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Saturday, June 07, 2008, 01:40 am
3G iPhone's firmware purportedly leaked, hints at assisted GPS [Updated]
A late leak has allegedly revealed the inner workings of the next-generation iPhone's cellular chipset, down to its specific parts and most of its capabilities.A source described as "reliable" handing information to Engadget appears to have confirmed several details, many of which reflect expectations set out by previous leaks.
In particular, the escaped data points to the use of the Infineon S-GOLD3 baseband chip spotted in beta firmware, which connects the device both to UMTS-based 3G networks that operate primarily in Europe as well as the newer, faster HSDPA networks present in North America, Europe, and many other parts of the world.
A trio of chips made by Skyworks -- the 77413, 77414, and 77427 -- address the phone's communications with specific 3G frequencies currently used around the globe, including the 850MHz band used in the US by AT&T as well as the 1900MHz and 2100MHz bands for other territories.
More significant, however, is the Global Locate Library software that abstracts assisted GPS commands.
The feature should allow the new iPhone to locate its position far more accurately than current solutions and is meant to interface with a Global Locate chip -- since branded as a Broadcom product -- built into a phone. Besides appearing to confirm the choice of Broadcom for built-in GPS, it also supports the addition of location-specific features added in test versions of iPhone 2.0 firmware, such as geo-tagging photos taken from the phone's built-in camera.
Supporting claims of authenticity, the purported source also alludes to an ARM 1176JZF-S processor identical to that in the original iPhone as well as a new internal build model number which is consistent with an earlier naming scheme.
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Previous Comments View All
Geez, you're not wrong about quality control, Solipism. AI should stay away from the technicalities:
3G = UMTS = WCDMA and HSDPA is used in Europe and most other places, not just in America see here for details - http://www.3gamericas.org/pdfs/Globa...tus_Update.pdf
The way the post reads it just makes AI sound totally clueless.
Damn, I was going to remove the intro to my post if the article was changed before another posted about it. Oh well.
The PDF you supplied is interesting. I was wondering why the HW for the iPhone doesn't list HSUPA anywhere, but according to that PDF there are very few carriers with HSUPA active. And all but one, I think, is under a year old with most of them well under 6 months. Japan doesn't/didn't even have it with NTT DoCoMo until this month.
Did you not want to be rude, Solipsism? Why not, I really enjoy it. Anyway, might as well call a spade a spade. Maybe a little abuse will make them change their ways.
AI's pretty good with the rumours, but their analysis is really poor. They should get someone technical on staff or just report the news. Their reviews are pretty bad as well.
Well, at least they're not this guy. (Thanks to Gruber)
Writing for CNN Money, he opines:
Yes, it's true, you're not hallucinating, someone claiming expertise in scoping out Apple's plans by pouring over patent filings doesn't know the difference between Flash the software and flash memory chips. And confuses the two in such a way as to reach a hilariously wrong conclusion. In print. So we can see it.
Bet his nickname over at CNN is "flash" right about now, and will be for all time.
So take heart, Apple Insider!
Well, at least they're not this guy. (Thanks to Gruber)
Writing for CNN Money, he opines:
Yes, it's true, you're not hallucinating, someone claiming expertise in scoping out Apple's plans by pouring over patent filings doesn't know the difference between Flash the software and flash memory chips. And confuses the two in such a way as to reach a hilariously wrong conclusion. In print. So we can see it.
Bet his nickname over at CNN is "flash" right about now, and will be for all time.
So take heart, Apple Insider!
That, my friends, is what we call an Epic Fail.
Yeah good to see that AI have not quite sunk to the bottom yet.
On that subject, I think this whole 'stand-off' idea is BS. The bottom line is that the performance of flash video is going to be crap on the iPhone because of a lack of hardware acceleration, so it's going to gobble up juice and give the user a poor experience. Apple is rightly trying to avoid this. I'm sure they'd love flash video on their machines.
Did you not want to be rude, Solipsism? Why not, I really enjoy it. Anyway, might as well call a spade a spade. Maybe a little abuse will make them change their ways.
It's the weekend, it's probably the middle of the night that it was for whomever typed it up. Maybe they were throwing a few back or were sleeping when woken up by Kasper to get it written. I like to be lenient between my asshole moments it keeps the Gods guessing.
Yes, it's true, you're not hallucinating, someone claiming expertise in scoping out Apple's plans by pouring over patent filings doesn't know the difference between Flash the software and flash memory chips. And confuses the two in such a way as to reach a hilariously wrong conclusion. In print. So we can see it.!
I hope he usually doesn't write about the progress of tech companies. Perhaps their middle school nerd that writes their tech articles was probably at programming camp all week and so he had to step in.
I wonder if the patent mentioned WCDMA which is why it was addressed in the CNN article as a possibility for the iPhone as I don't recall anything in that patent filing that alluded to anything like that.
Damn, I was going to remove the intro to my post if the article was changed before another posted about it. Oh well.
The PDF you supplied is interesting. I was wondering why the HW for the iPhone doesn't list HSUPA anywhere, but according to that PDF there are very few carriers with HSUPA active. And all but one, I think, is under a year old with most of them well under 6 months. Japan doesn't/didn't even have it with NTT DoCoMo until this month.
I think there a couple of points to be made about HSUPA:
- it's not been through the design process and made efficient and effective. Getting things into small phones and making them actually work is not really very easy. The engineers generally have to have a couple of goes at it before they get it right. Saying that the iPhone chipset is 'upgradable' to HSUPA is one thing, getting to work well is another.
- it's going to suck juice really badly. Keep in mind that when you are downloading you can have the base station (cell tower) do a lot of processing (encoding) at no cost to the handset. Uploading means that the work is done on the handset and also the signal has to improve if the base station is going to receive it at a reasonable rate.
- where is the market demand for fast uploads? Who really needs it badly, today? Most people send some emails, maybe with attachments, but are they going to really notice how long it takes for an email to be sent? Is 384K good enough for most people? More is better, but if slays your battery you're not going to be very happy.
It's interesting to note that Nokia have not released a HSUPA phone, and they are considered to have some of the best RF and analog engineers around, and that;s where most of the difficulties will lie. If they can't pull it off, chances are almost no-one can, or would want to.
The article is incorrect.
Assisted GPS still requires a GPS receiver in the handset. It still requires the satellites to be in the sky. However it improves GPS performance such that it can be used in urban canyons.
Assisted GPS downloads the ephemeris and almanac data over the internet instead of over the satellites, making positioning much quicker. The handsets internet connection (up to 7200000bps) is much faster downloading this information than the 50bps GPS signal.
Assisted GPS can thus get a fix in less than 5 seconds.
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No mention is made of WCDMA, though the protocol is believed necessary for the SoftBank release in Japan.
You may want to edit your post before AI's quality control gets put into question.
Here are the PDFs from Skywork's website. They clearly state WCDMA/HSDPA
o
SKY77427 (pdf) for Tx 1900 / Rx 2100 (UMTS-FDD Operating Band I)o SKY77414 (pdf) for Tx/Rx 1900 (UMTS-FDD Operating Band II)
o SKY77413 (pdf) for Tx/Rx 850 (UMTS-FDD Operating Band V) And this chart is also very stateful: http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/3...smtrackdk8.png
Tri-band, which is what was expected, would work on the following networks:
o 2100 (down) / 1900 (up) for Europe and Asia (usually referred simply as W-CDMA 2100)
This encompasses every country that Apple has partnered with. This does not, however allow for a 3G iPhone to function on T-Mobile USA. So all you with unlocked EDGE iPhones on T-Mobile have to jump to AT&T if you want to use 3G.o 1900 (up/down)/ 850 (up/down) for America (AT&T, Rogers)
o 850 (up/down) for Australia (Telstra NextG)
o 2100 (down) / 1700 (up) for America (T-Mobile)
It would have to be a quad-band chip to allow T-Mobile to function, but since they didn't get their spectrum that long ago and have no real 3G network it's a moot point.The GSM part is the standard quad-band for the 850/900/1800/1900 bands.
PS: Anyone here able to estimate how much extra juice each of those bands will use when using internet over UTMS, based on the power usage listed in the supplied PDFs above?