News
Intel disappointed with next-gen iPhone snub
Speaking at a press briefing to honor Intel’s 40th anniversary, Patrick Gelsinger, general manager of the company’s digital enterprise group, expressed disappointment over Apple’s decision to eschew Intel’s Atom platform in future phones and digital media devices in favor of custom chips designed in-house with the help of recently-acquired P.A. Semi. “Apple chose not to take that road map at their next generation of platform,” said Gelsinger. “That was disappointing.” In June Apple CEO Steve Jobs revealed in an interview that P.A. Semi would build chips for both the iPhone and iPod, putting to rest speculation over why Apple acquired the chipmaker. Earlier reports, including one based on a quote from an Intel executive, had suggested that Apple planned to use an Atom processor inside an as-yet-unreleased deluxe iPhone.
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Intel seems pretty greedy. Every computer in the Apple lineup uses one or two Intel processors. So just because the iPhone might use another brand processor, Intel is upset. Intel has so many companies to sell chips to, so why the big disappointment. It’s almost like Intel is saying that it only matters what Apple buys. Intel will probably be able to sell Atom chips to all other handset makers which is a huge number of sales.
Posted by Constable Odo on July 2, 2008 at 8:05 AM (PDT)
2
Maybe, or maybe they want to put their chips on something that is a technical marvel and give validation to their hype of this chip.
Intel may have a lot of companies to sell chips to, but the products that are using their chips are borderline boring.
This would have been a huge feather in Intel’s hat. They already know that Apple’s computers are practically PCs since you can run Windows on them and the iPhone is a separate platform that has no equal.
Posted by Hammer on July 2, 2008 at 11:32 AM (PDT)
3
Intel’s Atom CPU still uses too much power to be in a handheld device like the iPhone. They are complaining too much. They are at fault for not more aggressively reducing the power requirements of their i86 chip design.
The ARM processors still have the most power per watt and lowest watt requirements of the mobile CPUs. Thus they are a natural for handheld devices - and this includes the vast majority of Windows Mobile devices.
The Atom suck too much energy. Period. It can’t be used on the iPhone.
Intel has to go back to the drawing board and design something better.
Too bad that Intel had an excellent ARM chip business in their StrongARM designs. But they sold that business to Marvell.
Apple had to buy P.A. Semi because it made the mistake of laying off it’s chip engineers. Without an in-house chip design program, Apple couldn’t communicate with their CPU manufacturers well enough to get the job done right. As a result, the ARM processor that Samsung made for Apple had a lot of things wrong with its design.
Apple can still use the Atom in portable computers. The Atom isn’t ready for prime time for the iPhone.
With their hardware engineers, Apple can now design custom-made processors which cannot be easily cloned - both on the iPhone, iPod, and the Mac. These can also have features which would improve performance.
Apple can now more easily design along with Intel custom Intel chips for the Mac. This would make cloning much harder in the future without having to resort to DRM controls like Microsoft has done.
Posted by James Katt on July 2, 2008 at 2:10 PM (PDT)