Edible Apple

Check out what Apple’s new EarPods look like from the inside out, you know, if you’re into that sort of thing over at iFixit.

An interesting article over at The Linley Group discusses Apple’s work in churning out the A6 and how they got there. It’s a great read and well worth checking out.

Although Apple has been licensing cores from ARM for its previous processors, the company’s interest in CPU design dates back to its $278 million acquisition of PA Semi in April 2008. That acquisition included a CPU design team that had developed a high-performance PowerPC processor under the leadership of Jim Keller and Pete Bannon. More important, some of the team members had previously worked on low-power StrongArm processors under PA Semi CEO Dan Dobberpuhl at Digital Equipment (DEC) in the 1990s. Within a month of that deal, Apple secretly signed an architecture license with ARM that allowed the company to develop its own ARM-compatible CPUs, becoming one of the few companies in the world with that right.

While one group of PA Semi employees set to work on the Apple A4 processor using an ARM CPU core, another group began defining the microarchitecture for the new CPU. According to one source at Apple, Steve Jobs initially set an “insanely great” bar for the performance of the new CPU, but he eventually realized that his CPU team was limited by the same laws of physics that apply to everyone else. For whatever reason, the project took a long time to get through the initial definition and design phase.

In the wake of Apple processing over 2 million iPhone 5 orders in the first 24 hours of availability, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster has upped his projections for iPhone sales on launch weekend which is just two days away.

Given the 2 million pre-orders, we remain confident that Apple can deliver 8 million (range of 6-10 million) iPhones in the launch weekend. The reason we are confident in the 8 million is two-fold. First, initial 24 hour pre-orders for the iPhone 5 were up 100% y/y from the iPhone 4S. Last year, pre-orders accounted for 25% of total weekend launch unit sales. Assuming the same initial pre-order/retail distribution, the pre-order total would suggest 8 million launch units.

BusinessInsider reports:

Samsung just sent me an ad that it plans to run in national newspapers tomorrow comparing the iPhone 5 to the Galaxy S III.

The ad breaks down some key specs of the two phones, but it’s also a bit misleading.

Samsung lists a lot of Galaxy S III-specific software features like sharing photos wirelessly between phones and tilt to zoom, but doesn’t mention any iPhone 5-specific features.

The implication is that just because the iPhone 5 doesn’t run Samsung’s software it’s an inferior phone. But Apple packed a lot of features into its iPhone software that the Galaxy S III can’t do like Facebook and Twitter integration, AirPlay, and access to thousands of more apps.

Apple doesn’t ever disclose some of its internal specs because they like consumers to focus on the user experience rather than abstract numbers. That notwithstanding, enterprising folks have discovered that the iPhone 5 is sporting 1GB of RAM, a solid boost from the 512 MB of RAM that came with the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S.

MacRumors reports:

iFans first posted confirmation that the iPhone 5 has 1GB of ram based on the part numbers listed on the A6 chip itself. After some investigation with Kyle Wiens from iFixit, we’ve been able to confirm their findings as well, using Samsung’s own product guides.

Check out photos here at Gigaom.

With Marissa Mayer now firmly entrenched as Yahoo CEO, the changes keep on rollin’ in. Most recently, Mayer announced a new program whereby Yahoo employees can get iPhones, and other smartphones, for their day to day work activities. While that may not seem like big news, it’s certainly rather telling for a company that had previously relied on BlackBerrys.

Continue Reading

So it turns out Apple’s vaunted A6 is not based on the ARM Cortex A15 processor. Rather, it’s based on Apple’s own design.

AnandTech writes:

Prior to the announcement we speculated the iPhone 5’s SoC would simply be a higher clocked version of the 32nm A5r2 used in the iPad 2,4. After all, Apple seems to like saving major architecture shifts for the iPad.

However, just prior to the announcement I received some information pointing to a move away from the ARM Cortex A9 used in the A5. Given Apple’s reliance on fully licensed ARM cores in the past, the expected performance gains and unpublishable information that started all of this I concluded Apple’s A6 SoC likely featured two ARM Cortex A15 cores.

It turns out I was wrong. But pleasantly surprised.

The A6 is the first Apple SoC to use its own ARMv7 based processor design. The CPU core(s) aren’t based on a vanilla A9 or A15 design from ARM IP, but instead are something of Apple’s own creation.

The iPhone 5 is already an absolute monster, shattering previous sales records by quite a large margin. Apple today issued a press release announcing that they’ve already ran through 2 million pre-orders, and that was just in the first 24 hours of availability.

Absolutely unbelievable.

Apple today announced pre-orders of its iPhone® 5 topped two million in just 24 hours, more than double the previous record of one million held by iPhone 4S. Demand for iPhone 5 exceeds the initial supply and while the majority of pre-orders will be delivered to customers on September 21, many are scheduled to be delivered in October. iPhone 5 is the thinnest and lightest iPhone ever, completely redesigned to feature a stunning new 4-inch Retina™ display; an Apple-designed A6 chip for blazing fast performance; and ultrafast wireless technology*—all while delivering even better battery life.**

“iPhone 5 pre-orders have shattered the previous record held by iPhone 4S and the customer response to iPhone 5 has been phenomenal,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “iPhone 5 is the best iPhone yet, the most beautiful product we’ve ever made, and we hope customers love it as much as we do.”

The new HP desktop, dubbed the Spectre One, looks an awful lot like Apple’s own iMac.

And another photo, this one an official PR shot really demonstrates the similarities.

The Next Web writes on the glaring similarities:

Note that even the keyboard and touchpad are nearly complete clones of Apple’s offerings. This is just a sad day for HP. There are nearly infinite combinations of components and design to choose from here and it decided to effectively clone Apple. Why? How has a company once praised for pushing the industry forward decided that this kind of thing is ok to do?

I’m reminded of something that Steve Jobs told his biographer Walter Isaacson just after the shuttering of the WebOS division at HP. “Hewlett and Packard built a great company, and they thought they had left it in good hands,” Jobs told Isaacson. “But now it’s being dismembered and destroyed.”

Well this blows. Twitter for Mac, which is essentially Tweetie for Mac developed by Loren Brichter before it was acquired by Twitter will no longer see any new releases, this according to a tweet from MG Siegler about a week ago.

So yes, that sucks, and part of an ongoing trend from Twitter where they want you to focus less on clients (even their own!) and more on using the site via the web.

Apple has made available video from its recent special media event where it introduced the iPhone 5 alongside a significant iPod refresh.

Check it out over here.