Apple iPhone 4S: Thoroughly Reviewed
by Anand Lal Shimpi & Brian Klug on October 31, 2011 7:45 PM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Apple
- Mobile
- iPhone
- iPhone 4S
The A6: What's Next?
Apple has somehow managed to get a lot of the mainstream press to believe it doesn't care about specs and that it competes entirely based on user experience. Simply looking at the facts tell us a different story entirely:
Apple SoCs | ||||||||
2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | |||
Process | 90nm | 90nm | 65nm | 45nm | 45nm | 28/32nm | ||
µArch | ARM11 | ARM11 | Cortex A8 | Cortex A8 | Cortex A9 | ? | ||
CPU Clock | 412MHz | 412MHz | 600MHz | 800MHz | 800MHz | ? |
Apple has been at the forefront of the mobile hardware race, particularly if we look at the iOS platform as a whole (iPad + iPhone). Apple was among the first to move from ARM11 to the Cortex A8, and once again with the move to the A9. On the GPU side Apple has been even more aggressive.
Apple hasn't stayed on the same process node for more than two generations, echoing a philosophy maintained by even the high-end PC GPU vendors. It also hasn't shipped the same microprocessor architecture for more than two generations in a row.
Furthermore Apple even seems to be ok with combining a process shrink with a new architecture as we saw with the iPhone 3GS. It's generally thought of as a risky practice to migrate to both a new process technology and a new architecture in the same generation, although if you can pull it off the benefits are wonderful.
The truth of the matter is Apple is very focused on user experience, but it enables that experience by using the fastest hardware available on the market. With that in mind, what comes in 2012 with Apple's sixth-generation SoC?
It's fairly obvious that we'll see a process node shrink. Apple has been on 45nm for two generations now and the entire market will be moving to 28/32nm next year. If Apple sticks with Samsung, it'll be on their 32nm LP process.
The CPU architecture is a bit of a question at this point. We already know that Qualcomm will be shipping its next-generation Krait architecture in devices in the first half of 2012. TI, on the other hand, will deliver an ARM Cortex A15 based competitor by the end of next year. The aggressive move would be for Apple to once again migrate to a new process and architecture and debut a Cortex A15 design at 32nm next year.
Looking purely at historical evidence it would seem likely that we'd get a 32nm dual-Cortex A9 design at higher clocks first. If Apple wants to release an iPad update early next year, that's likely what we'll see. That still doesn't preclude a late 2012 release of a dual-Cortex A15 solution, perhaps for use in the next iPhone.
Note that we haven't talked much about potential GPU options for Apple's next silicon. Given the huge upgrade we saw going into the A5 and likely resolution targets for next-generation tablets, it's likely that we'll see pretty big gains there as well.
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SunLord - Tuesday, November 1, 2011 - link
Ignore that totally missed it on the first page :Pmedi01 - Tuesday, November 1, 2011 - link
Siri Successfully Ported to iPhone 4, iPod touchhttp://www.tomsguide.com/us/iphone-4s-siri-phone-4...
Remember that it is a former app, developed by a third party, now withdrawn from app store.
mymomentummedia - Tuesday, November 1, 2011 - link
Bikini swimsuit iphone 4s review.... you will like this lolhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eNxXBIV9_s
cjs150 - Tuesday, November 1, 2011 - link
Excellent review. Siri clearly has a lot of potential as well. Not convinved by Apple's screen size though - as the missus says, bigger is better!We have a lot of Iphone's being used in our business, most of the users swear at them rather than by them for the simple reason that the way the iphone handles email (we are of course on a MS Exchange server) is... lets just say the only repeatable comments are along the lines of clunky, useless, frustrating, it then goes downhill.
Is the combination of iPhone 4s and IoS5 anybetter?
peroni - Tuesday, November 1, 2011 - link
What can I say, fantastic job with this review once again.The missing switch to disable 3g could be problematic in the area where I live.
When 3G is on and I enter an area with no 3G coverage my iphone 3GS takes ages to switch. I settled with leaving 3G off permanently.
Death666Angel - Tuesday, November 1, 2011 - link
I was looking forward to it. :-(iwod - Tuesday, November 1, 2011 - link
Looking at those table we are very likely to get a new Design with next version.And a New CPU architecture A15,
As well as new Node Shrink
And i am guessing LTE as well...
That is lots of new things going into a new product.
chrisk1250 - Tuesday, November 1, 2011 - link
How do you show the WiFi signal strength as a numeric value on iOS?anandtech pirate - Tuesday, November 1, 2011 - link
nice review,now lets see a review comparison of all the US variants of the SGS2 phones.
Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, November 1, 2011 - link
That's next on Brian's list :) I'm back off to storage and CPU land for now :)Take care,
Anand