Apple going with IMG for years to come ?

[wco81]

Is the BlackBerry Storm using haptic feedback for their click screen? Seems the reaction to it is mixed.

We'll see if any games try to use it.

Still think for most phone makers, gaming seems a sidelight so gaming won't drive design. Rather, game developers will work around whichever design sells well.

 

[3dcgi]

Is the BlackBerry Storm using haptic feedback for their click screen? Seems the reaction to it is mixed.

We'll see if any games try to use it.

Still think for most phone makers, gaming seems a sidelight so gaming won't drive design. Rather, game developers will work around whichever design sells well.

It depends, do you consider a button depressing to be haptic feedback. That's what the Storm's screen is, a button. You feel that you've clicked something, but it's not like a real keyboard where you can feel the button before it's pressed.

I like it, but there's still a lot of room for innovation in this area.

 

[Mike11]

Is the BlackBerry Storm using haptic feedback for their click screen? Seems the reaction to it is mixed.

Definitely not the same thing.

More info to Haptikos:
http://www.unwiredview.com/2008/07/08/nokia-haptikos-tactile-touchscreen-details-emerge/
Patent:
http://www.unwiredview.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/nokia-haptics.pdf

 

[Arun]

I just realized I made a huge mistake and it makes no sense that SGX 520 would be the first SGX core used by Apple. Oops! This is an Imagination Technologies PR I stumbled upon from October 2008, it's by far the most revealing of all PRs from IMG about this:

Imagination's partners for POWERVR SGX include Intel, NEC, Renesas, Samsung, Sigma Designs and Texas Instruments as well as a major OEM. POWERVR SGX535 and SGX530 are sampling or in volume production. SGX540 is licensed to more than five partners, and has taped out this quarter in multiple SoCs, while SGX531 and SGX520 are in design with several licensees.

This data has bunch of consequences, including:
- No tape-outs for SGX520/531 yet.
- There likely aren't any licensees for SGX 545.
- There are 5 partners for SGX 540, which is a huge number.
- [2;5[ SGX 540 tape-outs in Q4, in time for MWC/CTIA announcements.

It'd certainly be a very interesting development if Apple was one of partners, which also leaves open the question of what video core they licensed (VXD 380? please? be still my beating heart...) - of course, this doesn't exclude the possibility they just didn't tape-out anything yet and are lagging behind badly. Who knows.

 

[Ailuros]

I just realized I made a huge mistake and it makes no sense that SGX 520 would be the first SGX core used by Apple. Oops! This is an Imagination Technologies PR I stumbled upon from October 2008, it's by far the most revealing of all PRs from IMG about this:
This data has bunch of consequences, including:
- No tape-outs for SGX520/531 yet.
- There likely aren't any licensees for SGX 545.
- There are 5 partners for SGX 540, which is a huge number.
- [2;5[ SGX 540 tape-outs in Q4, in time for MWC/CTIA announcements.

It'd certainly be a very interesting development if Apple was one of partners, which also leaves open the question of what video core they licensed (VXD 380? please? be still my beating heart...) - of course, this doesn't exclude the possibility they just didn't tape-out anything yet and are lagging behind badly. Who knows.

Hate me but I said that 53x has a huge leadtime ahead of 520. In any case I'd guess that any partner would want to use anything 5x0 for something that's rather in the mobile/PDA direction and anything 5x5 rather something that is in the =/>netbook direction with XP or Vista accordingly.

SGX530 sounds quite reasonable to me as a 2nd generation iPhone chip and since I figure that Apple doesn't intend to not touch the =/>netbook markets too later on, there's always headroom for 545 or something even more powerful in the less foreseeable future.

Here again the relevant link: http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=11177&Itemid=1

 

[Arun]

Hate me but I said that 53x has a huge leadtime ahead of 520.

Yeah, you're right. SGX 530 is now the most likely possibility, SGX 540 second, and SGX 520 third.

In any case I'd guess that any partner would want to use anything 5x0 for something that's rather in the mobile/PDA direction and anything 5x5 rather something that is in the =/>netbook direction with XP or Vista accordingly.

Moorestown is very much aimed at MIDs, so I wonder if they could be using SGX 540 instead of SGX 535. I guess it depends on whether the former can support DX9, and my guess is that it nearly certainly can. Hmmm.

Here again the relevant link: http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=11177&Itemid=1

We'll see what happens, I still personally believe 7-9" is in No Man's Land (i.e. neither pocketable nor very large) except for the ultra-cheap netbook market which I doubt Apple cares about.

 

[Ailuros]

We'll see what happens, I still personally believe 7-9" is in No Man's Land (i.e. neither pocketable nor very large) except for the ultra-cheap netbook market which I doubt Apple cares about.

Some sort of modest "trial run"?

Tablet PCs haven't sold very well, but Apple' cult Messiah Steve Jobs implied Apple was watching small-device categories like tablets and Netbooks to see if they actually take off.

 

[Mike11]

We'll see what happens, I still personally believe 7-9" is in No Man's Land (i.e. neither pocketable nor very large) except for the ultra-cheap netbook market which I doubt Apple cares about.

I think it will work as a more powerful iPod Touch, but not as a netbook. 7" touchscreen, just 10mm thick, upgrade the iPod Touch internal specs 50%-100%, tweak the iPhone OS and allow multitasking but stay backwards compatible. Would be a great living room device and video player/ebook reader/gaming machine/surf tablet. I got an extra iPod Touch for that (and more) right now in my house, it's great but too small.

 

[wco81]

So how does the TI OMAP chips compare to IMG?

Observers at the Palm Pre demo today seem to think that the Pre scrolls smoother and the interface is snappier than the iPhone.

Of course, by the time the Pre ships, there could be a newer iPhone model.

 

[tangey]

Assuming its an Omap3 with 3D acceleration, then compares well with IMG, as the 3D is an SGX solution.

 

[argor]

So how does the TI OMAP chips compare to IMG?

Observers at the Palm Pre demo today seem to think that the Pre scrolls smoother and the interface is snappier than the iPhone.

Of course, by the time the Pre ships, there could be a newer iPhone model.

TI OMAP3 use SGX530 the iPhone use powervr MBX Lite + VGP Lite + FPU
sgx530 is a newer core than MBX Lite and performs is greater TI grade powervr sgx530 at 11 MPolys/sec
it is like this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powervr

With KYRO 3 (2D/3D AIB) products shelved due to STMicro closing its graphics division, PowerVR concentrated on the portable market with its next design, the low power PowerVR MBX. It, and its SGX successors, have become the de facto standards for mobile 3D, having been licensed by seven of the top ten semiconductor manufacturers including Intel, Texas Instruments, Samsung, NEC, NXP Semiconductors, Freescale, Renesas, and Sunplus, and in use in many high-end cellphones including the Apple iPhone, Nokia N95, Sony Ericsson P1, and Motorola RIZR Z8.

There are two variants: MBX and MBX Lite, both have the exact same features, except that MBX is optimised for speed and MBX Lite is optimised for low power consumption

vs

PowerVR SGX & SGXxt (pixel, vertex, and geometry shader hardware)

* next generation fully programmable universal scalable shader architecture
* exceeding requirements of OpenGL 2.0 and up to DirectX 10.1 Shader Model 4.1
* licensed to Apple Inc, Sony, Intel, Renesas, NEC, TI, NXP Semiconductors, Samsung, Sigma Designs, SigmaTel, Sirf and others
* 8 variants announced:
o SGX 510(canned). SGX520 (7 MPolys/sec), and SGX530/1 (14 MPolys/sec) for the handheld mobile market
o SGX535 and SGX540 (28 MPolys/sec) for handheld high end mobile, portable, MID, UMPC, consumer, and automotive devices
o SGX540 (1000Mpix/s, 20-35MPolys/s),SGX543(35M poly/s), SGX545, SGX555


i was i hurry

 

[Mike11]

I think we can fairly assume that the iPhone09 will have at least a SGX530 like the Palm Pre (H1/2009) too. SGX531 or SGX535 would be nice but i guess 09 is too early for them.

 

[Ailuros]

I think we can fairly assume that the iPhone09 will have at least a SGX530 like the Palm Pre (H1/2009) too. SGX531 or SGX535 would be nice but i guess 09 is too early for them.

I'm not so sure the next iPhone would really need the added bandwidth or texel fillrate of either 531 or 535, unless Apple is willing to go for a lot bigger screen on that one (sounds more like a 2010 target to me).

As an example if you'd want to spot a difference in real time between f.e. a N95 and a iPhone, you'd have to use something like Quake3 at least and enable antialiasing. It might not be the best example yet software/games lack that much behind for the time being, that you'd really need corner cases to spot differences.

Point being that with a 530 real time performance rises over 2x times over MBX Lite. At 320*240 it sounds good enough to me.

 

[Mike11]

After the Apple conference call and the emphasis on unchanged (iPhone) specs and on advantages of a fixed software platform (non-moving target for the developers; the app store will be just a year old), do you think it's possible that this years iPhone won't have any updated CPU and GPU? I mean no new architecture or big frequency jumps. Let's say iPod Touch 2G CPU frequency and of course 65nm CPU and GPU. But that's it for these chips.

Apart from this we would "only" get e.g. better GPS, Wireless, HSUPA, a lot better camera, front facing camera, more storage, same screen size/resolution, better accelerometers plus MEMS gyroscopes etc. Maybe more RAM for the new OS3.0 multitasking (just wishing), but each app's RAM will be artificially limited so that it can still run on a singletasking iPhone/iPhone 3G.

 

[Wishmaster]

I think that this year won't be a year of apple. Probably new iPhone will get released in 2010 and as usual they will shock the world with the specs and great marketing.
IMO this year will be the year of WM
All those new upcoming hardware bases, wm 6.5 and the commitment from MS about working closer with hw manufacturers should bring us some truly exciting new products at this year MWC and later.

 

[Mike11]

IMO this year will be the year of WM
All those new upcoming hardware bases, wm 6.5 and the commitment from MS about working closer with hw manufacturers should bring us some truly exciting new products at this year MWC and later.

Maybe, but if this is the year of WM with WM6.5, then what about WM7 next year? And WM6.5 (afaik Q3/09) faces strong competition this summer. A New Palm, second gen Android phones, S60 Touch (maybe not in the US, but worldwide) and imho a new iPhone. But WM6.5 could be good, Microsoft certainly spend enough R&D money in it's E&D department. That has to be worth something

 

[Wishmaster]

Maybe, but if this is the year of WM with WM6.5, then what about WM7 next year? And WM6.5 (afaik Q3/09) faces strong competition this summer. A New Palm, second gen Android phones, S60 Touch (maybe not in the US, but worldwide) and imho a new iPhone. But WM6.5 could be good, Microsoft certainly spend enough R&D money in it's E&D department. That has to be worth something

Palm is nice and eye candy(even more than iphone) but I'm worried that it won't be as successful as iPhone was.
Android is great and it gets even better with every update. Unfortunately I think that it is still too limited with that linux java combination for programming.
S60 touch is nice but still it looks exactly the same as normal version. Even now after introduction of n97 most people are looking at palm pre and what microsoft will bring at MWC.
Probably we'll see windows mobile 7 introduced along with windows 7 desktop and on devices at 1Q of 2010 at least that's what I think.
But I'm cool with wm6.5 if it improves core efficiency of wm6.1 and drastically improves GUI. If not skymarket should give us place from which we could download GUI replacements and some eye candy programs.

 

[wco81]

People have been touting WM and HTC ever since the iPhone was unveiled. Mostly geeks who like HW specs. but don't understand that people who aren't geeks comprise a large portion of the market.

That said, there's a lot of room for improvement in the iPhone HW but Apple isn't going to boost specs. for the sake of boosting specs. They'd boost the specs. to enable new applications or features in the OS to help set it apart from the competition, even as others like Palm improve their UI.

But they like the thin form factor, even if they have to sacrifice battery life. So that may limit things like video chats (if there are even mobile networks which can support that affordably) or high-end gaming.

They may also need to find an answer for netbooks, before their MacBooks, which did really well the past quarter, are impacted.

 

[Entropy]

People have been touting WM and HTC ever since the iPhone was unveiled. Mostly geeks who like HW specs. but don't understand that people who aren't geeks comprise a large portion of the market.

That said, there's a lot of room for improvement in the iPhone HW but Apple isn't going to boost specs. for the sake of boosting specs. They'd boost the specs. to enable new applications or features in the OS to help set it apart from the competition, even as others like Palm improve their UI.

I feel that wco81 has good points here. Let's be reasonable - Apple didn't buy Nat Semi, recruit key employees and strike long term deals with IP suppliers all for nothing. They intend to use their capabilities.
However, they are very unlikely to use those capabilities to please spechunters or megahertz braggers, that's just not a valid target demographic. (Indeed, it's people you may be happier without entirely.)

Applications are the key here, and Apple has indicated that games is one genre of applications that it considers important. What other applications can benefit from more processing power? One that seems pretty obvious is that the iPhones/iPods need to be able to scale HD content, and output to external screens. They already connect to the iTunes store, they already have 16 to 32 GB of storage, so it won't be long before the devices can act as portable media centers, obsoleting stationary hardware for all but the biggest video libraries. And even then it complements such collections with portability. 3D-mapping/drive-through is another application requireing some processing capabilities.

What applications with reasonably wide appeal do you see for portable devices, that require more processing power than the iPhone already offers?

 

[Xmas]

What applications with reasonably wide appeal do you see for portable devices, that require more processing power than the iPhone already offers?

Web browsing? I mean, the iPhone is a great little device but you don't have to go look for new applications to find something that would benefit from faster hardware. Even on WiFi the iPhone/Safari is noticeably slower at rendering web pages than the average PC. Reduced app startup times would also be great – these are probably mostly limited by NAND speed though.