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Why Intel Needs Smartphones More Than They Need Intel
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from ZDNet:
"The launch of the Orange San Diego, the first handset using an Intel Atom processor, marks a big milestone for the chipmaker: it's finally in the smartphone market. But does the market need Intel at all? ... Intel's scale and the reach of its other divisions gives [Mike] Bell's smartphone unit a boost; for example, it can reuse code optimizations for Atom done by the desktop team. ... Even so, the smartphone team has got a tough job on its hands — but it's one Intel has to tackle, according to Carolina Milanesi, mobile analyst at Gartner. 'This is certainly an attack strategy for Intel. The smartphone market is so large now that they need a piece of the pie,' she said. But will consumers care whether their handset runs on an Intel chip? Bell conceded that aside from the tech-savvy, most people probably don't know which chip is inside their phone. It's likely, given the lack of advertising on this, that most probably don't care — making Intel's job even harder."
There is games, though; some Android game engines are written in part in native code for the speed boost, and I can't imagine that an Intel phone will shine when forced to emulate an ARM CPU on the fly for those occasions.
And for most applications, the CPU really does not matter. They'll run nicely on anything able to host the Dalvik VM. At best, an Intel phone will be no different than a ARM one, and at worst it will just add an extra bit of frustration.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
...but do they need MyCleanPC?
Will we see a revival of the "Intel inside" campaign for phones?
... more than Earth needs humans and why Microsoft needs PCs more than PCs need Microsoft
and even *gasp* why mammals need air more than air needs mammals
Stay tuned for more insightful and thought provoking statements here on El Slashdotto!
Smartphones need Intel as much as photography needs Kodak!!
Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.
There was at least Fujitsu LOOX F-07C.
Not widely available but certainly not vaporware either.
Frankly the "XP Phone" (and I don't mean the vaporware with this name) is long overdue. But if they delay more and Android gets even more and more apps it might come way too late to do any good.
performance wise ARM is crap compared to Intel. Just like Intel was crap compared to SPARC and all the other architectures they killed off in the last 30 years
one of the most important rules of business is to protect the low end of your market. if you don't then a competitor will establish a lower margin business and move up to take your high end. Just like Intel did.
even apple knows this and has products just good enough to keep low end competitors at bay
I think the Issue with mobile phone, is the new coding standards, means less fuss about hardware level coding.
The Intel PC, had came from a long legacy where a lot of programs were programmed using a fare about of custom Assembly Coding. Mostly due to the fact that we didn't have a robust library set. So these legacy systems had passed from one generation to the next, keeping software locked on platforms. When mobile devices got popular, they put more effort into more platform independent coding. Using systems that require more on pre-made libraries, and almost no Low Level coding, allowing applications and even large parts of the OS to be ported from one Platform to the next, with very little work.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
People may not care about their phone CPU right now, because arm architecture is the only game in town. Intel have a huge long term advantage in that they have essentially eclipsed all others in terms of performance due in part to their growing lead in the process reduction race. In the long term it's not hard to imagine intel pulling far ahead of others in performance per watt, even if purely on the merit of the reduced process, and if raw performance becomes an issue, they surely are ahead in that game.
And, from the non-tech savvy pool... How many really know what processor is inside?
Larger consumer markets go for usability. If Intel is doing performance optimizations for Android, this is a win for Google, that will soon probably see Android tablets running on Intel.
So the question is, does Google need Intel?
YES. Competition is good and ARM has been able to be complacent without someone else challenging them. Medfield is a solid start for Intel, but obviously they need to improve on it and everyone will benefit by having more choices.
Asking that loaded question is like saying that we already have Windows and Mac OS so the market doesn't need Linux...
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
some Android game engines are written in part in native code for the speed boost
Are they written in assembly language or something? Because if they're written in C++ (as I suspect), game developers can just recompile the C++ parts for x86, test on a netbook running Android for x86, and deploy the x86 edition through Google Play Store.
> The smartphone market is so large now that they need a piece of the pie
Does this count for logic these days? By that same brilliant logic diaper manufacturers need a piece of the smart phone pie too!
That dubious honour goes to the Lava Xolo x900. See http://www.anandtech.com/show/5770/lava-xolo-x900-review-the-first-intel-medfield-phone . It has been available in the market for at least the last 2 months
Later Nokia switched to AMD for their 9100, then to ARM for the 9210 series. I bought a 9201i in 2002, I believe I paid t something like 1500usd..
There were also a few Japanese intel based phones, but those ran Windows XP.. Not really what I would call a smart phone. So, it might be correct to say that this is the "first Intel based smart-phone which might launch in the US".
How many really know what processor is inside?
They can take a guess based on what applications do and do not show up in a search of Google Play Store. It doesn't list applications that it deems are incompatible with the user's device, such as applications that use native code but haven't been recompiled for a particular instruction set.
Not when it comes to the CPUs Intel is putting into phones. Hint, it's not Ivy Bridge.
But Intel has made massive strides in reducing power consumption with their Atom platform, and the SoC being used in this phone is probably comparable to ARM SoCs.
One major issue in ARM's favour is the choice of SoCs - there are many many ARM SoCs to choose from, so you can choose the one best suited for each of your products. There is one Intel SoC, you're stuck with what they give you.
At last I will be able to enjoy gifts to human mankind like the A20 gateway. How wonderful. Thank you intel.
No, but, as the poster says below, competition is generally a good thing. Too much choice is a bad thing too, but, now ARM has to get it's ass in gear and improve multithreading and multicore. I don't think consumers will care one lick if it's a Medfield, Snapdragon, Tegra, OMAP or whatever.
But they'll notice a year over year increase in battery life, speed, etc. That's certainly going to mean something to the average user.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
Intel has gotten pretty good at microcode emulation lately. The Core processors are basically extremely souped-up Pentium 3s emulating chunks of the P4 instruction set. Atoms emulate nearly all of the x86 instruction set, and are more efficient watt-for-watt than the lowest powered versions of what they are emulating (mainly Core 2s)
Heck, its possible that Intel could do an ARM translator for Atom, then you could have one chip that could run Android OR Windows (or linux, or anything else you want) This is more relevant to tablets, but still.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
Holy crap batman! Does that mean that Intel has to offer a competitive advantage big enough to make their product attractive to phone manufacturers?
You've been misled. All those translation units require more power. Intel has really good performance but almost always comes middle of the road on unit of work per watt. And in the mobile space, unit of work per watt, is what its all about. Even with Atom, Intel still has a just so-so entry into the mobile space. Made worse is the fact its not compatiable with a lot of software available in the space.
Long story short, Intel doesn't have an attractive offering and certainly doesn't offer anything compelling over ARM. Whereas ARM, at least for now, does have the premium offering here.
The only reason 99% of consumers wanted intel in their desktops was because of intel's marketing. I see no reason why they can't launch a similar intel inside campaign for mobile.
Middling performance and power efficiency even at 32nm as compared to 45nm ARM A8 that's soon to be replaced by the even better A15. All the leaked Medfield benchmarks conveniently left out video decoding performance and power consumption so I take that as one of major weaknesses. ARM already own the phone and tablet markets and will be eat into Intel's desktop and server markets. ~$100 ARM HDMI/USB dongles like the http://www.alwaysinnovating.com/products/hdmidongle.htm that can transform any monitor or TV into a general purpose computer is going to kill Intel's desktop market.
Here's a thought:
The first phones with "Intel Inside" advertising do better because of the added brand recognition.
Then people get these phones and realize they run hot, have shortened battery life, or need active cooling (fans).
Intel Inside then becomes something to avoid in the phone market, weakening the brand.
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
Or does this phone look like a Galaxy S2 and an iPhone had a baby?
Disagreeing with you does not make me a troll.
Intel will have to compete without its traditional legacy compatibility advantage?
They'll hate it, but they'll probably suck it up, go do some real chip engineering, and at least catch up on the useful-cycles-per-watt front.
After all, they did basically that to the PowerPC.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
This doesn't make sense to me. Doesn't that make Intel's job easier, not harder?
If people are buying on performance-per-Watt rather than brand names (which I don't actually believe), then I'd think that would give the "outsider" (who also happens to have 22nm fabs with 14nm and 10nm coming) an advantage.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
Both the Atom - and the Fusion - would be great to use in tablets that run Windows RT w/ Metro. At least there, there should be some chance of running legacy Windows apps. But of the purpose of the Atom in Orange San Diego is to run Android, it's a waste - ARM, despite not being a great RISC processor, is a better platform.
Iphone?
I parsed it: "Intel Needs Smartphones more than Intel needs Intel", which was completely nonsensical. Took me a couple tries to parse it the intended way.