Next-Gen iPhone & iPhone Nano Speculation

One interesting thing to note is that the silkscreen for the package appears to be 180 rotated from all previous chips.

 

I was originally disappointed in the timing of Anand Shimpi's retirement from publishing, if only because we won't be getting the usual in-depth analysis of the A8 at the end of September.

Well, it turns out that he's being hired by Apple. Maybe he'll send us information from the inside, right guys? Right?!

 

Well good for him! It was pretty clear that Anand was heading somewhere in the industry. I had originally thought that Anand may have been snapped up by Intel, but Apple it is His articles on Apple products over the last few years have been very good.

 

If anyone is interested, I took the time to annotate the leaked logic board. The imgur album also contains the labeled unpopulated board, which has a mistake regarding the NFC chip fixed in the other annotation. http://imgur.com/a/7W674

I did it as part of my preview of the upcoming iPhone post I do on macrumors.

 

Not that it really matters that much but:

A6X =

4* SGX554@280MHz = 71.68 GFLOPs FP32

A7 =

G6430@450MHz = 115.20 GFLOPs FP32 / 172.8 GFLOPs FP16

The few folks that know something about Apple's plans I know, are likelier to sell their mother than to spill any of Apple's beans

 

Ooh, yeah typo on the first. For the second, I even cite the correct source, so I have no excuse

 

The 1 GB of RAM, if it turns out to be the case, is ridiculous.

But maybe they're scrimping there since they're probably putting more money into the screens.

 

Apple was willing to put a 165 mm^2 die and 128 bit memory bus for their iPads that have a lower margin than their phones, so I don't think that cost would be the primary reason.

 

What else would it be?

One idea is that with only 1 GB of RAM, these devices are going to be obsolete sooner, as iOS 9, iOS 10, etc. releases, and newer features of newer iOS versions will simply not be available to them.

That's aside from the poorer experience of apps and Safari tabs constantly reloading.

 

Aside from slightly higher static dissipation, not sure. Maybe they are using their anobit acquisition to do memory compression. Maybe there will be a higher RAM version, but only the 5.5" to encourage upgrades.

 

I think if they put a more beefy SOC in one device, they'd have to brand it differently, like A8X or something.

And they probably won't volunteer the amount of RAM -- which they've never done AFAIK.

Because that would be admitting that they offer more RAM in the premium model because the other one has a poorer experience because of the lower amount of RAM.

I wonder if the general public is aware of the RAM or if there is a widely-held sentiment that iOS devices need more RAM, that the user experience is being diminished.

Versus the perception that iOS devices must have bigger screens like the competition, and getting bigger screens will satisfy most iOS device buyers -- but not the people who follow the specs like those on this and other tech-oriented sites.

 

I certainly agree on the legacy concerns. However, they've mentioned RAM before. I believe there is more than one instance

You're right though, screen is the most desired change from the general public. I guess that will make 2GB LPPDR4 all the sweeter next year, right

 

For me personally, the only time I've ever felt that there wasn't enough RAM was in the first iPad. Other than that it has never been an issue. That said, I'm one who's a bit OCD about having too many taps open, so that definitely helps. But with fast wifi and LTE everywhere, reload times aren't a major factor anyway. (I realize that this very dependent on where you live.)

 

Any rumor about battery duration? The iphone is imo very bad wrt to battery life.

 

Somewhere between 1810 and 2100 mAh for 4.7" (separate leaks) and 2915 mAh for 5.5".

 

That's a pretty small battery for a purported 4.7" screen, if you ask me.

On the other hand, my wife's iPhone 5c seems to have pretty good battery life in my experience. Certainly favourable in comparison to various Android phones I've owned over the past couple of years, albeit ones which larger screens than the 5c.

 

Reload of tabs is a PITA when you need to quote something from another webpage,go to it in a tab, then return to the forum that you were posting on, only to find it reloads and you've lost what you'd type thus far. Happens far too often on an iPad.

 

More than a PITA I'd say. It's a regression in capability compared to even PCs at the same price range of iPads.

Of course, you have tradeoffs for ultimate portability. But if they want iPad to continue to grab increasing amounts of the money that people would spend to replace older computers, they're going to have to raise the capabilities, if only to reach parity in certain areas.

Otherwise, it will never escape the perception of a toy, a consumption device. And that could ultimately affect its market penetration.

 

Yeah, I use a dedicated iPhone app for posting here, but the moment I need to cut-and-paste, the MacBook Air gets called into service.

I've never treated iPhones and iPads as serious working tools. Good enough for most emails, but that's about it.

 

As regards the memory issue, when cheapo budget Chinaphones regularly come with 2GB of RAM (and even 3GB phones are now being released!), it seems perverse that Apple have been so happy to scrimp and scrape in this aspect with their expensive flagship devices.

With such tight control over the whole OS (and with just a handful of devices to support), they obviously feel they can get away with less memory usage than Android devices, but with their huge economies of scale, putting in a decent amount of memory really ought to be the norm.