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Apple's 7nm A12 chip could be the best feature in the 2018 iPhones

macworld.com

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Re: Apple's 7nm A12 chip could be the best feature in the 2018 iPhones

#131

Post by saagarjha »

kitsunesoba wrote: post #78
Reason077 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similarities between iOS and macOS don't have much to do with it. The reason the Android emulator is slow is that it is actually emulating an ARM CPU. The iOS simulator, on the other hand, is running an iOS natively built for x86, and Xcode targets the x86 architecture when you build your app for the simulator.

It certainly doesn’t hurt that the simulator only needs to run the iOS front end on top of macOS Darwin instead of a full copy of iOS, though. Couldn’t something similar be done with Android on Linux, running x86 Android and using the host system’s kernel?

> It certainly doesn’t hurt that the simulator only needs to run the iOS front end on top of macOS Darwin instead of a full copy of iOS, though.

Uh, no. The simulator literally boots an entire copy of iOS, with its own libraries, frameworks, and utilities, that's entirely separate from the host OS.

Re: Apple's 7nm A12 chip could be the best feature in the 2018 iPhones

#132

Post by saagarjha »

monocasa wrote: post #54
lnanek2 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iOS is not particularly different from OSX. That's why Apple developers get to use a super fast simulator instead of the dog slow emulator we Android developers are stuck with.

Except in multitasking UX. Yes, technically there isn't anything stopping you from running a compiler on iOS, but there's so much more to having a relevant development platform than "does llvm technically run".

> Yes, technically there isn't anything stopping you from running a compiler on iOS, but there's so much more to having a relevant development platform than "does llvm technically run"

You can't run unsigned code on iOS (with a few exceptions), and I don't believe that anyone has come up with a viable solution to codesign code on the fly on-device.

Re: Apple's 7nm A12 chip could be the best feature in the 2018 iPhones

#133

Post by deaddodo »

pizza234 wrote: post #76
deaddodo wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the price is wrong, but nvidia's Jetson platform is very powerful compared to the *board SBCs: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=march-20...

Jetson CPU performance is on par with chips like the RK3399 or the Exynos5422, which are 4/5+ times as fast as the RPi 3b (I owned RPi 2/3b series, and the Exynos). Note that the first benchmark in the mentioned article is an outlier.

No, it's not. Having worked with the Jetson platform extensively, the TK1 was equivalent to a 5422 (because they're both built on the vanilla A15 architecture). However, the TX1 and TX2 ("Denver" cores) are closer to (though, still slighty behind) the current SD 835:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6y4atVl-mc

And when it comes to GPU compute, it's much more powerful than all the alternatives.

Re: Apple's 7nm A12 chip could be the best feature in the 2018 iPhones

#134

Post by svantana »

jandrese wrote: post #67
H1Supreme wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely there's got to be something like that available already. I'm mostly dealing with low powered M0/M4 boards, but the selection in this range is massive.

There's an absolute ocean of old obsolete ARM cores clocked slowly. The difference in performance is so vast it would be hard to compare with an A11 chip, especially once you include graphics acceleration in the mix. Apple has been doubling down every year on the "we can make it go faster", and the rest of the ARM chip makers have responded with a "meh". It's so bad that people get really excited for a Samsung chip t…

Performance is highly dependent on task and graphics is extra tricky to compare, but looking at geekbench, it seems the Samsung S9 is about halfway between iPhone 7 and 8/X. So half a generation behind is more accurate.

Re: Apple's 7nm A12 chip could be the best feature in the 2018 iPhones

#135

Post by ddp »

kuharich wrote: post #112
ddp wrote: post #73

Or it could be another ill-conceived half-baked product, like most of the stuff Apple has released in the last five years.

I love my AirPods. The Apple Watch is green with jealousy ...

I love my AirPods too but I'm still waiting for the wireless charging mat that works with the iPhone 8 and Apple Watch. Remember that? They announced it a year ago...

Re: Apple's 7nm A12 chip could be the best feature in the 2018 iPhones

#136

Post by my123 »

monocasa wrote: post #54
lnanek2 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iOS is not particularly different from OSX. That's why Apple developers get to use a super fast simulator instead of the dog slow emulator we Android developers are stuck with.

Except in multitasking UX. Yes, technically there isn't anything stopping you from running a compiler on iOS, but there's so much more to having a relevant development platform than "does llvm technically run".

iOS development builds actually have the compiler installed by default. It can also be installed on jailbroken devices via Cydia too.

Re: Apple's 7nm A12 chip could be the best feature in the 2018 iPhones

#137

Post by bluescrn »

Finch2192 wrote: post #107

Can someone explain to me why this matters? It feels like CPU advancements in recent memory have brought nothing at all. It used to be, in the early days of smartphones, every generation brought something very new, something that can truly be considered an improvement. I remember the first dual core phone, the first quad core, etc. Nowadays, there is no noticeable difference at all. Even now, where phones have indeed…

Games! More polygons, better frame rates, the usual...

Except for the fact that we're still limited by an imprecise and rather limited input device (touchscreen) that has barely changed in a decade...

Re: Apple's 7nm A12 chip could be the best feature in the 2018 iPhones

#138

Post by GeekyBear »

According to the public information from TSMC on the new process node, it looks like we're in for significant power draw savings.

>Compared to its 10nm FinFET process, TSMC's 7nm FinFET features 1.6X logic density, ~20% speed improvement, and ~40% power reduction.

http://www.tsmc.com/english/dedicatedFoundry/technology/7nm....

Also, any speed increases due to redesign of the cores would be on top of the ~20% speed bump from the process node change.

Re: Apple's 7nm A12 chip could be the best feature in the 2018 iPhones

#139

Post by protomyth »

fastball wrote: post #121
tambourine_man wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a flying unicorn, but still a winged equine: the Mac Nano. A tiny white puck with a single usb-c plug for power and data. Inside, an A12 running OS X. Education and “enthusiast” market. GPIO as a dongle, of course. They can release the A13 version in colors the next year :)

I'm confused as to how you have a computer with only a single port... what do you imagine plugging the one port into?

For most of the day my Macbook Pro is basically a computer with one port plugged into a dock with its case shut since I like using my LG 21x9 screen more than the built in screen.

Re: Apple's 7nm A12 chip could be the best feature in the 2018 iPhones

#140

Post by [deleted] »

derefr wrote: post #130
tambourine_man wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a flying unicorn, but still a winged equine: the Mac Nano. A tiny white puck with a single usb-c plug for power and data. Inside, an A12 running OS X. Education and “enthusiast” market. GPIO as a dongle, of course. They can release the A13 version in colors the next year :)

Have you tried developing apps for the Apple TV? It's basically like that; just too low-powered to actually run macOS.

[deleted]
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