Is Apple preparing to launch its first quad-core phone?
With summer well underway, the Apple rumor-mill is chugging along in preparation for the launch of the next iPhone. Expected to be announced in September, just like the iPhone 4S last year, we don't know a whole lot about the iPhone 5. As usual, Apple is keeping pretty quiet, so we're left to scour the web for talk of the device.
The latest comes via Digitimes and relates to the CPU we can expect to find powering the newest iPhone. The site quotes industry sources in reporting that competition in the quad-core smartphone arena is going to heat up considerably in Q4 thanks to the launch of a quad-core iPhone 5. Not only that, but this new iteration of the iPhone will be running on none other than Samsung's quad-core Exynos CPU.
If this rumor is true, it represents a significant performance increase over the iPhone 4S, which used a dual-core A5. However, we also need to consider the possibilty of an LTE iPhone 5. Right now, quad-core phones generally don't mix with America's LTE networks. For this reason, many manufacturers of quad-core devices have swapped in a dual-core CPU for the American market. This includes Samsung's Galaxy SIII, which uses a quad-core Exynos in international markets but a dual-core Snapdragon from Qualcomm in the U.S. With the launch of the 4G iPad six months ago, we're not sure Apple would choose quad-core over LTE. Still, we could be wrong. Guess we'll have to wait and see.
of course not dummy, samsung has manufactured iPhones CPUs since ever.
of course not dummy, samsung has manufactured iPhones CPUs since ever.
My guess is the leading edge is being pursued so aggressively that quad cores suck too much battery for LTE, so to save useable life, 2 cores are dropped.
Kapper - Samsung isn't just competing for smartphone sales, it's a vertically integrated corporation that makes CPUs and screens as well, both of which are also in an arms race. And the iPhone is the #1 selling smartphone overall (if not recently due to the SGS3), so Samsung's competition is also one of its largest customers and gives it a healthy amount of revenue and profit to drive the CPU arms race.
FRAND.
Samsung also produces RAM chips and I think that they make NAND flash chips too. Heck, they might make even more.
I have yet to see a mobile software that uses quad-cores. Heck, many of the laptop/desktop software are just starting to use quad-cores.
It's not a journey of a thousand days, it's a journey of a thousand years.
think of it, the cpus are pretty cheap, and with windows you could see the use of an 8 core system, and look at the ipad 3 and the better games there, getting close to console quality, dual chip and have them work in tandem, and well damn, you got allot of power there.
For Apple, they'd have to pay more from a different supplier which would cut into their profits. Or worse yet, may not be able to get enough supply from one vendor to sucker all the isheeps into buying the new iphone 5.02 GS XL edition (now 1 MHz faster).
Plus both companies can deduct the legal costs, and may be able to tap into the contingency funds to still hit manager / CxO bonus targets.
I might be a little suspicious, but I've always wondered if two companies in such a situation we're actually in collusion. Apple: We get the US / Germany market, you sell us the chips for an additional 2% above normal and you can have the tertiary EU/Asian/African markets.
Samsung: OK but we have to make it look good, and we get to release our better model once you've sold 55% of the base supply of model 4g and you can sell the 5 once we have 80% of our base stock sold. Now lets talk Q4 selling ....
it's called laziness...the manufacturers need to step it up...why does everyone get 4 cores yet we only get two?....who is controlling this crap?
If they have made their CPU's efficient enough to add in 4 cores, they should just stick to 2 cores and allow the cores to overclock themselves higher on demand.
FRAND has nothing to do with them working together, Samsung makes the chips for Apple that is not a FRAND issue that is a money issue and Apple brings a lot of money to Samsung. As for Apple the thing is that Samsung is really the only single company that can keep up with the chip quantities that Apple needs.