“Less than three weeks ago, Apple’s head of worldwide product marketing Phil Schiller launched the surprise introduction of the new A7, including an unusual level of technical detail during the iPhone 5s event,” Daniel Eran Dilger writes for AppleInsider.
“Referring to the chip has having a ’64-bit desktop class architecture’ with a ‘modern instruction set,’ Schiller noted that new chip doubled the general purpose and floating point registers over the previous A6, and contained over 1 billion transistors in a 102mm die size,” Dilger writes. “Such figures are uncommon in Apple’s media presentations; mainstream users are unlikely to know what much of it even means.”
“The A7 isn’t just faster than the previous A6; it’s faster without requiring the additional cores and ramped up clock speeds of competing chips like Samsung’s Exynos 5 Octa. That contributes to faster performance in a lighter, smaller device because it doesn’t have to pack a larger battery to power a hot, high-revving brain that rapidly drains the battery,” Dilger writes. “As a result, Apple’s iPhone 5s delivers performance equal or better performance to Samsung’s latest large phablet, despite the Note 3 being equipped with twice the system RAM, a system clock running twice as fast and a battery over twice as large (3,200 mAh vs 1570 mAh in the iPhone 5s). It’s not only faster, but vastly more efficient, allowing iPhone 5s to beat the Note 3 in battery life when browsing the web over LTE.”
Much more, including benchmarks, in the full article here.
Related articles:
Outclassed, 32-bit antique dealer Qualcomm calls Apple’s 64-bit A7 chip a ‘marketing gimmick’ – October 3, 2013
Apple takes the high-end with their 64-bit A7; leaves rivals to scrap for survival in low-end – October 2, 2013
Apple’s 64-bit A7 is no gimmick: New iPhone 5s offers major performance leap – September 25, 2013
Ars Technica: Apple’s Touch ID and 64-bit A7 are deceptively large advances in the iPhone’s evolution – September 24, 2013
Apple iPhone 5s reviews are universally positive, many crown iPhone 5s the best smartphone – September 19, 2013
Engadget reviews Apple iPhone 5c: A breath of fresh air that will be wildly popular this holiday season – September 18, 2013
Apple’s 64-bit iPhone 5s is by far the fastest smartphone in the world – September 18, 2013
John Gruber reviews Apple iPhone 5s: ‘This is what innovation, real innovation, looks like’ – September 18, 2013
AnandTech reviews iPhone 5s: Apple’s 64-bit A7 is seriously impressive – September 18, 2013
TechCrunch reviews Apple iPhone 5s: The best smartphone available – September 18, 2013
USA Today’s Baig reviews Apple iPhone 5s: ‘Makes the best smartphone even better’ – September 18, 2013
Mossberg reviews Apple iPhone 5s: ‘The best smartphone on the market’ – September 18, 2013
But – but — we have it on great authority, it is all a marketing gimmick!!
Except that it happens to be faster and is laying the foundation for processing of the future in a mobile product that we can’t even conceive of right now, other than those things, definitely a gimmick.
See the idiot Droid Army doesn’t realize the real reason Samsung makes ridiculously large phones… They think its innovation… Nah its to hold a large battery so they can stick over clocked gazzilion core CPU, since they know they can’t keep up with Apple A7 and A8 in the future.
And if developers can already develop for 64bit now, can you imagine how far ahead iOS apps will be in 3 years, when 64 bit will come to Android in 1-2 years and then there will be legal and technical issues with 64bit Java and Oracle (not that there aren’t already?)
Did you see the game developer at the 5S launch? He said it took him all of two hours to convert their game code to 64 bit.
Reading the full article it becomes clear that Qualcomm’s marketing dude, who used to run Intel’s mobile efforts (look where that went), did his benchmarking using the Notes or Reminders apps — you know: two of the most processor-intensive apps you could ever figure out how to use when you have marketing as a background.
… headline?
According to the headline, devs have begun to deliver apps taking advantage of the A7 chip’s sweetness. According to the article, the A7 wins because it provides similar – better? – speed without the need for so much power from the battery.
Always keep in mind, Android software runs interpretively whereas most iOS code runs natively. Even if Android gets 64 bits, they’ll be hamstrung by the virtual machine that executes their code.
Yes, the A7 is faster. Compare it to the iPhone 5 to see the speed difference. But running interpreted code on an 8-core processor is still running interpreted code.
Yes, but *we* have an 8-core processor *and* we have the ability to customize our displays! We can even change every control that goes up to “10” on any other phone… to “11!”
Ours go to 11! Can’t you guys see that???
/s
That was great, thanks for making my day.
Too awesome for words
Yup, just a gimmick…. Poor Qualcomm! Did not see that limb!
I just wish Apple would start innovating…..:/
Whoever voted you down missed the sarcasm. Not sure how. :/
Me too. If Redbull gives me wings, why can’t my iPhone? And where’s the 64K Apple TV? And the 1600 hp 300,000 mpg ICar? Why hasn’t Apple cured Aids and cancer yet? And how long can it possibly take for Apple to create the battery that never needs charging and will last forever? Oh, and I want it all for $200 or less? Do I have to do it all myself?
Where is the discussion of the new advanced audio features and apps? Even in the linked article, it doesn’t excite much. Smule’s “I Am T-Pain” isn’t really much of a music app. “Sing” and the real-time audio effects sound more interesting, but not enough to go read more. Oh well. I’m sure something real is working in the audio front that will excite me soon enough.