Fourth generation iPhone teardown reveals A4 microprocessor
By Thomas Ricker 
posted May 12th 2010 6:14AM
posted May 12th 2010 6:14AM
posted May 12th 2010 6:14AM
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man, whoever has that phone has really gross fingernails.
@Dr Spaceman
Prediction: the Spec will be the same as the iPad. Maybe the A4 is just clocked lower for better battery?
@futurerheza The screen buffer is bigger on the iPad though, so the same amount of RAM will be likely I think. No beef up till next year.
@Dr Spaceman
they think the Vietnam war was big.. thats nothing compared to the wrath of the iSteve that will be bestowed upon them
poor souls, they knew it was to happen.. their hands where shaking as they video-graphed what was to be their impending doom
@Zylam iSteve? I only know iDiot.
@David Bailey
Apple is already trailing spec-wise, staying out of the loop for another year? Dunno if that will be worth the premium.
@Dr Spaceman Your username rules!
btw, its pronounced: /spa-cheh-man/ for all those poor souls deprived of 30 rock..
@Dr Spaceman the gross fingernail is only on the pinky and the thumb. I believe it's a superstitious thing. It's bad luck if the end of your pinky finger (or fingernail) doesn't extend beyond the top joint of the ring finger. Similarly a thumbnail has to extend beyond the middle joint of the index finger.
@Dr Spaceman
"In other news. A swarm of Predator Drones has been spotted flying over Vietnam. More at 11."
@Bahumbug that's how fanboys spell.. you silly.
I wonder what ever happened to the poor guy who lost the phone. Anyone know?
@Dr Spaceman The iPhone better has a 1 GHz processor....!
@SHEAesthetic
It also makes it easier to line up the cocaine.
@Bahumbug Made me lol literally
@futurerheza
Not only is that not true, the iPad can open 6+ without slowing down. I've had mine since day one and have never experienced a slow down. Stop spreading FUD.
@Elbart
Are you sayin' that you don't know if this iPhone is worth buying?
If so, it all depends on what version you have. If you have a 3G, yea, upgrade. It's about that time.
But if you're a 3GS owner, there is no way I could understand how someone could justify playing a $200.00 premium for a phone that will be marginally better then what they have now.
Sorry if I took your comment out of context.
@futurerheza
Its been "confirmed RAM on iPad is not enough" eh?
How do you "confirm" hardware specs "insufficient"?
Unless there is not enough to actually boot, you cannot do this. It's a opinion.
And you opinion is null, hater.
@EagleyeSmith Two years of cell phone service costs upwards of $2,000 - another $200 to have a dramatically faster phone with a better camera, HD video and video chat sounds like a good call to me.
@Dr Spaceman thats what one would call a "coke nail"
@salane89
It's not fud. My iPad does not run as smoothly as my 3GS. Maybe the apps take up more memory? Idk, but it def needs more memory
@futurerheza
Not enough.... for what? Its not designed to be an all powerful super computer. Its an iPad. An Item of fun and convenience. Gotta love all you Apple haters trying to find the littlest things to tear Apple down. Not gonna happen!
@Urrl got sent to siberia to work for hp. duh.
@Dr Spaceman
So...the iPad is TRULY a giant iPhone now?...or is it the other way around...
@David Bailey
If they were to make the 4G the same specs as the iPad, wouldn't that decrease the iPad's appeal? I think they will probably downclock it to somewhere between 700-800MHz.
@Dr Spaceman
Anh em họ của tôi nên tận hưởng vài ngày ông còn lại trên trái đất
@Dr Spaceman Actually, you're correct. And they're very sharp (lol) Hopefully the next gen iPhone won't be like a miniature iPad. Still waiting for the verizon phone though. http://bit.ly/4g-iphone-going-to-verizon
@Zylam http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAiLw887rss Steve is will totally be like this right?
@brr404
Wouldn't it have been great, hear me out on this, if all that good stuff you just said, was in ENGLISH?!
This must be severely underclocked so as to avoid overheating, am I right?
Assuming it's the same rebranded Cortex A9 processor from the iPad....
@Mike10010100 : Why? It's not like the iPad is reknowned for starting fires, there could be plenty of thermal leeway for them to put it in a smaller device. Especially if they use the metal inner frame and the edges as a heat sink.
@Mike10010100
@Mike10010100
The CPU in the iPad is a Cortext A8, as stated in the iFixit/ChipWorks-teardown.
Pretty disappointing.
@sockatume
Well I was acting on the assumption that since the iPad gave them a large amount of room to dissipate heat, they would push the A4 to as fast as they could before the heat started becoming unmanageable.
Therefore, when faced with a non-aluminum back + smaller internal space, it would make sense to underclock the processor.
Unless the original A4 isn't known to be a large heat producer. I thought it was...
@Elbart
Eh, sorry. A9, A8. lol
Ouch. Hopefully it has more ram than the iPad.
@Mike10010100
if it is the a4 it will probably be clocked slower than the ipads, but id bet that'd be to squeeze more from the battery than to avoid overheating.
@tobsmonster2
Very true. I could have sworn that there were a few reports of overheating of iPads. That's why I was curious. Not to mention that the current processor for iPhones and iPods gets VERY hot after playing games and other energy intensive applications.
@Mike10010100 Apple and everyone owning one wish there was an A9 in the ipad. Its obviously an A8.
@Mike10010100
@Mike10010100
A 1Ghz Cortex-A8 A4 should run fine in a phone. We've already seen the 1 Ghz Snapdragon, which is also a Cortex A8 chip, in a bunch of phones.
@Bahumbug http://www.wired.com/gadgets/miscellaneous/magazine/17-09/ff_goodenough
I am more than happy with the innards of the iPad if they facilitate the excellent battery life I get out of it.
@Temple Snapdragon is also an ARMv7 chip, but it's not Cortex-A8 based: it's built around Qualcomm's Scorpion core. E.g. read: http://www.dspdesignline.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=204700527. That's not to say there aren't 1GHz Cortex-A8 designs around; for instance, in the T.I. OMAP3640.
@Temple
Snapdragon uses Qualcomm's Scorpion core, a re-written A8. yes that's not the point, but...
@Mike10010100
There's no heatsink for the A4 in the iPad, IIRC. Any heat issues are from the massive battery.
@Dale P
The battery life you get on the iPad is due to them putting 2 massive batteries in the machine itself. Most of the innards of the iPad is battery.
You won't get near teh same performance out of the next iPhone simply because the battery capacity is limited to the dimensions of the phone.
@ounkeo There's really no telling how much throttling the software will (or can) do to the CPU to conserve power. However, I would suspect that the majority of the iPad's power consumption is the huge screen and not the app processor.
And, IIRC, Hummingbird is still well within reasonable power limits at full throttle for a phone processor. It's still a bit higher than most (750 mW vs usually 400 mW or so) but certainly nowhere near as bad that you'd need to start throttling performance.
@Mike10010100
If it was a Cortex-A9, then it would have a dual-core or would have been extraordinarily stupid of Apple... Cortex-A8 is older and so is cheaper than a Cortex-A9. Cortex-A9 is optimized for multi-core operation.
Whew... That was a lot of cortexes
@Mike10010100
My iPad and 3GS haven't even gotten warm while undergoing heavy usage. Even my 3G doesn't overheat when using it intensively.
Steve will be pissed now.
@appleipad
I know.. all the free press
@appleipad
...if it is not a controlled leak