Filed under: iPod Family, iPhone
iPhone to use Intel processor
Here's a real quickie factoid about the upcoming Apple iPhone. It will use an Intel CPU. A Reuters article from this morning states that Intel will supply the iPhone's CPU. This was confirmed by an Apple Germany spokesman, "The processor is from Intel." If a bit of googling serves, current iPods run off Portal Players (5G video), SigmaTel (shuffle), and ARM (2G Nano) chips.
Of course, the real question that the most geeky among us will be asking is, "Can it run Linux"?. I suspect that the world will have to wait a while before that pressing question gets answered.
Thanks Scotto.
Update: Loyal TUAW reader Moto points us to this correction. Looks like it's the AppleTV not the iPhone getting the Intel chip.
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Mitch said 12:43PM on 1-10-2007
i was just going to ask on another thread why nobody was asking which processor... thanks for the info!
Reply
moto said 6:07AM on 1-11-2007
that is wrong of Reuters and the German Apple spocesman confirmed a mixup! http://www.mac-essentials.de/index.php/mac/article/18654/
last paragraph!
Reply
Tom said 1:45PM on 1-10-2007
Is that penguin giving me the finger?
Reply
my_name_is_tudor said 12:56PM on 1-10-2007
Erm, Jobs announced it had an intel processor himself during the keynote.
Reply
my_name_is_tudor said 12:57PM on 1-10-2007
Oh yeah, apple TV. I remember.
Reply
Nathan said 1:32PM on 1-10-2007
An apple representative standing near an iPhone at Macworld, told me it has an intel chip. May or may not be true.
Reply
Rob said 3:22PM on 1-10-2007
They have been VERY quiet about the processor used. I suspect an Intel, but an unannounced Intel.
Given that it runs MOSX they will want to keep it in the Intel family.
Reply
Tony C said 1:59PM on 1-10-2007
Yes, the Apple TV was stated by His Steveness as having an Intel processor, but nothing on the iPhone, was there?
Well, it almost has to be Intel... Those iPod Samsung ARM and dedicated PortalPlayer chips certainly wouldn't cut running the OSX kernel well, as powerful as their manufacturers may think they are. Fairly low-res video playback and games seems to be about all that lot can render enough horsepower for.
I'd expect maybe an ultra-low-power Pentium M or a higher end PDA-class Intel ARM processor, but I certainly wouldn't rule out Samsung as a provider again.
Reply
Goobimama said 2:01PM on 1-10-2007
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahahahaha! LOL and whatnot on my side for that penguin comment by Tom...
Reply
Federico 'Phate' Pistono said 3:04PM on 1-10-2007
This is what we ALWAYS ask ourselves as soon as a new device comes out.
Can it run Linux?
What can't? XboX, PS2, GameCube, NintendoDS, iPod, Alpha, SPARC, PPC, x86...
Reply
Stephen said 3:35PM on 1-10-2007
It could still be in "Intel" processor, but most likely one of the XScale processors they didn't sell to Marvell. Most all cell phones use ARM based processors, as they are the best "watt per MHz" for "embedded" devices like handhelds, phones, etc. Check out the PXA800F part from Intel, bet this is the one (or some variant thereof)
Reply
Mark D. said 3:54PM on 1-10-2007
This made me think about how they could handle the smooth graphic interface for the iPhone. I wonder if it used the cpu or if it's a dedicated accelerator like the Ati Imageon or nVidia GoForce. The Imageon has a 2mp camera processing engine that seems it'd lend itself well to the 2mp camera in the iPhone (just speculation, of course.)
Reply
Joe Stillwell said 7:29PM on 1-10-2007
I work for Intel and can confirm that the iPhone does not use an Intel processor but it does use Intel flash memory. The Apple TV does use an Intel processor.
Reply