Apple's iPhone 5S has a 64 bit processor

[Cosmos_i7]

The 5S announced by Apple today contains an A7 chip which is the first 64 bit mobile processor out. iOS 7 is also tweaked to work very efficiently with the 64 bit chip. I think this shows that Apple is innovating no matter what most people think, having the first 64 bit chip in the mobile industry is something.

 

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57602110-37/apple-iphone-5s-event-showcases-infinity-blade-3-using-new-64-bit-a7-chip/

[Coombzy]

inb4 "Apple now own the rights to 64 bit mobile processors in phones" its going to happen it always does.

[Levent]

ah crap now everyone going to buy iphones its like s3 de javu all over again

[Cosmos_i7]

inb4 "Apple now own the rights to 64 bit mobile processors in phones" its going to happen it always does.

I personally think people blow the patent cases way out of proportion, yes there was the whole "round rectangle" incident but honestly they aren't that bad, all companies do it. I'm not saying that its right for companies to do it, I just dislike it when people blow it out of proportion especially with Apple.

[Coombzy]

I personally think people blow the patent cases way out of proportion, yes there was the whole "round rectangle" incident but honestly they aren't that bad, all companies do it. I'm not saying that its right for companies to do it, I just dislike it when people blow it out of proportion especially with Apple.

Apple have sued over way more than that this year...

[megadarkwood]

I think the coolest thing is the slow mo. Just me though

[Cosmos_i7]

Apple have sued over way more than that this year...

Can we please keep this on topic, we are not talking about patents but a CPU architecture, thats why we are here right? We like hardware so we should appreciate all forms of it. 

[MrSuperb]

The 5S announced by Apple today contains an A7 chip which is the first 64 bit mobile processor out. iOS 7 is also tweaked to work very efficiently with the 64 bit chip. I think this shows that Apple is innovating no matter what most people think, having the first 64 bit chip in the mobile industry is something.

 

 

WoW 64bit and they were mocking others with 4 or 8 core processors.

64bit will tremendously change the mobile experience!

[Glenwing]

Oh boy, 64-bit?  Now it has additional addresses so it can communicate with over 4GB of RAM!  Oh wait... it's a phone...

 

Yaaaaay marketing...

[Cosmos_i7]

Oh boy, 64-bit?  Now it has additional addresses so it can communicate with over 4GB of RAM!  Oh wait... it's a phone...

 

Yaaaaay marketing...

I kinda figured this would happen, how can you not say this is forward thinking though, for the CPU it helps a lot of performance. I feel like no matter what Apple does it will always just be destroyed by people saying that its marketing or not useful. However when Google or Samsung do something its the best thing ever...

[Dave :)]

I kinda figured this would happen, how can you not say this is forward thinking though, for the CPU it helps a lot of performance. I feel like no matter what Apple does it will always just be destroyed by people saying that its marketing or not useful. However when Google or Samsung do something its the best thing ever...

 

Having a 64bit CPU reallly won't alot unless you have the RAM necessary to utilise the benefits. Sure, its cool that Apple have done it; but i'm pretty sure they only do it as a new USP. A  bit like when phone manufactures say "all new 10 mp camera" when the sensor they use is awful - to the uneducated consumer, they will think it is better when in reality it isn't.

[Glenwing]

I kinda figured this would happen, how can you not say this is forward thinking though, for the CPU it helps a lot of performance. I feel like no matter what Apple does it will always just be destroyed by people saying that its marketing or not useful. However when Google or Samsung do something its the best thing ever...

 

I just say it like it is.  64-bit is kind of silly on phones.  I don't have a problem with future proofing but I just think it is funny that they are making a big deal about it, calling it a desktop class architecture and all, when it will not really do anything... whatever future-proofing they may have in mind, they are also intentionally misleading people about the importance of it right now.  It's still an ARM-based design, and it still uses a RISC instruction set.  It is more efficient for simpler tasks, but slower for complex tasks, that's the tradeoff between RISC and CISC.  That's where you get the power efficiency from, compared to a CISC architecture like x86.  That's one of the major things that separates mobile chips from desktop chips.  Not the instruction set width.

 

For the record I blast 1080p screens on Android devices as well, it's equally as silly.  And I like that Apple has dropped out of the megapixel race, which was ALSO silly.  Focusing on a camera that is actually better, with a larger sensor and better light capture is good, and the 120fps is a neat addition as well.

 

I don't think everything Apple does is silly.  Only the silly things.  Same with android devices.

[Xaring]

I must wait to see some performance tests (good ones...) before making an opinion about this.

On the other hand I expected the 5C to be way cheaper than what it is. It is a very solid piece of technology, yes, but it is still expensive (As always, you pay the extremely good quality, but ive got no money for it lol).

[LAwLz]

Sorry OP but I think you need to look up what the word "innovative" means. I've also already seen people who think that it's a desktop chip in the iPhone, which is just flat out wrong and idiotic.

Yes, a 64bit ARM CPU is something, but not innovative. I am really sick and tried of people misusing that word.

 

The A7 do look interesting though.

 

 

Having a 64bit CPU reallly won't alot unless you have the RAM necessary to utilise the benefits.

64bit has more benefits than just being able to use more RAM. In some scenarios it has much higher performance than 32bit for example when encoding, decoding or encrypting. Also, in some loops it can have an enormous performance increase since the whole loop can fit inside the 64bit register, but if it was 32bit it would have to run half the loop, swap out the register, run the second half, swap back, continue, swap, continue, swap etc...

 

 

 

I personally think people blow the patent cases way out of proportion, yes there was the whole "round rectangle" incident but honestly they aren't that bad, all companies do it. I'm not saying that its right for companies to do it, I just dislike it when people blow it out of proportion especially with Apple.

Easy for you to say. You're not the one having to pay 1 BILLION dollars because your phone is a black rectangle. Apple deserves all the crap they get for that lawsuit.

[MzCatieB]

here is a 3d model of it btw: 

iPhone 5C (click to view in 3D)

[Glenwing]

64bit has more benefits than just being able to use more RAM. In some scenarios it has much higher performance than 32bit for example when encoding, decoding or encrypting. Also, in some loops it can have an enormous performance increase since the whole loop can fit inside the 64bit register, but if it was 32bit it would have to run half the loop, swap out the register, run the second half, swap back, continue, swap, continue, swap etc...

 

That is true but again it comes down to use case.  I mean really, what are you going to be doing with your phone that will benefit from 64-bit width?  Even most desktop applications are 32-bit.  Video or image editing of the scale that would benefit from 64-bits is way beyond the scope of what is feasible on a phone.

[R4STABAN]

^ Might it be something to do with the encryption/decryption of the fingerprint data?

[dalekphalm]

While it's interesting to see ARM processors get 64-bit instruction sets, as other's have noted, this will benefit the consumer exactly 0% right now.

 

In 5 years, we're gonna be thanking the techpriests that ARM has 64-bit, when it'll actually get utilized, but for this generation, it won't really amount to much.

 

I guess in this case, Apple is ahead of their time (Simply because right now in this time, there isn't any benefit of 64-bit for their phones).

[Nicktrance]

Definitely interesting, how much it delivers to customers, especially right now, is another question entirely.

[Cosmos_i7]

Sorry OP but I think you need to look up what the word "innovative" means. I've also already seen people who think that it's a desktop chip in the iPhone, which is just flat out wrong and idiotic.

Yes, a 64bit ARM CPU is something, but not innovative. I am really sick and tried of people misusing that word.

 

The A7 do look interesting though.

 

Innovation is simply doing something in a way which hasn't been done before. Absolutely ZERO phones have a 64 bit processor apart from the iPhone 5S. If thats not innovation then I don't know what is. Retina on the iPhone 4 was innovation, iPad was innovation, Mac Pro 2013 is innovation, MacBook pro retina is innovation. You can't dispute those.

[Cosmos_i7]

Definitely interesting, how much it delivers to customers, especially right now, is another question entirely.

In the same way that 2.3 GHz processor and 3GB ram in the Note 3 is useful for the customer? At least this is software based as well and not just ridiculous numbers. While I agree that its not entirely useful yet imagine the Apps in the future though, I think its far more useful than silly spec wars that Samsung just try to win.

[LAwLz]

Innovation is simply doing something in a way which hasn't been done before. Absolutely ZERO phones have a 64 bit processor apart from the iPhone 5S. If thats not innovation then I don't know what is. Retina on the iPhone 4 was innovation, iPad was innovation, Mac Pro 2013 is innovation, MacBook pro retina is innovation. You can't dispute those.

Increasing resolution is not innovative. Increasing the memory address width to 64bits is not innovative.

How was the iPad innovative? There were several tablets released long before the ipad was even a rumor.

How is the Mac Pro 2013 innovative? OK the cooling might be innovative (I haven't really looked into if there is any prior art) but that's about it.

How is the Macbook pro retina innovative? Making something higher resolution is not innovation, at all.

 

No, just increasing something, or following a very obvious progression (like going from dual core to quad core, or hexacore). Going from single core to dual core was innovative, since that was a brand new way of solving an issue. Going from dual core to quad core is not innovative since it uses the same idea and principle as before (increase cores). The same can be said for increasing the resolution. The same can be said for going from 32bit to 64bit, especially since it has already been done decades ago (IBM have made 64bit processors for over 50 years now). Apple isn't even first with a 64bit smartphone CPU (they are the first one to sell one to consumers though) since ARM announced IP for their A50 series of processors last year (which are 64bit).

 

Bottom line: It's not innovative, but it is interesting and a good step forward.

 

 

 

 

In the same way that 2.3 GHz processor and 3GB ram in the Note 3 is useful for the customer? At least this is software based as well and not just ridiculous numbers. While I agree that its not entirely useful yet imagine the Apps in the future though, I think its far more useful than silly spec wars that Samsung just try to win.

You can't be serious. Are you really so ignorant that you don't think we should continue increasing CPU performance and RAM in phones? People said that in the 90's about desktop computers. "Who need more than a 500MHz CPU and 128MB RAM. Silly spec wars".

1) I want my devices to be as powerful as possible. Why wouldn't I want something faster if I could? Actually, neither my Nexus 10 (dual core 1.7GHz Cortex A15) nor my Galaxy S 4 (quad core 1.9GHz Krait 300) are fast enough to decode Hi10p H.264 at 1920x1080 at full speed, it's pretty close to being watchable, but not there yet. We also don't know what future applications might be able to do.

2) Higher performance can actually increase battery life because of race to idle. The faster your CPU (or other component) can finish its job, the faster it can go back to its deep idle state and save power.

[JaeDee884]

Innovation is simply doing something in a way which hasn't been done before. Absolutely ZERO phones have a 64 bit processor apart from the iPhone 5S. If thats not innovation then I don't know what is. Retina on the iPhone 4 was innovation, iPad was innovation, Mac Pro 2013 is innovation, MacBook pro retina is innovation. You can't dispute those.

the only thing close to innovation out of those is the mac pro due to cooling design and physical architecture.

Retina and ipad are just continuations of current technology. Resolution has constantly been going up and tablets had already existed for a long time.

[Cosmos_i7]

Increasing resolution is not innovative. Increasing the memory address width to 64bits is not innovative.

How was the iPad innovative? There were several tablets released long before the ipad was even a rumor.

How is the Mac Pro 2013 innovative?

How is the Macbook pro retina innovative? Making something higher resolution is not innovation, at all.

 

No, just increasing something, or following a very obvious progression (like going from dual core to quad core, or hexacore). Going from single core to dual core was innovative, since that was a brand new way of solving an issue. Going from dual core to quad core is not innovative since it uses the same idea and principle as before (increase cores). The same can be said for increasing the resolution. The same can be said for going from 32bit to 64bit, especially since it has already been done decades ago (IBM have made 64bit processors for over 50 years now). Apple isn't even first with a 64bit smartphone CPU (they are the first one to sell one to consumers though) since ARM announced IP for their A50 series of processors last year (which are 64bit).

 

Bottom line: It's not innovative, but it is interesting and a good step forward.

They were all innovative in their own way. Innovation doesn't mean an entire new invention or reinventing the wheel so to speak.

 

Retina was innovative because it wasn't just increasing resolution it was increasing pixel density to sharpen images, at iPhone 4 most phones didn't have high pixel densities, it was only after that we started to see an increase, even then it was slow.

 

Tablets before the iPad were pretty much non existent to the consumer, business maybe. No other tablet made the same impact as the iPad, it wasn't until the iPad that tablets really took off. It was the package that Apple provided not the product itself. 

 

Mac Pro 2013 has a lot of performance for the space. Not many pcs can achieve that.

 

Retina Macbook was innovative because it finally brought higher resolution to the laptop industry. No laptop had a screen close to the retina macbooks. 

 

Innovation is not reinventing the wheel, innovation is taking something already in existence and putting your own twist to it. 

[LAwLz]

They were all innovative in their own way. Innovation doesn't mean an entire new invention or reinventing the wheel so to speak.

Well, it kind of does. In order for something to be "innovative" it has to be brand new or be used in a way nobody has used it in before.

 

 

Retina was innovative because it wasn't just increasing resolution it was increasing pixel density to sharpen images, at iPhone 4 most phones didn't have high pixel densities, it was only after that we started to see an increase, even then it was slow.

We had high PPI displays long before the iPhone 4. Increasing PPI does not inherently make images sharper, it might actually make them look worse if they are not made for high PPI displays or are vectors. Starting a trend does not mean you are innovative.

 

 

Tablets before the iPad were pretty much non existent to the consumer, business maybe. No other tablet made the same impact as the iPad, it wasn't until the iPad that tablets really took off. It was the package that Apple provided not the product itself.

There were quite a lot of tablets before the iPad, it's just that nobody bought them. Again, starting a trend is not innovative. Creating something brand new (or use an already existing thing in a brand new way) is innovative. Repackaging already existing inventions and market them well are not innovative.

 

 

Mac Pro 2013 has a lot of performance for the space. Not many pcs can achieve that.

Computers have been getting smaller and smaller, while getting more and more powerful ever since they were invented. It's not innovative. By your logic, all new things are innovative. The Nexus 7 (2013) is innovative because it is more powerful than the previous Nexus 7 while being slightly smaller! See how ridiculous it sounds?

 

 

 

Retina Macbook was innovative because it finally brought higher resolution to the laptop industry. No laptop had a screen close to the retina macbooks.

True, but increasing resolution isn't something innovative. IBM were making quite high resolution laptops about a decade ago (up to 1920x1200 if I recall correctly). IBM was innovative when they made the first laptop. Intel wasn't innovative when they increased the performance of their CPU used in laptops, nor was Apple innovative when they bought a panel from Lg and put into their laptops.