“British company Imagination Tech announced earlier this week that Apple will stop using its graphics processing unit at some point in the following two years,” Chris Smith writes for BGR. “Imagination stock tanked almost immediately, with the news wiping more than £500 million from the company’s market capitalization.”
“Apple stayed quiet, but the confirmation that it’s developing its own GPU for the iPhone is probably the best iPhone news we got all year,” Smith writes. “Apple may be getting ready to revolutionize mobile GPUs just as it did with mobile CPUs a few years ago.”
Smith writes, “The move is crucial for the future of the iPhone and maybe even the Mac.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Custom hardware married to custom software is something Apple’s would-be rivals simply cannot match. Already, iPhone does far more with less RAM and less power than the Android iPhone knockoffs. The same with iPad vs. fragmandroid tablets. The gulf will only widen.
SEE ALSO:
Apple aims for more control, less cost as it accelerates in chip design – April 5, 2017
Apple could look to buy Imagination Technologies after ditching the chip firm, share price plunge – April 4, 2017
Imagination Technologies’ shares collapse after Apple dumps UK chip designer – April 3, 2017
Apple nabs top talent from iPhone 7 GPU chipmaker Imagination Technologies – October 13, 2016
After failed takeover talks with Apple, Imagination Technologies sells stake to state-owned Chinese company – May 9, 2016
Apple in ‘advanced talks’ to acquire Imagination Technologies for PowerVR GPU – March 22, 2016
Perhaps the ‘pipeline Timmy’ moaners will STFU now. Tell me another tech CEO who has provided the vision and leadership that Tim Cook has. Apple’s own GPU design is just another example of his forward thinking planning. Oh, and you so called Pro users can STFU too. You’re such a tiny minority I’m amazed Apple is pandering to your pathetic complaints.
Those Pro users kept aapl in business during their dark days. They funded the now IOS development.
Apple has long “pandered” to the creative community and as a section of society, it’s never been large, but often speaks with a disproportionally large effect. So, besides speaking with a small view, your tiny voice doesn’t sway.
This is really no different than Apple has been for years and years and years.
Woz designed the “Wozniack Integrated Machine” for the latter Apple and early Mac machines. Woz then led the team that designed the Super Wozniac Integrated Machine (or SWIM chip) for Macs, and the use of that chip stayed around until the late 90s.
Apple developed its own computer backplane (called QuickRing) to replace NUBUS back in the late 80s. It never caught on, even within Apple, so Apple dropped it.
Apple developed its own interconnects from LocalTalk/AppleTalk to ADB to Firewire (note: Firewire started as a 50 Mbps serial I/O bus back about 1989/1990).
Apple **owned** over 25% of ARM back in the 90s and was working with ARM that far back to develop very low power CPUs for handheld devices.
Apple worked within the AIM group (Apple, IBM, and Motorola) to optimize the PowerPC (a single chip derivative of IBM’s POWER chips) designs for Apple operating systems. This actually worked quite well until the original G5 (Motorola) and the follow on chips by IBM.
Apple worked with Qualcomm for the first chips that went into the early iPhones (including the modem and RF components).
The list goes on and on with many I’ve left out.
Apple doing its own graphics processors is NOT revolutionary for Apple. It is evolutionary. To say otherwise is ignoring over 35 years of Apple history.
And with regard to telling power users to STFU…
As mentioned elsewhere in this page, it is the loyal, Mac power users that kept Apple alive during the dark days. If it were not for us, you wouldn’t have an iPhone or an Apple Watch or an iPad. That is a simple fact. Deal with it.
Get back to me when you’ve personally negotiated a deal with Apple for the purchase of over 1,200 Macs in a single buy with options for three times that many plus many other small to medium sized deals besides that one.
Or get back to me when Tim Cook actually does something MAJOR other than cater to iPhones, iPads (which he seems to barely acknowledge), or Apple Watches.
It seems that the malaise at the top of Apple can only be cured with something dramatic – like an actor pretending to kidnap an executives family and pretending that unless the executive gets Apple pay to 90% usage among iPhone and Apple Watch users the executives family will be forced to listen Al Gore speeches for the next five years non stop, strapped to a windmill in the California desert. Maybe that terrifying prospect would make Apple serious about Apple Pay like Amazon is “serious” about Amazon Prime. Maybe similar tactics could be used to get Apple to keep their products current or actually create a sales force to go after enterprise sales. There is obviously no urgency at all. We need the SAG to help out with this.
The biggest company on the planet thanks you for your wise feedback.
No actual Mac workstations (Laptops aren’t enough) no software development on a Mac for iPhones iPads, or Apple Watches, Microsoft would love that setup cede development machines to them.
I’m going to call “bogus!” On this being some wonderful idea.
Clearly, it is all about bringing down IP licensing fees … but that provides zero assurances that their home brew will be anything more than ‘cheaper’.
Bringing some stuff in house is usually a good idea, but too much becomes a problem. There’s a good reason why most Enterprises don’t fabricate their own paper…
This statement is the dumbest of the dumb. Haven’t read anything so dumb in a long time
You, and the other down-voters are welcome to your own opinions.
But the reality is that with fiascos such as the 3+ year denial with the Mac Pro, Apple’s culture has “Echo Chamber” problems.
What concerns me with this one is that it smacks (again) of a “good enough” attitude towards product technologies. Not the best. Not the forward-leaning adopter…or anything else that really justifies the cost premium (true, the Ecosystem used to be worth it, but that’s been dumbed-down and discontinued too).
As I’ve said before, time is drawing near for when to bite the bullet and sell off the stock.
-hh