maharg said:
I really don't see what the RTOS tangent has to do with anything.
apologies from me too. buy hey, what do we have left to talk about when the darn thing was announced two months in advance to launch, with as little nerd-worthy details as humanly possible? tangents ensue.
ok, let me be more on topic. i know people got banned for blatantly trolling the device (for shame, as i was enjoying their posts immensely - newsletter fanclub was a good idea), but since some other, erm, 'news outlets' seem to share the same mindset (yes, i'm talking of BSN), let me show how clueless such positions are (the ones claiming apple did a lego job on off-the-shelf ARM tech).
first, here's an EE times piece on the possibilities of apple being an ARM architecture licensee:
http://www.eetimes.eu/209900392 . to summarize it - chances are pretty darn high apple have been an ARM architecture licensee for a couple of years now.
for the non-nerd readers: an ARM architecture licensee is a status allowing a company to implement the respective ARM ISAs they have licensed in a quantum computer, if they see fit. also, PA semi doing nothing but slapping together ready ARM designs seems like a huge waste of money (that went into their acquisition) - the same could've been done by samsung, with whom apple have been working for some time now. so much for that 'apple slapped together ARM tech' stuff. yeah, i know, elementary logic and basic deduction are too much to expect from a site like BSN - they'd much rather gloat over catching SJ of using the wrong term for a CPU (i.e. A4 being a SoC rather than a CPU).
and here's my uneducated guess as of what might be the nerd-worthy details of the device:
* CPU resources- quite likely single cpu core in this first incarnation, but don't be shocked to see 2x or 4x configurations in future iterations. the reason i'm thinking it's single core now is that a 1GHz A9-class CPU (moreover - god knows how much beefed up by PA semi) would handle the typical workloads of such a device gracefully.
* RAM memory - i'd wager 512MB. the fact the device runs a highly-optimized mobile os gives it the luxury of not needing 1GB of RAM to boot.
* GPU - i'm guessing a beefy SGX here (yeah, mali 50 - right) - something along the performance point of 535@200MHz (not necessarily this model, of course)
* dedicated video codec silicon (that's what handles the HD movies - the darn CPU would not need move a finger there, contrary to armchair expertise).
and last but not least - a sw prediction.. in my crystal ball i see the app sandboxing model loosening up, allowing for apps to share their docs with other apps.. ; )