ies Why Apple Went 64-Bit With the iPhone 5s from the all-about-the-software dept. Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes Adrian Kingsley-Hughes says it's not just because Apple likes bragging about being first and because a 64-bit processor sounds cooler than 32-bits that Apple used the 64-bit A7 chip in the new iPhone 5s. A shift from a 32-bit processor to a 64-bit part paves the way for iPhones to be fitted out with 4GB+ of RAM down the line, but more importantly the move brings iOS and OS X apps much closer. The architecture for 64-bit apps on iOS will be almost identical to the architecture for OS X apps, making it easy to create a common code base that runs in both operating systems. 'Apple has slowly been bringing iOS-like features to Mac OS for years now: think of Launchpad and Gatekeeper,' writes Sascha Segan. 'The ultimate prize, of course, would be to bring the million-plus iOS apps to Macs. Apple could do that with an ARM-compatible virtual machine on Mac hardware, but it would want the VM, the OS and the associated apps to play nicely in the much larger memory space available on Macs. That means moving the whole system over to 64 bit.' By unifying iOS and Mac OS with Xcode developer tools in a 64-bit space, Apple could once again leap ahead of Microsoft and Google, says Segan. Microsoft hasn't yet been able to leverage its desktop strengths to achieve success as a mobile OS. The 64-bit chips for Android devices aren't ready, and neither is Android itself. Posted by Soulskill a day ago apple iphone os 445 Comments Help All Outstanding Funny 64-bit BS (-1) Anonymous Coward a day ago Filtered due to preferences. Re: 64-bit BS (+1) Anonymous Coward a day ago So you didn't even bother to read the summary did you? Reply Share Flag Re: 64-bit BS (+5, Insightful) jedidiah a day ago I did. The whole thing is nonsense. You don't have to enforce a single architecture to have common code. Neither do you need to have a virtual machine running the same bit-ness as the host operating system. This is just the usual kind of cluelessness that comes from a community that is proud of being stupid. Yeah. 64-bit BS. Reply Share Flag Re: 64-bit BS (+5, Informative) MightyYar a day ago You are absolutely right. The whole summary doesn't make any sense at all... first of all, the Macs run 32-bit applications just fine. Second, if you can emulate a 64-bit ARM, you can emulate a 32-bit ARM. Third, phone apps would suck on a laptop or desktop. I suspect they went to 64-bit for the simple reason that it is the direction ARM is going. This processor design is likely to show up in their lower-end products for years after it leaves their flagship device, and the sooner they go to 64-bit, the sooner they can depreciate the 32-bit stuff. Unless the 64-bit chip cost significantly more to design, produce, or unless it has a significant performance penalty, there is no reason to delay making it. Reply Share Flag iOS on Macs (+1) mozumder a day ago Apple is most likely going to introduce a system where the display is iOS like an iPad, and the rest of the system is Mac. There are several options on how they can do this. They can have a separate machine on the display, with ARM/Memory, to keep main CPU powered off when not in use. They could have everything operate from a single x86 cpu like a laptop. They could have both ARM/x86 CPU's sharing a common memory, and so on. Eventually they will merge, but whatever they do they will have the experience of Windows 8's failures/success to build upon. Reply Share Flag Re: iOS on Macs (+1) MightyYar a day ago They could have both ARM/x86 CPU's sharing a common memory, and so on. That would be a neat setup, if they could run the ARM like a co-processor to avoid emulation. ARM is certainly cheap enough. Reply Share Flag Re: iOS on Macs (+2) donscarletti 16 hours ago I like the idea in TFA. First, implement an emulator to run OSX apps in a windowed environment on iOS, implementing panning and zooming to allow these apps to be viewed on mobile device. Secondly, install a dynamo in Steve Jobs' coffin, allowing Apple to become energy self-sufficient. Reply Share Flag Re: iOS on Macs (+1) the_B0fh 2 hours ago Uh, you already have that with XCode. There's a couple of different versions of emulators... Reply Share Flag Re: 64-bit BS (+4, Funny) petteyg359 a day ago There is a depressing depreciation in total knowledge of the word "deprecation". Reply Share Flag Re: 64-bit BS (+1) ericloewe a day ago They could depreciate stocks of older chips in order to invent a loss and maneuver around some taxes. Dunno if it would fly... Reply Share Flag Re: 64-bit BS (+1) MightyYar 21 hours ago I didn't mean depreciate the chips, I meant depreciate the XCode 32-bit stuff. Mac is all 64-bit now, so the only reason for them to maintain 32-bit tools is for 32-bit ARM. Reply Share Flag Re: 64-bit BS Anonymous Coward 21 hours ago Filtered due to preferences. Re: 64-bit BS Anonymous Coward 21 hours ago Filtered due to preferences. Re: 64-bit BS (+2) MightyYar 21 hours ago Apple is infamous for dropping older hardware. Reply Share Flag Re: 64-bit BS (+1) penguinboy 14 hours ago The iPhone 5c is 32-bit ARM (same internals as the original iPhone 5) and it's not even on sale yet. It'll be a while before Apple can stop letting developers target it. Reply Share Flag Re: 64-bit BS (+1) MightyYar 8 hours ago 2 years seems to be their track record between getting discontinued and ending support, IIRC. The 5C game is not really new - in the past they just sold their flagship Reply Share Flag Re: 64-bit BS (+1) Psyborgue 12 hours ago The iPhone 4 is still getting updates. The 3gs *just* stopped. My partner's nexus 7 stopped getting updates last year. My Galaxy S was outdated i bought it and maxed out at 2.2. Were it not for Cyanogen Mod, which most people don't have a clue about, much less how to install it, that's what I would still be on. You can say what you want about apple, but they generally do update their products for as long as they're capable. Even my 6 year old Macbook Pro is still able to run the latest OS. Reply Share Flag Re: 64-bit BS (+1) MightyYar 8 hours ago I was referring to their x86 transition. Their iPhone support is OK in comparison to the competition, but remember that the 3GS was still sold until only 2 years ago. That's less that 2 years of support, though I suppose relatively few people would keep their phone longer than that. The Mac support has been pretty good recently except for the original x86 Core Duo devices, which got dropped with Lion. IMHO, the Mac situation is more serious since computers get kept forever. For instance, I have a perfectly serviceable G5 machine which is perfect for the kids, but that gets no security updates. It is completely orphaned. My mother-in-law has a 2004 HP laptop of similar age to my G5 that still gets XP updates. I'm not sore about it at this stage - it is 9 years old! - but I was sore about it back when 10.5 went unsupported with no successor. Reply Share Flag Re: 64-bit BS (+1) Psyborgue 8 hours ago AFAIK, the support for Lion was dropped for the 1st generation core series because the processor could not actually run it. Windows 8 has a similar issue in requiring NX bit support. It's not like Apple is artificially engineering obsolescence. You're right that Apple does tend to abandon old OS'es, but then again, they don't have the install base XP does so there isn't a huge reason to. Old Macs aren't being turned into bots. They might not be as "secure", but for most people, they're secure enough. Reply Share Flag Re: 64-bit BS Anonymous Coward 8 hours ago Filtered due to preferences. Re: 64-bit BS (+1) Psyborgue 8 hours ago Yeah. I meant Nexus S. I have a Nexus 7 as well and it's still getting updates, but it's only a year old. Reply Share Flag Re: 64-bit BS (+1) Psyborgue 8 hours ago I meant "Nexus S", though I do wonder how long my Nexus 7 will continue to be supported. Reply Share Flag Re: 64-bit BS Anonymous Coward 21 hours ago Filtered due to preferences. Re: 64-bit BS (+1) Anonymous Coward 18 hours ago Depreciate is the wrong word. You want deprecate, with no i. Depreciate (dep-ree-she-ate) means to decline in value. Your old computers are depreciating. Deprecate (dep-rec-ate) means to denounce, as in 'self-deprecating humour'. In the context of technology, to deprecate is to say "we're not using that any more". So your old 32-bit computers are depreciating because 32-bit tech is deprecated. Reply Share Flag Re: 64-bit BS (+1) MightyYar 17 hours ago I didn't even notice that I put the i in there, twice no less. If it matters at all, I at least say it right. :) Reply Share Flag Re: 64-bit BS Anonymous Coward 8 hours ago Filtered due to preferences. Re: 64-bit BS Anonymous Coward 16 hours ago Filtered due to preferences. Re: 64-bit BS Anonymous Coward 15 hours ago Filtered due to preferences. Re: 64-bit BS (+1) MightyYar 8 hours ago I see now, said the hammer and saw. Reply Share Flag Re: 64-bit BS (+2) Dan East a day ago Third, phone apps would suck on a laptop or desktop. That's not quite true. A touch-screen iMac or Macbook would be perfectly suited for running iPad apps. I think this is a brilliant move by Apple, if they do indeed seamlessly bring the entire iOS application ecosystem into the OSX family of computers. Reply Share Flag Re: 64-bit BS (+1) MightyYar a day ago Good point - a touch screen Mac could be a lot like an iPad. Reply Share Flag Re: 64-bit BS (+1) LandDolphin 21 hours ago Useless for content creation? Reply Share Flag Re: 64-bit BS Anonymous Coward 15 hours ago Filtered due to preferences. Re: 64-bit BS (+1) MightyYar 8 hours ago Thank, I _WAS_ enjoying my breakfast until that. Reply Share Flag Dashboard Anonymous Coward 4 hours ago Filtered due to preferences. Re: 64-bit BS (+1) Darinbob 19 hours ago The assumes there is such a thing an iPad app that would be useful on a Mac. Windows 8 is currently flailing in this area, and it's not because of the lack of apps (one million more fluff apps won't fix that) but because it's a misguided idea to run a phone/tablet interface on a full blown computer. Reply Share Flag Re: 64-bit BS (+1) JeffAtl 5 hours ago That's what Microsoft tried with the Metro interface. Reply Share Flag Re: 64-bit BS (+2) mthamil a day ago Third, phone apps would suck on a laptop or desktop. If only Microsoft would realize this. Reply Share Flag Re: 64-bit BS (+1) Richard_at_work 12 hours ago Nothing to realise - the frame works for Windows Phone and Windows RT are not the same. Microsoft don't have phone apps running on desktops or laptops, they have tablet apps running on them. Reply Share Flag Re: 64-bit BS Anonymous Coward 3 hours ago Filtered due to preferences. Re: 64-bit BS (+1) Tough Love a day ago I suspect they went to 64-bit for the simple reason that it is the direction ARM is going. I (like many others) suspect that they went for 64 bits to hand the marketing department a bigger number to crow about. Reply Share Flag Re: 64-bit BS (+2) MightyYar 21 hours ago Not just their marketing department... I seriously doubt that ARM itself is going to develop the 32-bit platform much beyond where it is today. And if they ever decide to jump to Intel, Atom is also 64-bit. Reply Share Flag Re: 64-bit BS (+1) Tough Love 21 hours ago I seriously doubt that ARM itself is going to develop the 32-bit platform much beyond where it is today. And if they ever decide to jump to Intel, Atom is also 64-bit. Do you seriously think your washing machine needs a 64 bit processor? And do you have any idea how many more applicance-level processors you have in your home than cell phones and tablets? And how many people in the world want a phone but do not want to pay anything remotely close to $500 for it? Reply Share Flag Re: 64-bit BS (+1) armanox 21 hours ago So they'll just use MIPS instead? Or older ARM chips? Reply Share Flag Re: 64-bit BS (+1) Ottibus 11 hours ago I seriously doubt that ARM itself is going to develop the 32-bit platform much beyond where it is today. Do you seriously think your washing machine needs a 64 bit processor? So they'll just use MIPS instead? Or older ARM chips? ARM sells M-class processors for embedded applications and R-class processors for real-time applications like disc drives and automotive. These are active product lines, not older designs. These compete with MIPS, ARC, Intel Quark and a host of 8-bit and 16-bit devices. Reply Share Flag Re: 64-bit BS (+1) MightyYar 20 hours ago Your washing machine doesn't even need a 32-bit processor. Reply Share Flag Re: 64-bit BS (+4, Interesting) Tough Love 16 hours ago Your washing machine doesn't even need a 32-bit processor. You would be surprised The question is, do you want to put up with 8051 weirdo nastiness or a nice clean arm design. The original 8051 was about 30K transistors, so was the ARM 2. Which would you rather program? Since those days, transistor density increased more than a factor of a thousand, essentially wiping out the cost advantage of 8 and 16 bit processors, they all cost less than a buck. And see this coherent argument for why a 32 bit arm may be more efficient than an 8 bit 8051 variant: it takes way fewer cycles to get things done. Finally, there is productivity. Quick to market counts for a lot, and low engineering costs means shorter, more agressive product cycles. The modern manufacturer just can't afford to have expensive engineers futzing around with processor limitations. I don't know about you, but my new LG washing machine seems to put a lot of thought into what it's doing in order to get the clothes clean using the least amount of power and water, with dozens of different options. They probably saved some parts cost by implementing the motor controller in software. I would not be surprised at all to learn that they spent a buck to put a 32 bit arm core in it. My next washing machine will be on my home network and when it's done it will notify my cell phone. Probably running Linux. Reply Share Flag Re: 64-bit BS (+1) Lemming Mark 8 hours ago I don't think I'm really adding much here but the discussion of the 8051's quirks struck a chord with me! The 8051 is a bit weird in place, although in fairness with a C compiler you can just mash on through that and not worry too much. If you actually have to look at the architecture, you can definitely see its age, though. But for 8-bit stuff, the AVR architecture (Atmel's microcontrollers) genuinely are relatively nice, despite being just an 8-bit CPU. They are RISC CPUs, so they actually have a fair number of registers and comparatively few weird quirks (that I could see). The other big advantage in my particular line of experience is that as long as a CPU has lots of registers, gcc often supports it. Otherwise you end up having to use slightly less mainstream compilers - which is basically OK, they're still nice software. But they're not as comfortable to me as the standard GNU toolchain. Of course, I'm sure plenty of commercial embedded programmers aren't familiar with the GNU toolchain and so don't care about that. Reply Share Flag Re: 64-bit BS (+1) MightyYar 7 hours ago The modern manufacturer just can't afford to have expensive engineers futzing around with processor limitations. That's not really true. An engineer costs maybe $100,000-150,000 per year. If you sell 100,000 units and save a buck a part, you've paid for the engineer time for a whole year. I don't know what the sales volume for LG washing machines is, but I'd bet it's in the millions - and probably they can use basically the same controller board with minor revs for a number of years (until the parts go obsolete). We make stuff with much lower volumes - in the 10,000 range - and we sweat over dollars here and there all the time. That said, the newest embedded ARM stuff looks pretty sweet, and I wouldn't doubt that it will show up in more and more applications. Reply Share Flag Re: 64-bit BS (+1) Tough Love 2 hours ago If you sell 100,000 units and save a buck a part, you've paid for the engineer time for a whole year. That's just the point: a highly capable ARM processor can be had for a buck these days in quantity, and still dropping. You can't save a buck because it only costs a buck. Now you are back to that expensive engineering team, and the marketing campaign that is being held up. Reply Share Flag Re: 64-bit BS (+1) forkazoo 21 hours ago You are absolutely right. The whole summary doesn't make any sense at all... first of all, the Macs run 32-bit applications just fine. Second, if you can emulate a 64-bit ARM, you can emulate a 32-bit ARM. Third, phone apps would suck on a laptop or desktop. The logic of the article may still make some small amount of sense. Imagine a photo editor on iOS. Now imagine that there is an easy way to use your iOS apps on OS-XI. The only problem is that if your Mac Pro has 64 GB of RAM, and your iPhone is 32 bit, you may not get much benefit running that app on the bigger fancier system. OTOH, if the iPhone is 64 bit, then a future developer might make sure that the app has some extra bells and whistles in it that aren't very practical on a phone, but are really only useful when you run that app on a larger system. It's not just a technical issue that the article seems to be trying to talk about. It's a broader ecosystem / psychology / platform possibility. Reply Share Flag Re: 64-bit BS (+2) Darinbob 19 hours ago The whole thing sounds like a web site tech writer who doesn't understand how things work but who knows how to read press releases and repeat what marketing liaisons say. 64-bit processor will consume more power than an equivalent 32-bit version, so if the extra abilities aren't being used then it's a waste. And the extra abilities are almost all about memory addressing ranges. Reply Share Flag Re: 64-bit BS (+1) Ottibus 12 hours ago 64-bit processor will consume more power than an equivalent 32-bit version, so if the extra abilities aren't being used then it's a waste. And the extra abilities are almost all about memory addressing ranges. The extra abilities include >2x integer registers, 2x FP registers, 2x SIMD registers, new SIMD instructions including AES (one area where Intel smashes ARM performance) and a number of archicture improvements that make it significantly more efficient to implement. Similar issues apply to AMD64 vs x86. 64-bit code is generally faster than 32-bit code and faster code saves energy, as does keeping more data in registers. Power numbers depend on implementation, but 64-bit code is likely to use less power than 32-bit code on a 32-bit-only device. And since much of the power is spent in the OS it is likely that adding 64-bit reduces overall power rather than increasing it even with 32-bit apps. Reply Share Flag Re: 64-bit BS (+1) Shalender Singh a few seconds ago I think you are missing a important point! For having a same codebase for 32 and 64 bit processors either you'll need to have a huge HAL (hardware abstraction layer) and inefficient hookes OR the program will have to run in emulation mode, both of these are extremely in-efficient. This inefficiency will be further amplified if the program is of graphics computation of 64 bit colors because generally to make it high performance the programs use direct bit level operations. . --- Commercial Break --- BREAKTHROUGH: Zero Point Energy harnessed for creating energy from nothing: http://m.slashdot.org/submission/2946465 donation: minimum $1 to bring it to the people --- Continue --- The is why there is bit difference in code base even for little endian and big endian architectures if the performance needs to be good (if you use compiler flags to do the optimizations, forget that it can do a great job at that) -- I am ex lead programmer of Adobe Acrobat For Linux/Unix platforms and was responsible for fixing architectural and performance issues.

I think you are missing a important point! For having a same codebase for 32 and 64 bit processors either you'll need to have a huge HAL (hardware abstraction layer) and inefficient hookes OR the program will have to run in emulation mode, both of these are extremely in-efficient. This inefficiency will be further amplified if the program is of graphics computation of 64 bit colors because generally to make it high performance the programs use direct bit level operations. --- Commercial Break --- BREAKTHROUGH: Zero Point Energy harnessed for creating energy from nothing: http://m.slashdot.org/submission/2946465 donation: minimum $1 to bring it to the people --- Continue --- The is why there is bit difference in code base even for little endian and big endian architectures if the performance needs to be good (if you use compiler flags to do the optimizations, forget that it can do a great job at that) -- I am ex lead programmer of Adobe Acrobat For Linux/Unix platforms and was responsible for fixing architectural and performance issues.

I think you are missing a important point! For having a same codebase for 32 and 64 bit processors either you'll need to have a huge HAL (hardware abstraction layer) and inefficient hookes OR the program will have to run in emulation mode, both of these are extremely in-efficient. This inefficiency will be further amplified if the program is of graphics computation of 64 bit colors because generally to make it high performance the programs use direct bit level operations. --- Commercial Break --- BREAKTHROUGH: Zero Point Energy harnessed for creating energy from nothing: http://m.slashdot.org/submission/2946465 donation: minimum $1 to bring it to the people --- Continue --- The is why there is bit difference in code base even for little endian and big endian architectures if the performance needs to be good (if you use compiler flags to do the optimizations, forget that it can do a great job at that) -- I am ex lead programmer of Adobe Acrobat For Linux/Unix platforms and was responsible for fixing architectural and performance issues.

It will change the world if it true.