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Apple unveils the new A7 chip
Fudzilla ^ | Tuesday, 10 September 2013 | Slobodan Simic

Posted on 09/11/2013 12:08:32 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach

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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
In any case, while everyone is talking about upcoming ARM's Cortex-A57 64-bit design, Apple has once again managed to come up on top of other manufacturers and be the first one to offer the first consumer smartphone ARM-based SoC with 64-bit...

The 64bit arch is basically so much marketing fluff. The only advantage to 64 bit is memory address space.

Some newer phones/tablets have 2 or 3 gig of ram, nowhere near the 4 gig limit of 32bit cpu's.

How many cores does this have ? Several newer mobile cpu's have 8 cores.

The new motorola moto-x has several auxilliary processors which the M7 is copying.

This is surely a fine product, just not the big splash the marketeers are pushing.

21 posted on 09/11/2013 8:53:53 PM PDT by quimby
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To: Cyber Liberty
It’s a natural consequence of moving management of a tech company from engineers to accountants. Almost killed the big three car companies, too. If you’re a bank, OK, but taking engineering out of the VP-level management is fatal for a tech company.

Or moving management from idea/design/dev guys in a software company to sales, like with Microsoft. Even as they transition to a services and hardware company, they were still having missteps that wouldn't have happened under Gates or another idea/product guy.
22 posted on 09/11/2013 10:32:27 PM PDT by af_vet_rr
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To: dayglored
Personally I'm hoping that Microsoft lures Gates back into the CEO position. Or failing that, places a CEO who is accountable to Gates as chief visionary.

Agreed. I don't think they can get Gates back at this point, but they need a visionary. They are doing well with Xbox, Windows, Office, etc., but they are also flailing around with mobile devices and some other offerings.

Between some of the Windows RT stuff, the Kin stuff, and a few others, they have wasted a few billion, but more importantly, they let themselves get sidetracked.
23 posted on 09/11/2013 10:34:45 PM PDT by af_vet_rr
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To: quimby
The 64bit arch is basically so much marketing fluff. The only advantage to 64 bit is memory address space.

So you've got 16gb on your new thin and shiny laptop.

But this 32-bit app you're running to crank out a stupid accounting report you've come to reply upon needs 2.5gb to format an Excel workbook (after you added a couple of years to the time span), but the OS claims 2gb of the 4gb 32-bit address space. So, despite your capacious laptop, you are SOL until you obtain a 64-bit build of your app. Get googling! This, despite the fact that your app fits well within the resources of your laptop!

I'm sorry. That's a real problem, not a problem I would ascribe to marketing scum.

OK. So maybe the app should only need a few megabytes (likely). After all, storage does get out of hand quickly when you mix Java and XML and design patterns. But then the app would have to be reconceived and rewritten. That takes the mental bandwidth of an expensive human. How many times the cost of a shiny new 16gb laptop would it take to get it done?

Calling 64-bit marketing fluff is like the nitwit industry pundit who panned 16-bit processors in about 1980 because bytes were 8-bit and the most useful non-mainframe computer applications were word processing (pushing those 8-bit, non-Chinese characters around).

24 posted on 09/11/2013 11:20:05 PM PDT by cynwoody
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To: cynwoody
Maybe my post wasn't clear. What is marketing fluff is the that this put apple ahead of other companies. A number of companies can and will produce a 64bit cpu when its needed.

Having 64bit cpu's in todays mobile devices is superfluous and ignores many other factors that comprise the total capabilites of any cpu.

If you are doing 2.5gb excel spreadsheets on a iphone or ipad, you are really amazing.

25 posted on 09/11/2013 11:38:55 PM PDT by quimby
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To: quimby
If you are doing 2.5gb excel spreadsheets on a iphone or ipad, you are really amazing.

Nope. You're just pushing the envelope a little.

Portability in computing devices is important! After all, just because I'm taking a dump, why should I interrupt my deep thought financial analysis? Think of the insights I could drill down to, while waiting for that second emetic wave!

Folks in the industry know this is true. That's why Apple feels compelled to demonstrate they are on it.

26 posted on 09/11/2013 11:57:14 PM PDT by cynwoody
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To: cynwoody
To each their own. My point is lots of innovation going on in the ARM processor market. Samsung is doing some amazing stuff in phone/tablet multitasking.

Samsung Shares More Technical Videos Explaining the Exynos 5 Octa-Core Advancements

Again I ask, how many cores in the A7?

27 posted on 09/12/2013 12:08:25 AM PDT by quimby
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To: quimby
If you are doing 2.5gb excel spreadsheets on a iphone or ipad, you are really amazing.

Or you just love bloat. Really the only reason for 64 bits is so that processes use up more RAM and run slower.

28 posted on 09/12/2013 4:46:57 AM PDT by palmer (Obama = Carter + affirmative action)
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To: NVDave
Then.. the company starts strip-mining their balance sheet, and eventually, they’re an acquisition target for the last of their IP, or they go belly up.

To quote some young managers: "Sounds like a plan." /S

29 posted on 09/12/2013 4:57:23 AM PDT by Pearls Before Swine
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To: NVDave

Dittos on your last two paragraphs. Liberal arts majors love to live in stupid luxury, one best way to get it is via strip mining a company and getting paid well for. Could be in stock options and other ways. They will exploit and sell out America via free trade as long as they can make good money doing so.

Washington DC is stacked with trade lawyers


30 posted on 09/12/2013 5:11:23 AM PDT by dennisw (The first principle is to find out who you are then you can achieve anything -- Buddhist monk)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

wonk central


31 posted on 09/12/2013 5:52:38 AM PDT by dennisw (The first principle is to find out who you are then you can achieve anything -- Buddhist monk)
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To: dfwgator
How’s the battery life?

Apple's claim is that it is as good as, or better than, the A6 for power consumption.

32 posted on 09/12/2013 6:01:27 AM PDT by kevkrom (It's not "immigration reform", it's an "amnesty bill". Take back the language!)
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To: quimby

I understand your post, but I think you are missing what I believe the intent of this thread was - to draw attention to the “rest of the story”... That being that Apple is making a big deal out of a new chip that is 64-bit, and could (by their statement - “desktop-class architecture” be a hint at bigger things coming. Could Apple be angling to go back to hands-on design of their own CPU’s for their entire product line? Remember, Apple moved away from ARM for their computer offerings (previously the result of Motorola + Apple partnership) because the ARM tech was not keeping up (particularly in the raw numbers category) with the Intel-type processors. Clock speeds and advances in general had slowed considerably with the PowerPC line, which led to marking issues, as well as parts availability (and cost) issues, and more. So Apple jumped to the Intel CPU and has done well with it.

BUT - it would be very Apple-like to jump back to their own proprietary chips. I’m not sure its a good idea (other than it sure would simplify OS and cross-device development in their product lines!

Still - I’m not sure I am thrilled with that idea. But it is definitely news and note-worthy.


33 posted on 09/12/2013 8:46:11 AM PDT by TheBattman (Isn't the lesser evil... still evil?)
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To: TheBattman
....Clock speeds and advances in general had slowed considerably with the PowerPC line....

If I recall my ancient history correctly, Apple abandoned the PowerPC partly because the manufacturers had slowed down deliveries to Apple in favor of DoD contracts.

The PowerPC processor was used in U.S smart weapons for years.

34 posted on 09/12/2013 10:06:42 AM PDT by jimtorr
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To: jimtorr

That is possible, though I was not aware of that factor. I do know that Jobs got frustrated with slow development -


35 posted on 09/12/2013 3:43:56 PM PDT by TheBattman (Isn't the lesser evil... still evil?)
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To: quimby
Having 64bit cpu's in todays mobile devices is superfluous and ignores many other factors that comprise the total capabilites of any cpu.

If you are doing 2.5gb excel spreadsheets on a iphone or ipad, you are really amazing.

It's not about spreadsheets, Quimby. It's about moving millions of pixels around in cutting edge games on 1080p video at high frame rates. . . and a 64 bit architecture can handle it more and faster. Plus, Apple has had those co-processing chips for some time and iOS is far more efficient than Android in how it runs in the hardware and in memory usage.

36 posted on 09/12/2013 11:12:08 PM PDT by Swordmaker (This tag line is a Microsoft insult free zone... but if the insults to Mac users continue...)
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To: Swordmaker
and a 64 bit architecture can handle it more and faster. Plus, Apple has had those co-processing chips for some time and iOS is far more efficient than Android in how it runs in the hardware and in memory usage.

Lol, straight out of the apple press release. apple is playing catch up at this point, and at the rate they're moving, they'll never catch up.

Enjoy your candy colored phones and OS7, fanboy.

PS, the spreadsheet stuff was my response to another poster.

PPS Please dont tell me again to save my money and try to buy an apple refurb. I'm quite happy with my $100 android tablet.

37 posted on 09/12/2013 11:36:36 PM PDT by quimby
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To: quimby
Lol, straight out of the apple press release. apple is playing catch up at this point, and at the rate they're moving, they'll never catch up.
<
Enjoy your candy colored phones and OS7, fanboy.

And you enjoy your Android malware magnet

38 posted on 09/12/2013 11:47:20 PM PDT by Swordmaker (This tag line is a Microsoft insult free zone... but if the insults to Mac users continue...)
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To: Swordmaker
From your link:

Just what you always wanted: A malware botnet on Android devices. But you have to be really dumb to get infected.

I guess people like you need protection from this.

BTW can you access your file system on iOS? (File system, not files).

39 posted on 09/12/2013 11:59:28 PM PDT by quimby
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To: quimby
Yes, but why should I care?

You are living in the past in an antique way of accessing and handling files. My files are on my computer at home, at my office, or on the cloud so that ALL my devices have access to them and to the latest revisions of them. I have terabytes of files available to me when I need them. Terabytes.

You obviously have no concept of how that works, do you? I can access AND control both my office and home computers from my iPhone or my iPad AND access and use any application on their desktops. You just be happy with your $100 fragmented Android tablet.

Oh, by the way, that botnet spread on Android with little user involvement:

Vaughan-Nichols reports, “If the user clicks on the link, a file named mms.apk, containing Opfake.a, is automatically loaded onto the smartphone or tablet. Then again, the user has to be a bit of an idiot and users run the downloaded program.”

Obviously, the users were idiots. They ran the downloaded program and added their phones and tablets to the botnet. "Gee, I wonder what this is?" Tap. Tap.

97% of mobile malware in the wild is on Android... The other 3% is for Symbian, Rimm, Windows, and "Jailbroken" iPhones. None in the wild is for iOS.

And, no, I don't need protection from this. I don't buy vulnerable junk. . . like people who think they have to have access to their file system do, just like the crooks who write malware.

40 posted on 09/13/2013 12:23:29 AM PDT by Swordmaker (This tag line is a Microsoft insult free zone... but if the insults to Mac users continue...)
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