iPad confirmed to use PowerVR SGX graphics, Apple job posting suggests A4 chip will hit other products
By Donald Melanson 
posted February 23rd 2010 5:27PM
posted February 23rd 2010 5:27PM
In related news, a recent Apple job posting has now also offered up the first hard evidence that Apple might actually be putting its huge investment in A4 to use other platforms besides the iPad -- shocking, we know. That job is for an Engineering Manager, who would lead a team focused on the "bring-up of iPhone OS on new platforms," and would otherwise be responsible for "low level platform architecture, firmware, core drivers and bring-up of new hardware platforms" -- experience with ARM-based SoCs is also an "additional success factor." Sound like the job you've been waiting for? Then hit up the link below for the complete details.
@Nitesh
I guess that's why you weren't asked to build the iPad. Hrmm?
You're the one millions lining up to pay for it, no one expects you understand how its made.
@Wesscoast How dare you!
I would never buy it, silly.
@Nitesh
that's why you're not someone who'll run a successful tech company. Simple as that. You don't and can't get it! LOL.
@Nitesh It isn't a billion dollar investment. Ignoring what they paid for PA Semi, you can produce an chip using an ARM core using maybe 8 ASIC engineers for under a year. Total salary under $1M. Design the chip layout, RAM cores, test logic, busses, reset logic, any custom stuff you want to put in there... Sure you've got to pay NRE (that might be a million dollars right there) to the fab supplier. And you've got to pay the license fees to ARM. And and. So sure maybe its $10M or something when you're done. But it isn't a B-I-L-L-I-O-N dollars. The NYTimes pulled that one out of their ass.
@jaffreywali Apple isn't building their own foundries here, smaller companies have taken ARM reference designs as well as mobile GPU reference designs, stuck them on a SoC, and sent along the specifications to another company with a fabrication plant to make it. 1 billion seems extravagant for something like this, thats all I'm saying.
@Fanfoot Thats more along the lines of what I was thinking. Like I said, they aren't building their own foundries, 1 billion seems highly extravagant. Much smaller companies have taken ARM reference designs as well as mobile GPU reference designs, stuck them on a SoC, and sent along the specifications to another company with a fabrication plant to make it for much less than a billion dollars.
did I just read, bring the iphone OS to other platforms?
well, it will end up with it's own ecosystem, and it's own apps. (note: restricted as an intranet)
and it will stay a niche market (mind you: a niche market, in a global customer base of 5 billion users, still makes many millions)
this (intranet , restricted ways for a niche) have been attempted before, and were only successful for a short while, when they brought novelty and were ahead of their time, unfortunately , once the rest of the market reached the same levels, and evolved further, the catch with this business plan is the non-evolutionary state.
as closed and tightly controlled, it cannot evolve like the rest of the market.
here are a few reasons why: developing technologies for 4 billion people, makes it for economy of scale, cheaper per user cost of entry thus faster penetration, with a faster evolution.
while tightly controlling everything (intranet, proprietary way will cost way more) so it stays a niche market, shrinking with time. regardless of the apparent success it had at the beginning.
this was tested and is dying:
TDMA (north america = 200+ million potential users) = GSM (rest of the world; over 2 billion already users at the time of the clash) with GSM fast adding features TDMA could not.
AOL, brought good browsing through intranet type of way, and proprietary tech
NTT-Docomo I-mode
and many more...
note: on a personal matter, and owning an iphone for now, I wish it fails, as the wrong message is sent to digital rights owners: a minority of mobile phone users (50 million more or less, compared to almost 5 billion in total, and yes, even in africa where I installed 3G networks in 2004, and they have access to internet on their phones) show a trend, where they "want to pay for everything, accept to be denied the same stuff when free on internet, and are willing to pay more say for an ebook than for the cover book. bad days ahead
""We felt that we had the best knowledge of what we wanted the silicon to do." Tim Cook
Apple is going to exploit the iPhone/iPod/iTunes ecosystem with their own silicon and completely change how the world will interact with computers within the next decade. By 2020, netbooks, laptops and desktops will be non-existent. The iPad model will be the one paradigm to rule them all. What an epic victory.
@Ariel Bender
Whatever you're smoking I think you've had too much...
OEM?.
:-?
iCarStereo? Please? Maybe just a headless unit with a Dock?
@XChrisX
I think they really got us going after probably starting the rumors of the device being $999+, otherwise $500 wouldn't be so impressive, though the 3G price is what's really attractive