Prince McLeanApple may eventually abandon its custom-designed Samsung system on chip (SoC) found at the heart of the iPhone for one developed by Intel, according to a new report.
Although not expected until 2009, Moorestown chips will be based on Intel's 45-nanometer manufacturing process and therefore promise to be ten times more power-efficent than today's embedded mobile chips, enabling longer battery life in smaller form factors.
Similar to the Samsung SoC that Apple uses in its existing iPhone design, Moorestown will combine the CPU, graphics, video and memory controller onto a single chip. Based on Intel's "Menlow" MID design due out a year earlier, it will also incorporate wireless technologies such as Wi-Fi, 3G and WiMAX.
Some Taiwanese channel vendors believe if Apple adopts the new Intel platform in its iPhone, it will reposition the MID market place and influence the future designs of not only mobile handsets, but also notebook systems.
For Apple, a move to the Intel architecture and away from the ARM-based Samsung chips would also present the opportunity for the Cupertino-based company to narrow the gap in the software code base of its handheld products — like the iPhone and iPod touch — with that of its Mac personal computer line.
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38 Comments
I hope the doesn't mean that we will have to wait until 2009 sometime to see official support for third party programs on the iPhone.
One advantage Apple has with supporting OS X on more than one processor family* is that it will make some bugs more obvious and therefore make for cleaner code.
On the other hand, going with one processor family has a lower cost for coding and general maintenance. As long as Apple is supporting both Intel and PowerPC for OS X, they are getting the benefit that multiple families provides.
As for using an Intel chip in the iPhone, it does sound like a good idea with one exception. Writing viruses and such for OS X means targeting one of the processor families. Having everything using the same processor family makes OS X more of a target for the jerks who writes viruses.
*In this case processor family means processors using the same instruction set. i.e. PowerPC G5/G4/G3/...
I hope the doesn't mean that we will have to wait until 2009 sometime to see official support for third party programs on the iPhone.
If Apple's computers can support PowerPC then move to Intel while still supporting PowerPC during and after the transition, I thnk they won't want to leave several million first gen and possibly second gen users in the lurch, if whenever, they come out with an SDK and 3rd party apps.
They have enough iPhone lawsuits to deal with without incurring more.
I hope the doesn't mean that we will have to wait until 2009 sometime to see official support for third party programs on the iPhone.
I suspect the processor won't be the gating factor. When Apple releases the developer tools, I suspect it will handle code for more than processor type when needed much as the OS X developer tools currently handle both PowerPC and Intel.
On the other hand, who knows how long before Apple will have the alleged iPhone developer tools ready anyway.
One advantage Apple has with supporting OS X on more than one processor family* is that it will make some bugs more obvious and therefore make for cleaner code.
On the other hand, going with one processor family has a lower cost for coding and general maintenance. As long as Apple is supporting both Intel and PowerPC for OS X, they are getting the benefit that multiple families provides.
As for using an Intel chip in the iPhone, it does sound like a good idea with one exception. Writing viruses and such for OS X means targeting one of the processor families. Having everything using the same processor family makes OS X more of a target for the jerks who writes viruses.
*In this case processor family means processors using the same instruction set. i.e. PowerPC G5/G4/G3/...
Virii have nothing to do with the processor family. This is humbug. Macs aren't more vulnerable because they now use x86.