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Apple and Samsung Already Working On A9 Processor
itwbennett writes According to a report in Korean IT Times, Samsung Electronics has begun production of the A9 processor, the next generation ARM-based CPU for iPhone and iPad. Korea IT Times says Samsung has production lines capable of FinFET process production (a cutting-edge design for semiconductors that many other manufacturers, including AMD, IBM and TSMC, are adopting) in Austin, Texas and Giheung, Korea, but production is only taking place in Austin. Samsung invested $3.9 billion in that plant specifically to make chips for Apple. So now Apple can say its CPU is "Made in America."
I think the relevant points got left out... the summary missed the most interesting parts:
1G L2 - all of graphics memory now fits in the L2 cache
14nm design - someone needs to update Wikipedia; they can probably clock it faster than the op speed listed there
Quad core - this thing may be in the next MacBook Air
Memory bus - Apple's memory bus is still faster than everyone else's by a mile; pays to have the Alpha->NetScaler->PA Semi guys on the payroll
This things is probably going to beat the pants off every other ARM chip in a while. Oh yeah, forgot: they're already sampling.
Samsung's different divisions have little to do with each other. When I worked in the Flash memory business some years ago, various Samsung business units - their optical drives, their phones, were among our customers. During price negotiations, when I'd ask our rep why they don't go in-house to Samsung's flash if they want such a low price, usually the answer was that they didn't like them, and preferred us. So don't imagine that if a Samsung BU builds something that another BU can use, that they necessarily use that.
The vast majority of what's different between iOS and OSX is the UI
That and end users' inability to configure iOS's Gatekeeper.
and the OSX UI wouldn't be appropriate in any way for a phone.
How would the OS X UI be inappropriate for a phone docked to a Bluetooth keyboard and AirPlay monitor? The docked phone's touch screen would behave like a trackpad. Or how would it be inappropriate for an iPad with a clip-on keyboard and trackpad?