It's hard to appreciate just how far ahead of the curve the A7 was when it came out. At that time, I was weighing between the iPhone 5c and the 5s. The A6 was already considered a best-in-class SoC when it came out with a custom CPU design that broke free from the ARM reference designs that competitors were using. But, the A7 was an unexpected and huge advance in every way.
I remember the initially underwhelming tech press response, calling the A7 a marketing gimmick. But, then the Anandtech review came out with the first legitimate technical discussion of the A7 and its blow-the-doors-off benchmark performance. After that unassailable review got posted, the "marketing gimmick" talk got snuffed out in a hurry, especially considering how many subsequent reviews of the iPhone 5s cited or confirmed Anandtech's findings. The reasons behind it didn't matter (I recall a lot of trivial arguments trying to dismiss 64-bit as a causal factor in the A7's benchmark superiority) -- the iPhone 5s' performance lapped the competition and the A7 pointed the direction to where iOS was headed.
Anyone who has followed Apple's chip architecture transitions over the years knew that it would not take long for the entire iOS ecosystem to go 64-bit. This was a huge deal because it represented exactly what Apple's marketing slogan for the iPhone 5s said -- forward thinking. Even at the time, people called the iPhone 5s a "futureproof" phone. Those prognostications would eventually turn out to be true. Consider that the iPhone 5s received its most recent update less than 2 months ago (iOS 12.4.3), and is still a very usable phone more than 6 years after its introduction.
At that time, I thought the iPhone 5s represented the best of what Apple brings to the market. It delivered class-leading performance and a new chip architecture that would usher in a orderly and swift transition to 64-bit. But, the A7 also enabled Touch ID, which was the best biometric security feature ever introduced. Sure, other biometric devices might have been more secure, but Touch ID moved the bar well forward because its simplicity meant that people would actually secure their devices. Prior to Touch ID, less than half of all smartphones were secured, whether by passcode or gesture or other biometric device (remember those gawdawful swipe sensors?). After Touch ID, over 80% of iPhone 5s owners secured their phones. That's another huge leap forward made possible by the A7.
I doubt that we will see another iPhone that remains current and viable through 6 different iOS versions. The A7 made an immediate impact when it came out because of how it caught the rest of the industry off guard. But, its lasting impact has become how it marked the start of Apple's march to 64-bit and how it made device security more routine and seamless.
I recall when this happened. It was stunning. Not only did Apple come out with a 64 bit SoC, they had the compilers ready to go and they had their own apps compiled for this. A stunning amount of coordinated work.
At the time people complained that smart phones didn't need this level of power. Apple, once again, was in plain sight laying the ground work for future developments. With the much more capable SoC they could then work on computational photography and AR kit. This also helps explain whey the iPhone's interface is so buttery smooth.
In the near future we may next see the A series chips driving a low end MacBook. This would probably be cheaper and lighter and run longer on one battery charge.
I recall when this happened. It was stunning. Not only did Apple come out with a 64 bit SoC, they had the compilers ready to go and they had their own apps compiled for this. A stunning amount of coordinated work.
At the time people complained that smart phones didn't need this level of power. Apple, once again, was in plain sight laying the ground work for future developments. With the much more capable SoC they could then work on computational photography and AR kit. This also helps explain whey the iPhone's interface is so buttery smooth.
Some of the discussions at that time opined that 64-bit was unnecessary because 32-bit would work fine until the RAM hit 4 GB. Even though at the time, the iPhone 5s only carried 1 GB of RAM, the A7 laid out the groundwork for a seamless transition to 64-bit. It gave developers a 64-bit target, and the developer tools made it relatively simple to bundle 32-bit and 64-bit code into a single binary. It helped that Apple had already gone through this type of process with the OS 9>OS X and the Power PC>Intel transitions. And with tighter control over the App Store, Apple could establish the timeline by which the 64-bit transition would occur.
Not long after iOS 8 came out in 2014, Apple announced that all new app submittals must support 64-bit. They could still support both 32-bit and 64-bit in a single binary for backwards compatibility, since Apple was still selling 32-bit iOS devices at that time.
By the time iOS 11 rolled around in 2017, Apple pulled the plug on 32-bit app support as the last 32-bit iOS device that Apple sold was the iPhone 5c that they discontinued in mid-2015. It took less than 2 years for Apple to transition their entire iOS device lineup to 64-bit, and 4 years for the entire ecosystem to go fully 64-bit. When the first 4 GB RAM iOS devices that actually needed a 64-bit OS arrived concurrently with iOS 11 in 2017, they neatly plugged right into a mature 64-bit ecosystem that was ready to go. If Apple had waited until the 4 GB devices actually came out to introduce a 64-bit SoC, the entire ecosystem would have still been 32-bit and Apple would have had to maintain backwards compatibility through 2021.
I also recall that the computational power of the A7 enabled the security encryption underlying Touch ID.
Comments
At the time people complained that smart phones didn't need this level of power. Apple, once again, was in plain sight laying the ground work for future developments. With the much more capable SoC they could then work on computational photography and AR kit. This also helps explain whey the iPhone's interface is so buttery smooth.
In the near future we may next see the A series chips driving a low end MacBook. This would probably be cheaper and lighter and run longer on one battery charge.
https://muckrack.com/daniel-eran-dilger-5/articles
Thanks