Apple takes the high-end with their 64-bit A7; leaves rivals to scrap for survival in low-end

11 years ago

“The most significant part of Apple’s launch of the iPhone 5S and 5C were not the phones themselves, rather it is the 64 bit A7 processor, which will be the platform that moves the company safely to higher ground while the rest of mobiles commoditizes,” Ed McKernan writes for Seeking Alpha. “While analysts preened for a mass market $300 phone to ‘save’ the ecosystem, Apple headed in a completely different direction that offers revenue growth and increased margins. Contrary to belief, $300 phones are a dead end.”

“Tim Cook has not mentioned it publicly but his number one goal is to take over the corporate Wintel business that has driven profits for Microsoft and Intel over these past 30 years,” McKernan writes. “In front of Tim Cook is a corporate market dying to have a supplier that has a cohesive product line of interoperability. In one year’s time, all of Apple’s products focused at corporate will be 64 bit, and in the history of computing, this is the fastest transition that has ever taken place.”

MacDailyNews Note: Ed McKernan is a semiconductor Veteran with 20+ years of experience at Intel and several prominent startups including Cyrix and Transmeta.

“Apple’s decision to launch the 64 bit A7 in the iPhone 5S and expected soon in the iPad 5 will set the stage for software app developers to focus most of their attention on not just porting apps but creating interoperability with OS X at the expense of Android,” McKernan writes. “In many ways what Cook has already put in place with the yearly product introductions is a treadmill that freezes the competitors during the high consumer holiday selling season that lasts through Chinese New Year. Layered on top of this, he seeks to build in a corporate selling treadmill that favors Apple’s mobile and iOS introduction schedules, thus building a wide moat around the top half of the market that drives profits.”

McKernan writes, “If as expected, Apple launches the A8 next year as the latest 64 bit processor with features that excel against all, even Intel, in performance and power, then it will have completely taken Intel’s game away while the latter is demoted to selling in the $300 mass market that continues to commoditize. And that is the end game that no analyst has put a pencil to.”

Read more in the full article – highly recommended – here.

MacDailyNews Take: As we wrote to Android peddler Samsung last month:

Have fun trying to fake Touch ID and a 64-bit operating system. Maybe you can make a phone with an 18-inch display instead to try to hide how much you suck.