Intel

Here’s something you didn’t know: The iPhone sucks. It sucks because it is too slow and the reason it is too slow is because of the ARM processor powering the thing. All this from two Intel executives.  Shane Wall (VP mobility group) said “Any sort of application that requires any horse power at all and the iPhone struggles” Which was backed up by Pankaj Kedia (Directory of ecosystems) who added “The shortcomings of the iPhone have come from ARM” The two were happy to extend their criticisms to any phone powered by an ARM chip.

Clearly, Intel thinks ARM is a worthless, market throttling chip. Fair enough since the company competes against ARM but yI didn’t see any Intel powered phone with super speedy web browsing on Intel’s website. Maybe they are worried about ARM coming up with an Intel competitor on people chucking their laptops to go all iPhone all the time. Besides, I’ve never seen a better web browsing implementation of a mobile device. Whatever the reason Intel is already running away from the comments calling the swipes ”inappropriate”

Perhaps the Intel guys… more...

The people over at ZiPhone spotted some code in the brand new 2.0 beta iPhone firmware that could point to the chip to be used in the upcoming 3G iPhone.

The code makes mention of ‘SGOLD3,” which could very well refer to Infineon’s followup chip to the S-GOLD2 which powers the current iPhone.

Infineon’s other name for the S-GOLD3H chip is the PMB8878, a 7.2Mbps HSDPA chip with all the video acceleration and media playback features iPhone users have come to expect.

Some features include higher resolution camera support (5 megapixels instead of our current 2), a 2X speed MMC / SD interface and more. However, that doesn’t mean any of these specs will end up in the iPhone 3G, but it is capable, leaving our minds souring as to what will come for the next iPhone.

Stay tuned…

The recent news of Intel’s plans to get “inside” the iPhone has me excited. And I can’t help but think back tot a few years ago when I thought Intel was the devil. It is amazing what a few years and a bunch of Intel devices later have turned my opinion of them. G5 Powerbook? Who ever needed one when we got a smaller, thinner, more powerful Intel chip! That seems like a distant memory now.

But when Apple decided to go to Samsung for the first gen iPhone, people knew it was just a matter of time before Intel came knocking. It is interesting now to see in an Intel presentation, the iPhone used as an icon to note an unnamed Moorestown processor saying it is the “chip the iPhone would have wanted.”

So when will we see it? Some say not until the 3rd gen iPhone no earlier than 2009. Will this news cause people to not even consider the rumored iPhone 2.0? Is this a move that will spark a new surge of iPhone users next year? Is this exciting fro AT&T who in 2009 will… more...

I’ve never met Paul Otellini, but I would imagine him using a Blackberry, or perhaps a Palm. Surprisngly, he is a Mac fanboy and love his iPhone.

His wife also has one too. In a recent interview with BusinessWeek, Paul Otellini admits to using Apple products for personal use, though he does try to cover up his his confession a little by saying that he still carries a ThinkPad for work.

“My wife and I both have iPhones. My wife came in with a jacket for her phone. She was all excited. It’s a flimsy little thing. It cost $39. It probably cost 6¢ to make.” He adds that he uses a ThinkPad for work and a MacBook Pro for his personal life, including his personal photos and music.”

I love it!

Some “sources” are saying that Apple may eventually ditch the Samsung system chip for the new Moorestown mobile Internet device (MID) platform processor from Intel. I guess it isn’t any big surprise. A move to Intel should be more than just a speculation. It seems like a no-brainer for Apple to move to Intel inside the iPhone. This would move the iPhone platform in line with the current Intel chip lineup in the MacBooks, MacBook Pro, and the iMac.

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.

A big concern for me is the size implications with the Intel processor. Will this mean a bigger iPhone? Or perhaps this is simply further evidence to a micro-pc that Apple is working on?

[Via AppleInsider]

The iPhone may be utilizing Intel flash memory but unlike the Apple notebooks and desktops, the mobile version of OSX will not be run on Intel chips. No, that honor goes to Marvell Technologies who bought Intel’s XScale business.
[Via The Inquirer.net]