Intel: ARM's the reason the iPhone... sucks?

Okay, look, whether you adore or despise the iPhone, it's pretty hard to make a cohesive argument that it's slow or lags its competitors in offering the "full Internet." Somehow, though, a pair of Intel execs at the Intel Developer Forum in Taipei this week have whipped up a whole spiel based on the shaky claim that the iPhone's a dog for processing power and isn't capable of offering a rich Internet experience, going on to suggest that ARM architecture is to blame for the nasty pickle Apple's gotten itself into. Here's the best part, though: until only very recently, Intel itself was a huge player in the ARM game with its XScale line, now owned by Marvell. Isn't it too soon to harsh on a technology you so heavily bought into, guys? Of course, the moral of the story -- if you're buying the execs' line, anyway -- is that the iPhone wouldn't suck if they'd gone with an Intel stack, which they claim is a good two years ahead of the best that ARM has to offer. Said Intel's Pankaj Kedia, pressing on with the smack talk: "I know what their roadmap is, I know where they're going and I'm not worried." Of course, knowing the roadmap inside and out gets a little easier when you're a ginormous ARM licensee.

[Thanks, Renai L.]

[JAmerican @ Oct 22nd 2008 2:35AM]

Watch Apple pull off another "moving to Intel" stunt for the iPhones sooner or later just like they did with PowerBooks to MacBooks. They'll even have RosettaStoneMobile built-in. LOL!

[Rowdehaj @ Oct 22nd 2008 2:38AM]

I... I already don't-dislike this idea ...

Just like I start out not-disliking all other Apple products ... :C

It's an illness, I tell you! GET AWAY FROM ME FOR YOUR OWN SAKE

[Konstantin @ Oct 22nd 2008 2:42AM]

For the most part I have no complaints about my first gen iPhone. Sure, there is a little lag here and there but on the whole everything seems to run smoothly. The only thing I would want out of the browser however is more support for video and of course the long over due copy/paste. Other then that I'm happy.

[Mr. S. @ Oct 22nd 2008 3:05AM]

I have two arms too!

[Kris @ Oct 22nd 2008 2:03PM]

This is a post so I can access my Engadget profile. Stupid comment system.

[Erik Rogers @ Oct 22nd 2008 2:40AM]

Of course Intel would say that, however let's not forget what happened on 4/23/2008! P.A. Semiconductors bought out by Apple. What happened on 6/11/2008? Steve Jobs saying "...the acquisition is meant to add the talent of P.A. Semi's engineers to Apple's workforce, and help them build custom chips for the iPod and iPhone..." at WDC.

So actually... it seems like they are going back to the PPC architecture in a sense on their new acquisition.

[Valicore @ Oct 22nd 2008 3:43AM]

Yeah, I noticed that too. I would think it would off their developers to keep switching platforms... but then again they are getting paid for it, so whatever.

[Shunnabunich @ Oct 22nd 2008 3:55AM]

Not the PPC architecture in particular — PA Semi themselves mentioned that Apple wasn't interested in their existing products or roadmap when they were being bought, only their engineering talent. PPC and PA Semi's PWRficient stuff wouldn't be a good fit for mobile products like the iPhone compared to ARM, and Apple's benefitting from economies of scale with Intel chips in their desktops and notebooks that they'd be throwing away by trying to make PPC work again. The PA Semi acquisition was primarily, if not solely, to gain the ability to design other custom silicon. Don't expect to see a 4" thick iPhone G5 with liquid cooling anytime soon. :)

[j_g_puff @ Oct 22nd 2008 5:12AM]

I'd be interested to compare the licensing costs between using intel, arm or ppc architectures. Even if the intel execs are correct, arm may still have been the best choice in terms of BoM/licence cost.

Anyway, if intel are so sure of their embedded puissance, they should mock up a comparable MID and demonstrate it's iPhone depantsing abilities in public, preferably somewhere where I can watch.

N.b. I hate the iPhone - I'd love to see it embarrased, but this macho blethering is clearly vacuous smack.

[André @ Oct 22nd 2008 7:23AM]

They bought P.A Semiconductors because they intend to make a System-on-a-chip (SoC).

Apple is a licensee of ARM and can therefore implement the chip into their own designs.

[jaysins @ Oct 23rd 2008 3:22PM]

Well of course they are going to say this but they left out what major part. Their platform at a whole, if they are referring to dual core atom which I would assume they are because ARM's cortex processor quite the little performer and certainly better than any of the marvel cpu's out currently, is less efficient. Sure the cpu itself it very good on power draw but the way the motherboard and system is setup as a a whole is not. They have to create a platform from the ground up if they want to make inroads with atom in this market. A modified laptop chipset just isn't going to do it. I see the next iphone cpu upgrade as an ARM cortex processor and being significantly faster than what we have in today's iphone as they are a more advanced architecture as well as clocks up to 2000Mhz and come in single and dual core configurations. There should definitely be more than enough power under the hood, the big thing will be power draw and right now intel is behind in that area.

[Juaquin @ Oct 22nd 2008 2:46AM]

The iPhone didn't fail, but I'm going to have to agree that it could use more processing power. 5-10 seconds to open a setting menu or SMS? Not being able to run anything in the background? Come on.

[wickedpheonix @ Oct 22nd 2008 2:57AM]

OpenGL ES? Graphics that rival and better major portable gaming systems? I think Apple is doing *something* right in the computational department, now just how to leverage that for OS functions...

[Metkis @ Oct 22nd 2008 3:49AM]

The processor is different from their graphics architecture.

[Shunnabunich @ Oct 22nd 2008 4:02AM]

Just keep in mind, too, though, that more processing power would mean more power consumption unless the efficiency of those processors improves a good deal, and either Steve Jobs would be up in arms about having to make a thicker device to fit in a bigger physical battery, or everyone else would be up in arms about the svelter, powerfuller new iPhone having even worse battery life than previous generations. Not that I wouldn't love to see it happen somehow anyway...

[Draconis @ Oct 22nd 2008 2:47AM]

Obviously someone is jealous. Apple want's control of their flagship product and Jobs would never let that be held by someone else. Personally I think the P.A. Semiconductor move was great and gives Apple the chance to not be stuck on Intel's roadmap.

[Brad @ Oct 22nd 2008 2:52AM]

Hmm. If the iPhone processor is so powerful, how come it can only run one program at a time?

[Pc_Madness @ Oct 22nd 2008 2:58AM]

Wasn't the excuse battery power?

[rawhead @ Oct 22nd 2008 3:29AM]

It can run more than one app at a time. That's why I can receive E-mail while I'm surfing the web. Apple just doesn't let 3rd party apps run in the background, so that's more of a software/OS philosophy issue than a hardware limitation issue.

[Brad @ Oct 22nd 2008 3:54AM]

Right, the choice was to limit any and all 3rd party apps from running in the background for the sake of "user experience" - as in "we don't want the phone to grind to a halt because you left your Sodoku game running".

Which wouldn't be a problem with a more powerful processor, or a more intelligent process manager (Dalvik). Either way, the chip in that phone can't do what other mobile processors out there can, period.

[andrew @ Oct 22nd 2008 11:33AM]

wow thats lame Brad. Did you ever think that this is a phone and not a computer. The large part of the people (non-geeks) buying the iphone wouldnt know that they left apps running. Then after leaving 10-15 apps running the phone would crash and they would blame apple. I think this happens now with WiMo phones and people bitch about Microsoft when its really just the user leaving apps running.

Push alerts should solve a lot of the need to have apps run in the background. Apple promised developers access to this feature this year. Once that feature is available I dont know that there is much need for apps to run in the background on a phone.

By the way the iPhone has a kick ass processor, way better than the majority of smart phones on the market.

[Slavior @ Oct 22nd 2008 4:59AM]

You're completely wrong:

http://furbo.org/2008/03/16/brain-surgeons/

[George @ Oct 22nd 2008 5:38AM]

My Nokia E65 could run fring in the background while I browsed, and I could put both the browser and fring in the background to send an SMS. Battery life wasn't great though, I think it lasted 8-9 hours only. By that time I'm at work though, so I just recharge it.

[Millah @ Oct 22nd 2008 3:57PM]

Thank you Slavier, great article. I don't understand people...How in the hell can so many people try to pretend like they are experts without ever even writing a single line of code? The internet is great, you can be an expert in anything by making assumptions from things that you hear from other self-proclaimed experts. Gotta love uptight and ignorant people.

[Brad @ Oct 22nd 2008 6:39PM]

@andrew:
"wow thats lame Brad. Did you ever think that this is a phone and not a computer."

I missed the question mark at the end of your sentence but I'll assume that was, in fact, a question. Here's your answer: No. Maybe I got caught up in the all the Apple marketing that told me this was the "most powerful mobile platform ever", that it ran a "desktop OS", "the real OSX", and even earlier this week when Steve Himself said he saw the iPhone as Apple's entry into the Netbook market. Sounds an awful lot like they're setting the expectation for a "Desktop experience" to the user.

@Millah:
"Thank you Slavier, great article. I don't understand people...How in the hell can so many people try to pretend like they are experts without ever even writing a single line of code?"

I couldn't agree more. As a mobile developer I have a pretty good idea how mobile applications SHOULD work, and how they work on a handful of different platforms. I have used Windows Mobile since the '03 version, and I totally agree that memory management and stack priority could be better handled. Treating a background app like it is still in the foreground is really annoying. To the best of my knowledge, there isn't even a notification from the OS when another application takes over focus (though the WM5 API did add "this.Activate();" to allow you to reclaim focus). There is plenty to desire from Windows Mobile, and I've found most of what I want in Android, which is a genuine pleasure to code. Yeah, it's Java based, but it doesn't run a Just-In-Time compiler, which really helps the speed issues you see on pure J2ME devices. Also, Dalvik, the pseudo-JVM that runs on Android, is an extremely efficient system, allowing applications to slide down, and eventually off the memory stack, and then restarting them where they left off later on. This is something even Desktop apps don't do yet.

But I skipped over the OSX platform, and you want to know why? It wasn't planned. When Apple released the iPhone, they told Developers "You can write apps in the browser!". The community was furious. That's not an SDK. Of course we can write browser-based apps (without Flash), how is that helpful? So a year later, they allowed developers to finally start being, you know, DEVELOPERS. But you can tell from the SDK documentation that the environment was really architected to be used internally, not open to the public. Many of the things you'd expect (like a communications queue, smart power/memory management, access to core functions) simply aren't there, and I believe it's because they never planned to unlock the Kingdom to the common developer. Hell, they didn't even plan to let you play around in the garden without being a trusted partner like Google.

So is it the processor or the radio that makes the iPhone suck to develop for? I'm not sure. Is one of the two reasons that something like 90% of the apps are games? Probably.

[Pretol @ Oct 22nd 2008 2:53AM]

Ring ring ring ring ring ring ring... BANANA PHONE....

[Shunnabunich @ Oct 22nd 2008 4:04AM]

Dude, you know my ringtone? Right on!

[fraxyl @ Oct 22nd 2008 8:25AM]

'tis my ringtone also. heh.

[John @ Oct 22nd 2008 12:04PM]

We put that on our Asterisk box as the on hold music a couple months back, and you wouldn't believe the complaints we got about it... well, about that and the Rick Astley.

[vietfob @ Oct 22nd 2008 3:07AM]

Well what do you expect? 620mhz ARM cpu but locked at 412mhz to conserve the already short battery life

[fh @ Oct 22nd 2008 3:06AM]

First, it was Apple's choice to underclock its ARM processors in the iPhone.

Second, the core of ARM architecture is really quite old and hasn't had an overhaul to deal with current day applications/devices. Nor is it really feasible without losing a lot of backwards compatability.

Third, Intel has every reason to knock its (previously) own product: where it sees a dead end in ARM processors, Intel sees a beginning for its Atom platform. And considering it was a pretty large undertaking without any significant results yet, it's as good a time as any to crank up the dial. Intel probably won't get the results it wants until Atom2, but the promise of a fully aligned x86 family (rather than the massive divide we have between x86 desktops and ARM handhelds) is simply too great to pass up.

[Aaron @ Oct 22nd 2008 3:44AM]

Nokia use ARM designs too. In fact they use SLOWER clock speeds too.

And guess what? You get a full web experience on their smartphones and internet tablets.

ARM is definitely not the reason why Flash et al isn't on the iPhone.

[Scythe @ Oct 22nd 2008 8:42AM]

Flash is still laggy on the Nokia Internet Tablets -- however it's fine if it's downloaded and played via mplayer. The one thing that would be very beneficial is the latest version of Flash 10, which has a primary focus on performance (and it does run a hell of a lot better).

So far the key issue that most of us in the tablet world have with our devices, is the lack of openness on the proprietary graphics accelerator. What that means is Flash, moves, and games are running almost entirely off the CPU even though there's hardware which could handle it -- which sucks big time.

Anyway, my ranting is to say that Apple has done an excellent job UI-wise of hiding the pitfalls of their devices. I think the big problem with Flash on their browser is that they have no way of truly resizing via their tiling system -- without busting up the flash display. The internet tablet gets away with it by using high resolution, but on the tablets all you can change is the text size.

[pive @ Oct 22nd 2008 3:46AM]

If the iPhone was a PC... It would be more powerful. But, oh, wait, it's a phone. With an insanely powerful platform, to be able to support OS X-bloated software. Menus too slow? Blame the hardware! How can you guys @ engadget can you buy this marketing babble?
All this performance debate should be around software. Software sucks.
Look at what guys can do with 25 MHz: http://ada.untergrund.net/, and now explain why we should get some overkill Intel platform to run software which manages two or three databases and displays internet pages. This is insane, and people still buy that crap.

[Poom @ Oct 22nd 2008 3:48AM]

I've always though that the iPhone has the best web-browsing experience in the market currently and that the everything runs pretty smoothly, relative to S60 and WinMo phones I've owned/used.

This just seems like an executive comment to bash the competitor though...

[Thesandlord @ Oct 23rd 2008 12:03AM]

ARM is a much better choice for any mobile device. If they put in a Intel Chip, the battery life would be cut in half. ARM processors are a SoC, System on a Chip, while Intel's Atom require even more chips to work. Which means more electricity. And the argument that the if the iPhone has x86 it would have Flash is wrong. Apple just hates things like Flash. Example: Nokia N810 has a slower ARM processor, yet has Flash 9 and can even run desktop firefox.

If Intel can make the Atom as powerful and more importantly the same power consumption as say an OMAP3, then a switch is needed. Otherwise, I would pick battery life over "Yeah, my SMS opens 3 seconds faster!"

[ChrisK @ Oct 22nd 2008 4:08AM]

i loled at the pic.

[Benson @ Oct 22nd 2008 4:02AM]

iPhone success or failure completely aside, Intel's got the processor side of things completely backward: trying to squeeze performance and battery life out of x86-compatible cores is the real fail, and ARM (Cortex, to be specific) is the next big thing for mobile devices.

[paul-engadget @ Oct 22nd 2008 6:19PM]

Problem is that whilst Intel's Atom processor has proven itself to be power efficient, the rest of the chipset they use is far from it, and moorestown/poulsbo hasn't appeared yet. I suspect when Intel sold off Xscale/Arm to Marvell they thought they'd have their power efficient CPU and chipset ready more quickly, yet it's been a few years now!

Meanwhile, Arm have moved up a notch - arm11, cortex A8, Ti OMAP 34xx, have come along which are more powerful. Don't confuse clock speed with performance, the Ti OMAPs used by Nokia outperform Marvell's PXA by 30% to 100% for the same speed!

[Scotty Doo @ Oct 22nd 2008 4:10AM]

Aaron is right. My N95 is ARM by nature and with the latest firmware runs like a rocket powered giraffe. Maybe it's something else that's making it slow......what could it be?

[jaycalgary @ Oct 22nd 2008 4:17AM]

Never had a n Iphone but my Dell x51v is pretty much the same cpu. Theres no real lag opening settings or running 5 or so apps at once or even having 5 or so opera tabs open. Opera has been slower than a pc for opening web pages though but downloading over wif isn't that much slower than a pc.I can an download about 5 thing at once before it starts to bog down. Apple probably just has to work things out to run smooth, the Iphone has 128mb or ram I only have 64mb. I am running newer custom rom that is noticeably faster than stock though. There is the new ARM cortex like in the Archos 5 and a new Nividia mobile cpu coming soon. Wiki said ARM was developed by Apple. I looked it up because a Iphone fanboy told me when I told him the Iphone basically running on hardware from WinMo.

[asg84 @ Oct 22nd 2008 4:21AM]

u cant blame only for processor . OS plays a huge role too
if the OS dosent know how to utilize the processing power or there is too many memory leaks, will always have bad experience irrespective of processor speed.

because phones like N82, N95 works really fast with ARM 11 332 MHz processor+128MB RAM

and the amount of RAM become critical factor when working with several pages .

perhaps apple should have include a 3D hardware accelerator like in N95

[chen tian chuin @ Oct 22nd 2008 4:44AM]

You failed!you failed!you failed for using ARM processor

(yeah..they failed for not using intel's processor)

[Jash Sayani @ Oct 22nd 2008 4:32AM]

The Intel device does the same thing as the iPhone and has a 16:2 ratio !! How would want such a large device that can do the same thing as the 3 inch phone..!!!

Some might disagree with this comment by talking about Copy/Paste, etc. But who knows the Intel device has all that... The detailed specs and functionality is not yet out!!!

[davidsben @ Oct 22nd 2008 4:36AM]

This is just silly!

Intel are about 10 years behind when it comes to power consumption. Just imagine how far Apple would have to underclock an AtomCPU to get the same life from an identical battery as the iPhone has now.

[Troels C @ Oct 22nd 2008 4:36AM]

"Apple, how could you?"

[Mick @ Oct 22nd 2008 4:39AM]

it is a little soon for smack talk from Intel considering they were in the same boat not long ago, however, maybe the reason they bought into the ARM architecture was so they could monitor Apples progress and stay ahead. yes i know i am a conspiracy theorist, but its more fun than watching the stock market do a freakin swan dive

[jaycalgary @ Oct 22nd 2008 5:09AM]

Are you guys idiots? The cpu in the Iphone was developed by Intel. Intel sold that part of the company off to the chinese a few years ago. Its still basicaly the same chip.

[chuin @ Oct 22nd 2008 5:22AM]

wait?it's developed by intel few years ago...sold to chinese....based on your statement...the CPU isn't getting more advance..because they are basically same chip...so now apple's using cpu which is developed my intel FEW years ago?if it is...apple really failed

[BK @ Oct 22nd 2008 5:49AM]

Umm no; ARM was developed by Acorn in the UK. Apple actually was involved at a later date. (ARM ltd was set up by Acorn, Apple and VLSI) so Apple have been involved with ARM chips for a very long time. Remember the Newton? ARM powered....

ARM did end up with Intel at one point, however, but that was much much later.