iPhone 5S Packs Apple A7 Chip: World's First 64-bit Phone

[Marcus Yam]

Apple ups processing power in the iPhone 5S in a big way.

iPhone 5S Packs Apple A7 Chip: World's First 64-bit Phone : Read more

 

[captainnemojr]

Doesn't Apple always claim the new chips are 2X faster than the old chips anyway?

 

[kenyee]

64-bit also makes apps 30% larger...at least that's what we found w/ x86 chips.

Arm v8 (64-bit) has been around for a while...only at the server level...neat that Apple managed to get this into their custom chip.

 

[captainnemojr]

Double post.

 

[CaedenV]

Oh no... now we have to explain what 64bit means for an OS again.

Will the device ever run more than 4GB of ram? Will it be executing instructions which require more than 32bits of accuracy? Well then you get a minor performance boost for a few 32bit instructions which can be combined into a single 64bit instruction, but are otherwise adding bloat to the OS.

Overall, probably a good thing in the long run because there will be a day when phones DO have 4+GB of ram, but it is not going to be the magic bullet that Apple will no doubt market it as.

 

[captainnemojr]

Is Tom's ever going to fix this double/triple posting bug?

 

[captainnemojr]

[No message]

 

[teh_chem]

So...this 64-bit business. Does it have any immediate impact for the current hardware platform? Anyhoo, I don't much like Apple, but it does seem pretty forward-looking, so I respect them for that.

The fingerprint scanner...hopefully it works a bit better than android's face rec--I used face rec for a long time, but it became cumbersome to only work some of the time. Curious where the fingerprint goes...iCloud?

Well, I'm curious how the new hardware coupled with iOS 7 is going to push things. Will it mean more competition for Android (and possibly windows) platforms? Or is it just more of the same-old.

Also, I wonder how much the introduction of the 5C is going to impact market share, or if it'll just cannibalize their current established markets, where people opt for the cheaper version vs. the standard one.

 

[Honis]

They made the announcement that the finger print is stored only locally.

I'm not familiar with the standard 64bit addition. Is it the 32bit instructions with 32 more instructions added (same instructions just extended to 64bit addressing) or do the original 32bit instructions get replaced with an always 64bit equivalent and the new 32bits of instructions add new functionality.

 

[MANOFKRYPTONAK]

This is interesting, I wonder how well this will perform. I think its a step in the right direction, IF apple doesn't screw it up. Hopefully they wont and this becomes the new standard.

 

[vmem]

hmm, for once there's something exciting from apple from a pure hardware standpoint

Hmm, the chances are slim, but I can see Apple making a bid to buy out AMD (completely or partially) for it's patent portfolio

 

[gggplaya]

Wow an f stop of 2.2 and a large image sensor will probably make this the best low light(indoor) camera on any smartphone.

(Just because the nokia has 41MP doesn't means the pictures will look better, things such as lighting, color saturation etc...... Take part in making a great picture, 41MP just means you can take a crappy picture and make high resoltion crap).

 

[the1kingbob]

Not sure why people are taking shots at the lumia 1020's camera, it is one of the best smart phone cameras in the market. This isn't all due to the high MP, it has pretty good optics and 6 lenses to produce pretty good pictures. Also kind of funny that people are saying this will do good low light, something nokia phones have been doing for a while. I personally don't want a lumia (I own a nexus 4), but I doubt the ip5S will take better pictures.

 

[cmi86]

iBull. I don't believe any of the hype about this thing, or anything apple for that fact. Drop it and then we will see it get crushed by the galaxy family like always.

 

[iam2thecrowe]

marketing scam. more bits = better.

 

[XM Keeper]

This reminds of the atari jaguar claiming it was the first 64-bit console. Apple's new advertising campaign might be "You do the math".

 

[JamesSneed]

Seems rather forward looking to me. If the iPhone 5s will have 2GB of memory like suspected then running a 64bit OS could give them 20 years without having to change addressability. Plus they run the ipad's on the same OS which I can see hitting 4GB rather quickly. If they were to wait and the keep the memory doubling cycle they would be hitting a 4GB wall in 2-3 years.

 

[none12345]

The primary point of 64 bit over 32 bit is to allow a processor to work with more then 4 gigs of memory. Not really a necessity for phones yet. But someday, sure. It has to happen sooner or later.

The secondary point of 64 bit is to allow it to work with larger numbers in 1 step, instead of taking multiple steps. Not really necessary at all for phones. But it has to happen sooner or later.

There is a downside to moving to 64 bit processors tho. All pointers need to use 64 bits instead of 32 bits even if you dont need the extra precision or dont want to use >4gig of ram. That means all pointers double in memory usage. If you use native 64 bit integers instead of 32 bit ones, again you double the memory footprint.

An application recompiled for 64 bit code will have a larger memory footprint, even if it doesnt make any use of the 64 bit instructions. 20% or 30% inst uncommon. So you must add more memory just to keep the status quo.

The iphone5 only has 0.5 or 1 gig of memory, and moving to 64 bit on that would be suicide. If its anything less then 2 gig be worried.

 

[sundragon]

marketing scam. more bits = better.

LOL, marketing scam until Samsung comes out with a 64-bit chip and then you'll be like: OMG, gurrrrrl!!!

Please, at least be a little less transparent.

Moving to 64-bits is a good thing - especially since the Sammy Note 3 has 3GB of RAM, we're gonna hit the 4GB of RAM ceiling in a year or two...

 

[sundragon]

iBull. I don't believe any of the hype about this thing, or anything apple for that fact. Drop it and then we will see it get crushed by the galaxy family like always.

LMAO, how about figuring out what you "dropped" in your pampers, cupcake. When Sammy delivers a 64-bit chip, you're gonna be like OMG THE BESTEST.

At least try to be somewhat transparent, we'll get 64-bit Android sometime... Wait, not with 4.4 we're not, maybe 5.0 and then it will take 15 years to roll out... LMAO

 

[irish_adam]

seriously sundragon did you just use the same trolling post for two seperate quotes?

the Iphone is a closed system, yeah one day it will have 4gb of ram but what the hell is the point in adding it until then? its not like you can upgrade the ram in your iphone at a later date.

I doubt samsung or any Android retailer will bother with a 64bit OS until the actually add 4gb of ram to something. Yeah there probably is a slight performance boost even without the added ram but i dont see it being major. It really is a gimmick

 

[none12345]

I think 64bit will last a lot more then 20 years. Its not the same as moving from 8 bit to 16 or 16 to 32, both were major leaps in terms of practicability. When you moved from 8 bit to 16 bit, you only gained 256 times the amount of working space. Sounds like a lot tho, but 256 times a tiny number was still a tiny number. When they moved from 16 bit to 32 bit, they gained 65536 times the working space. Moving from 32 bit to 64 gives you 4294967296 times the working space. Then you think of the practical size of numbers. For instance only counting to 256 is pretty useless, so is only counting to 65536, counting to 4 billion is a lot more practical. But no average task will ever need to count to 64bit limit of 18446744073709551616. I can see the 64 bit mark for memory being suprassed some day on the consumer level. But not really the need to add >64 bit integers. Floating point sure. 128 or 256 bit floating point is already useful, but we arent talking about floating point units.

Moore's law appears to be loosing steam as of late, but if you assume they can keep doubling the transister count every 18 months, and apply that to 32 doublings, thats about 50 years before the 64 bit space would be exhausted.

Humanity will likely never need a 128bit memory space tho. It would probably never make sense to move from 64 bit to 128 for instance. For integers....maybe 96 bit, duno about much more then that tho.

Think of what it would actually take to store 128 bits of memory tho. 2^128 = 3.8*10^38. If you could store each bit on a single atom(massivly more advanced then the tech we have now), and didnt need any extra atoms to actually wire the memory array and use it, you would need 3.8*10^38 atoms. Thats a lot, if we use carbon for instance, which is pretty light we get ~7,000,000,000,000 kilograms. If it was carbon in a diamond form, the densest form of carbon, it would be a cube 12-13 kilometers on each side, what is that...a cube about the size of manhattan?(if the skyline was about 20 times as tall as the tallest building, and completely fulll to the brim of diamond) Who wants to carry around their 7 trillion kilogram, manhattan sized diamond memory array?

 

[invlem]

Yay, now developers can write even more inefficient, resource hogging apps as all limitations are now gone!

In all seriousness though, nice to see the technology advancing, the move to 64-bit isn't going to do anything from a performance standpoint though. Mostly bragging rights at the moment, but like many forum posts someone has to be the one screaming "FIRST!" this time around its Apple, can't really blame them for that!

 

[sundragon]

seriously sundragon did you just use the same trolling post for two seperate quotes?

the Iphone is a closed system, yeah one day it will have 4gb of ram but what the hell is the point in adding it until then? its not like you can upgrade the ram in your iphone at a later date.

I doubt samsung or any Android retailer will bother with a 64bit OS until the actually add 4gb of ram to something. Yeah there probably is a slight performance boost even without the added ram but i dont see it being major. It really is a gimmick

Seriously irish_adam, do you think troll tossing isn't fun, especially when you can repeat instead of coming up with something new to point out the hypocrisy? When people on these forums make shortsighted comments like "64-bit is a marketing scam" or "ibull" I'm going to point it out.

More importantly, the Apple chip uses ARMv8 ISA which thus far hasn't been used by any phone/tablet. It's the next generation ISA with better performance than the current ARMv7 ISA used in Samsung, Qualcomm, etc SOCs

IT TAKES TIME TO PORT TO 64-BIT... You may be too young to remember the mess it was going from 32 bit CPUs and OSs to 64-BIT - I had a Pentium PRO (Yes I'm a dinosaur) which was slower on 32-bit instructions and faster on 64-bit - It was a strategy mistake as Intel thought it we would all be switching to 64-bit overnight and it took a while. The Pentium PRO was a dog on 32-bit programs and cheaper Pentiums ate it's lunch... Yeeeeears later, we're all using 64-bit and YAY

So... Starting the process now allows developers and testers *cough* to start the porting process now - You don't make a change like that overnight...

FWIW, I own two Nexus products and I own Apple products as well - AS do my friends who work at GOOGLE *echo*, GASP!!?!?! Say it ain't so??!?? LMAO

When Google launches Android 64-bit, hopefully with 5.0 and hopefully not in 2 years, we can all rejoice as to how much MOAR epic Android is to iOS but for right now, moving to 64-bit is the right thing - Samsung just dropped two devices with 3GB of RAM, in a year that will be superseded - maxing out what our current 32-bit OS/SOCs can handle.

You may think Apple copied or is lame or is old, that is your opinion and rightfully warrented but when people say absolutely ridiculous arguments just cuz they hate "CRAPPLE" - There will be people like me - 8 years on Tom's Hardware suckers - that will point it out and laugh

*EDITED cuz isuck at the grammar*

 

[alextheblue]

Doesn't Apple always claim the new chips are 2X faster than the old chips anyway?

I have never owned an iPhone. With that being said, I've read reviews of every iPhone SoC. In terms of raw performance, they've been pretty accurate in their claims. In the real world, other things hold you back, but the same occurs with any chip - hence testing to see what performance with typical software will be like. That doesn't make what they've said untrue.

They also have been using some of the best graphics chips on the market. The rapid release schedule of Android devices guarantees they will be eclipsed, but that doesn't take away from their accomplishments. For example, they wisely started off with PowerVR's MBX Lite, and they've never looked back.

hmm, for once there's something exciting from apple from a pure hardware standpoint

Apple often releases pretty nice hardware, at least in terms of SoC performance and efficiency, if nothing else.

Wow an f stop of 2.2 and a large image sensor will probably make this the best low light(indoor) camera on any smartphone.

(Just because the nokia has 41MP doesn't means the pictures will look better, things such as lighting, color saturation etc...... Take part in making a great picture, 41MP just means you can take a crappy picture and make high resoltion crap).

You obviously know nothing about the Nokia 1020's camera, if you think it's all pixels. For starters, the sensor is huge, and with really nice image stabilization and oversampling. It does awesome low light shots. Nokia will still beat Apple here, and no matter how many iFans think Apple released the first F/2.2 in a phone camera that doesn't make it true.

yeah one day it will have 4gb of ram but what the hell is the point in adding it until then? its not like you can upgrade the ram in your iphone at a later date.

Yeah you're right they shouldn't design their next-gen architecture to be forward-looking... especially for the next-gen iPads. That would be stupid. They should wait until the last minute and then rush something out the door, with hastily ported software to go with it.