance was higher.
Most apps are single threaded; so most will benefit from a high single core. Not many apps will use all 8 cores, and for a fact, the only 8 core SoC's are big / little implementations, so wasteful of die.
Thanks always for showing the old Tegra Love; but you do know that nVidia is no longer in mobile; likely as the Tegra was a hot running SoC.
Compare that with A 9 which hardly throttles in even heavy gaming; the definition of balanced design.
Tegra sucks for mobile, every generation was power hungry, so bringing that argument is B.S.
Edit,
So I read your Anandtech link; basically it only demonstrates that Android can take advantage of multiple cores; it doesn't really answer the question of what is actually better in actual use, nor is any of it applicable to iOS. I will retract my "wasteful of die" statement; it would appear that this is a successful strategy for Mediatek which sells to the low and midrange OEM's.
The issue here is that Google open pandora's box and now they trying to close it, and hopes no one notice it was ever open in the first place.
Google bought Andriod and Andy Rubin and Andy had no idea why MS and Intel were successful. Andy understood the MS part but failed on the Intel part. MS wrote and OS which only worked on the Intel X86 plateform even though there were other processor technologies out there. Apple went to Motorola processor which at the time were better than Intel they were 16 bit processors. but we leave that argue to another thread.
What MS did was to work with Intel to agree that they would agree to work together, when this happen the PC companies had to buy from MS and Intel to make a computer. They could not buy another processor because it would not work with DOS then Windows and Office. Other here talked about AMD as a competitor to Intel as if they both were equal, they are not. AMD was able to reverse engineer a chip which work with DOS and windows. It is not like Intel and AMD got design spec for a processor from MS and decide to compete against each other.
Andy forgot to lock in a Chip to his software. He thought it would be a good idea to have his OS work on anything and everything and people would just tweek the code to work with the processor they want to use. Well we all know the end result of that decision. At this point there is no going back and the whole situation will continue to get worse because more idiots with money will think they know how to make the next cheapest andriod phone and will win the war.
For some reason this makes no sense to me. Am I missing something? When did Qualcomm and MediaTek start fabbing their own chips? Aren't they both fabless chip designers? They design chips but don't actually make them. Apple also designs chips but does not make them either.
Both chip makers and chip designers are dealing with a commodity product already. Chips and their designs have been commodities for decades. If one chip or design is not working out, you switch to another chip design. There are tons of chips and designs to interchange for all manner of uses and price points.
DED or someone else at AI needs to write an article explaining how chip are made, since there's still lots of confusion about it. Chip manufacturing/fab is a commodity but chip design is not. You can compare fab to a printer, you could either buy one and print at home (expensive) or you can go to Kinkos and they'll print it for you (cheaper). There are plenty of "Kinkos" in the world (http://bit.ly/1PfiesU) but they only specialize in printing, not designing what's being printed. Design by itself is not a commodity.
The issue here is that Google open pandora's box and now they trying to close it, and hopes no one notice it was ever open in the first place.
Google bought Andriod and Andy Rubin and Andy had no idea why MS and Intel were successful. Andy understood the MS part but failed on the Intel part. MS wrote and OS which only worked on the Intel X86 plateform even though there were other processor technologies out there. Apple went to Motorola processor which at the time were better than Intel they were 16 bit processors. but we leave that argue to another thread.
What MS did was to work with Intel to agree that they would agree to work together, when this happen the PC companies had to buy from MS and Intel to make a computer. They could not buy another processor because it would not work with DOS then Windows and Office. Other here talked about AMD as a competitor to Intel as if they both were equal, they are not. AMD was able to reverse engineer a chip which work with DOS and windows. It is not like Intel and AMD got design spec for a processor from MS and decide to compete against each other.
Andy forgot to lock in a Chip to his software. He thought it would be a good idea to have his OS work on anything and everything and people would just tweek the code to work with the processor they want to use. Well we all know the end result of that decision. At this point there is no going back and the whole situation will continue to get worse because more idiots with money will think they know how to make the next cheapest andriod phone and will win the war.
Almost certainly a no win situation for Google and the OEM's, but handy for Apple which appears to have accelerated its gain of Android Switchers.
Not almost, it is a no win situation no matter what Google and the OEMs do. The smartphone war is over.
They're also not the only tech having a look at the landscape to see where they build a home. Dollar signs everywhere, just gotta sort out which ones are counterfeit and which ones to take to the bank.
They're also on their way to commodity status over the next few years.
Maybe some phones but not iPhones. That is why you see such attention to the case design and materials. People will continue to pay for quality and luxury. Almost all Android phones are already a commodity.
They have emasculated Samsung who was and continues to remain the most competent hardware manufacturer in the business outside of Apple. If Samsung exits the smartphone business, a Android will become a total mess as the remaining companies are simply in a race to the bottom. At least Samsung is actually trying to release a high end and compelling product. But Samsung's priorities and google's priorities really don't mesh.
Google should have had the foresight to see that they really need to have a strong hardware manufacturer. Else Android phones will be perceived as junk like they currently are in China. So much so that Samsung, which makes high quality hardware is taking a beating, because of that perception while Apple phones are viewed as high quality and aspirational products. Now Google is trying to eliminate all distinction between their Android products and make them all inexpensive and "cheap." How is Samsung or any company who wants to make high end hardware supposed to compete? Google doesn't care as getting their handsets into as many users as possible will bring more eyes and more advertising dollars. Except that people who don't have money can't spend any and therefore poor advertising targets.
They are now realizing that Android phones are being perceived as junk. The only hardware outside of Apple that I find enticing are Samsung and LG. But Google is attacking the individual brands. They want everything to be known as Google's Android only with the actual manufacturer a non-entity. Why any handset manufacturer would want to be a part of that ecosystem defies logic.
What Samsung needs to do, is bury their animosity with LG and perhaps bring Sony and HTC to the table. They need to pool their resources and turn either WebOS or Tizen into a viable platform that is able to run Android applications. Or perhaps incorporate an Android runtime environment that can operate Android apps. They can then design their own CPUs and build in high end functionality into their handsets. They can leave Google and perhaps entice the developer community to build apps for their own OS.
Huawei and Xiami phones are junk. I love the OLED screens of Samsung and LG along with their cameras. However, as long as they run the spyware OS known as Android, they will never be considered for purchase by me. Since the manufacturers are interested in winning over customers that have more in the way if disposable income, it would behoove them to leave Android and develop an alternative platform.
Google is going to contract. That is an inevitability. Their model is no sustainable. What is happening in China will be duplicated elsewhere. India won't save them. And neither will attempting to get into processor design. Intel x86 CPUs will never be cost competitive. They will be forced to do it on the ARM platform. Maybe Qualcomm or Mediatek would be willing to work with Google. So what happens when Google's new processor gets fabbed on TSMC's manufacturing lines? Does Apple take it's considerable business and move it all back to Samsung? Samsung could manufacture such a CPU, but why would they want to? The low end phones are destroying Samsung's handset business. Perhaps Intel will do it with Google providing considerable contrarevenue of their own. Maybe Global Foundries?
None of this makes sense. But it does show that Google is getting desperate. And how smart technical minds can be extremely poor businessmen.