Not All iPhone 6s Processors Are Created Equal (itworld.com)

itwbennett writes: Apple is splitting the manufacture of the A9 processor for its iPhone 6s between TSMC (~60%) and rival Samsung (~40%) — "and they are not created equal," writes Andy Patrizio. For starters, Chipworks noted that Samsung uses 14nm while TSMC uses 16nm. A Reddit user posted tests of a pair of 6s Plus phones and found the TSMC chip had eight hours of battery life vs. six hours for the Samsung. Meanwhile, benchmark tests from the folks at MyDriver (if Mr. Patrizio's efforts with Google Translate got it right) also found that the Samsung chip is a bigger drain on the phone's battery, while the TSMC chip is slightly faster and runs a bit cooler. So how do you know which chip you got? There's an app for that.

Comments

Too little, too late

[akahige]

More to the point, how can you find out which chip the phone has before buying it?

Re:Too little, too late

[Grishnakh]

Simple: don't buy it at all. If a company is going to play shenanigans like this where products marketed with the exact same name and part number are significantly different and it's just a luck-of-the-draw ass to whether I get the good one or the crappy one, I'm just not going to buy their product at all.

Re:Too little, too late

[soft_guy]

The fact that they ship an improved version every year or so is NOT the issue here. Seriously if the new version is not a big enough improvement over the one you have, you don't need to buy it. You can keep your phone for 2 years, or 3 years, or however long you want. That is hardly "pushing it through the throats of customers". You have to have a major victim mentality to think that. I do agree though that shipping non-equivalent versions of the processor is a big deal. That's not okay.

Re:Too little, too late

[gstoddart]

I'm sorry, but who is pushing a new iPhone "through the throats of customers"??

You are completely free to not fucking buy one.

Did you know that car makers push out a new version, only slightly different, annually? Companies who make golf clubs, also push out new versions at least annually. And companies who make TVs, they also do this.

If customers buy a new expensive phone every year or two, don't blame the vendor. Free will doesn't stop just because you've bought a product.

Re:Too little, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

I concur. Mod parent up. A company that pushes a new version, only slightly different, of its flagship product through the throats of customers every 1 to 2 years does not merit customers at all.

You've got to be fucking shitting me with this statement.

From new automobiles to computers to rubber blow up dolls...damn near every company in the world pushes a new "only slightly different" version of it's product every fucking year.

And no, I'm not trying to stick up for Apple. Just trying to point out the painfully obvious.

Re:Too little, too late

[DarkOx]

I don't understand why people freak out when a tech vendor releases a new model, as if they are forced to buy it or the one they have is suddenly going to explode. I do think some large vendors are guilty of abandoning support for their legacy products a bit to quickly. Nobody gets all nuts about the fact the Chrysler/Ford/GM/Honda/VW/Mercedes/etc bring out new models every year; often with slight improvements, usually with other changes you may or might not like.

Re:Too little, too late

[UnknowingFool]

Simple: don't buy it at all. If a company is going to play shenanigans like this where products marketed with the exact same name and part number are significantly different and it's just a luck-of-the-draw ass to whether I get the good one or the crappy one, I'm just not going to buy their product at all.

Play shenanigans? That pre-supposes that somewhere at Apple, Tim Cook and company are laughing at their customers because they fell for their secret, master plan of causing Apple bad PR and headaches. Maybe in the real world, Apple, like many companies, have to source parts from multiple suppliers for practical reasons like: redundancy and demand. Certainly Apple isn't the first and the last company to run into problems when their part which should be identical has differences because of which plant made them.

Re:Too little, too late

[jellomizer]

But who is playing shenanigans Samsung or Apple.
Did Apple Spec out the correct specs to Samsung and they made a cheap knockoff, after sending a batch that seems to meet initial QA, in a very German style. Or did Apple know about/agree to giving different quality products.

Re:Too little, too late

[tripleevenfall]

A vendor making a mid-model year substitution for a better product seems like a benefit to me, not a detriment. Instead of nobody getting the improved version, at least some people do.

Re:Too little, too late

[Anubis IV]

As more data is coming to light, it's sounding like the differences are smaller than first estimated and were likely exaggerated as a result of synthetic benchmarks not accurately modeling real-world performance. Specifically, while it does sound like TSMC's chips are performing far better than Samsung's in the synthetic benchmarks (e.g. Geekbench's battery tests), MacRumors has some followup on the topic, indicating that in the real world tests that are ongoing, the results so far appear to be much closer between the two models.

It sounds like the synthetic benchmarks may be slamming a part of the processor that TSMC has optimized better than Samsung, but that in real-world performance, that part is used far less frequently than in the synthetic benchmark, meaning that the results from the synthetic benchmark may not accurately model real-world performance.

Re:Too little, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

vikingpower drinks the kool-aide deep. Somehow Apple releasing improved products every year or so is crazy but Samsung have an even more aggressive release schedule and what? Crickets...
 
Fandroids are just as much a bunch of marketing shills as the iSheep but they're either too stupid to see it or they have some kind of psychological hang up that forces them to keep eating it up.

Re:Too little, too late

[UnknowingFool]

Did Apple Spec out the correct specs to Samsung and they made a cheap knockoff, after sending a batch that seems to meet initial QA, in a very German style. Or did Apple know about/agree to giving different quality products.

There are both done on slightly different processes and it seems there is a difference that should not be there. It may be that somewhere in the Samsung process (masking, lithography, etc), a difference is significant enough to cause this battery issue. Or that something about Apple's design (or chip design in general) is affected by the step down to 14nm that isn't noticeable in 16nm. Remember that chip features are starting approaching the limits where problems occur that require design changes like multi-gate which did not occur at larger feature sizes.

Re:Too little, too late

[thoromyr]

a shame I ran out of mod points. This makes rather more sense than the alarmist story...

Re:Too little, too late

[Merk42]

That's an issue with the software updating at a rapid pace, not the hardware

Re:Too little, too late

[Grishnakh]

If sourcing substantially different parts from different vendors is necessary to meet production volume, then they need to have different part names and model names for these products. This isn't a case of having resistors or capacitors from different manufacturers, something that won't affect performance in any measurable way, this is a case of having two completely different CPUs, with very different performance from the two. 6h vs. 8h in a power-consumption test is a huge, huge difference. Intel sells CPUs all the time which are very similar, but have performance that differs to that extent: they use completely different part numbers to describe these parts.

Re: Too little, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

I wrote an several apps under iPhone OS 2.0 ... They still run under iOS 9.x ... On the latest iPhones. The original binaries. They are rather simple games, but adhered to the Apple guidelines. So stability is possible.

Re:Too little, too late

[UnknowingFool]

If sourcing substantially different parts from different vendors is necessary to meet production volume, then they need to have different part names and model names for these products.

Let's start with the first thing: These parts are not supposed to be substantially different. They are the same design but at a smaller feature size. The fact that they are is a problem and Apple will have to get with Samsung and TSMC to figure what is the issue. Second, different sources parts are known internally but not externally. After all, does Intel rename a Broadwell Core i7 differently when it comes from Oregon or Arizona or Ireland? No. There is a part number that tells where the chip was made and you as a customer don't know where it came from when you order it from Newegg or Micron or wherever.

This isn't a case of having resistors or capacitors from different manufacturers, something that won't affect performance in any measurable way, this is a case of having two completely different CPUs, with very different performance from the two.

How is an dual core A9 from Apple a "completely different CPU" than an dual core A9 from Apple. They are the exact same design by Apple. If you feel that makes them "completely different", did you lecture Microsoft when they switched Xbox processors? From what I remember IBM Xenon processor was shrink reduced from 90nm to 65nm to 45nm. These are all "different" CPUs to you?

6h vs. 8h in a power-consumption test is a huge, huge difference.

And if it's true, Apple will have to look into why.

Intel sells CPUs all the time which are very similar, but have performance that differs to that extent: they use completely different part numbers to describe these parts.

The problem with this comparison is that a Core i7 is not the same as a Core i5 with actual differences like L3 cache size, TDP, clock speed, etc. and these come from different designs.

Re:Too little, too late

[sg_oneill]

Apple has been generally pretty good with that. Older iPhones will still run newer software, although in some cases its debatable if its actually a good idea to do so, if the software is written under the assumption of a more performant processor. At least with the laptops, my Macbook 2011 is running the latest and greatest OSX at a cracking pace, and my GFs iphone 5 is fully updated and running well.

Re: Too little, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

My iPhone 4S runs iOS 9. It runs all the apps I use, some I don't update, most I do. Some haven't seen updates in several years. Notably the ones that break use the mercurial Facebook integration, or drive close to the edge of gaming performance, or just social apps in general, because the external APIs change. Others break because they took advantage of security flaws that were fixed or policy changes combined with software, like the wonderful UDID tool by Erica Sadun. So, the lifetime of iOS apps beats, IMO, any other platform ... Not a fanboy, I have to work cross platform, Windows phone, Android, iOS, even Palm before that.

Re:Too little, too late

[AmiMoJo]

They have a history of doing this too, because like like to have two suppliers competing. Most of the time no-one cares, but for example a few years back they had all those dodgy "retina" LCDs on their laptops. There were two suppliers, LG and Sharp, and all the LG ones were prone to ghosting while the Sharp ones were fine.

The only thing customers could do is keep taking the laptops back when ghosting appeared and hoping that the replacement had a Sharp LCD. I think that's what upset people, the way it was handled. On the other hand I can appreciate that Apple probably didn't want to replace millions of LCD panels if they could avoid it.

This is pretty shitty though, because the lesser of the two CPUs isn't defective and thus the customer can't swap the phone for a better one. They just have to live with reduced battery life and performance on their very expensive new shiny. It will be interesting to see what Apple do. For example, if they ban apps that detect which CPU you have then people will endlessly speculate about why their battery life is crap and keep worrying about it, but if they don't people will demand exchanges. Could affect resale price too.

Re:Too little, too late

[GNious]

I'm sorry, but who is pushing a new iPhone "through the throats of customers"??

You are completely free to not fucking buy one.

You obviously have no clue how society works - if you're using a previous-gen iPhone, you're not cool enough, and you should go jump of a bridge.

Re:Too little, too late

[alvinrod]

How this blew up into such a shitstorm from a single test involving just two devices is beyond me. It's a bit like taking a single person at random from Country A and a single person at random from Country B and then declaring the winner of a single race as proof positive that the entire country is better at running. I realize it's Apple and that means even minor things are fucking magical and revolutionary or complete catastrophes, but this is a new low.

Even if the processors were all from the same company, we would still expect to see variation in performance due to how CPUs are made. Anyone who's done any overclocking knows that there's going to be a noticeable performance difference between CPUs with the same exact model number, simply because of the binning process used by the manufacturers like Intel, TSMC, etc. Maybe the CPU you got barely qualified for a particular bin and you can't get a lot of additional performance out of it or perhaps you're on the other end where the chip you got was barely not good enough for the next bin and you can get a reasonable amount of extra performance out of it.

You'd want to sample dozens of different devices in a controlled setting to get the complete picture and to see how the distributions overlap. It could be that on average TSMC does get a slight advantage over a Samsung chip, but that in this one particular test, we got a Samsung SoC that is poorer than average for a Samsung manufactured chip and a TSMC chip that is better than average for a TSMC manufactured chip.

Re:Too little, too late

[AmiMoJo]

Yep, it's most likely a problem with the design. Shrinking from 16nm to 14nm isn't simply a case of scaling your design files by 87.5%, you have to make separate ones. You can carry over most of the high level design and layout, but the computer has to re-synthesise the detailed transistor structure, you might have to use different cache memory, different power and voltage management devices etc. 14nm is a different process, it's not just a slightly better focus on a lens or something.

So the two were never going to be exactly the same, and chances are it's just that the 16nm design is a bit better optimized. Could be that it makes better use of the materials used, could be that the computer did a better job on synthesis, could be a number of things. I really doubt that Samsung sabotaged it though.

Re:Too little, too late

[AmiMoJo]

The MacRumors tests are less realistic than the Geekbench tests. MacRumors ran videos, which are mostly decided by the GPU and fetched by the WiFi or cellular modems. The CPU does very little when playing YouTube videos.

The Geekbench tests are a mix of different real world activities, like browsing, games and app use. Unless all you do is watch YouTube on a tiny screen for hours on end Geekbench is the more realistic test.

Re:Too little, too late

[DerekLyons]

But who is playing shenanigans Samsung or Apple.
Did Apple Spec out the correct specs to Samsung and they made a cheap knockoff, after sending a batch that seems to meet initial QA, in a very German style. Or did Apple know about/agree to giving different quality products.

There's a third possibility that should not be discounted out of hand - Samsung meets the specification, while TSMC exceeds it. Without access to internal information, it's hard to tell what's going on behind the curtain and all too easy to leap on the 'obvious' conspiracy.

Of course, the various mega corps routinely indulge in behavior that makes conspiracy theories not all that far fetched...

Re:Too little, too late

[Anubis IV]

MacRumors didn't do any testing at all. They're just compiling lists of tests that others are doing, in an effort to get a sense for whether or not there actually are large differences. And the A9 chips being provided by Samsung and TSMC are SoCs, not just CPUs, so it makes perfect sense that they'd be running benchmarks that include video processing and other non-CPU-bound tasks, given that the A9 is responsible for those as well.

Moreover, given the variance in performance that can occur within chips from even a single manufacturer, it's no surprise that there will be variation between the two models. If there weren't, it would be a news story. As such, the important questions to ask are:
1) Is the difference between the two broadly reproducible (i.e. is Samsung consistently behind), or is it this just an anecdotal case involving a single low-performing Samsung chip being compared to a single high-performing TSMC chip?

2) Given the variation, do either of them fall below the specs provided by Apple?

We don't have enough data yet to answer #1, but, again, as more data is coming to light, it's sounding like things are not so lopsided as the initial reports indicated. TSMC may have a slight edge, but it's not anywhere in the ballpark of what was being reported earlier. As for #2, by all indications, the answer is "no, neither of them fall below Apple specs". Which is to say, some people may win out on the luck of the draw and get a phone with a chip that performs better...which was already the case anyway, since chips are never perfectly identical in their performance. All a manufacturer will do is guarantee that the performance falls within a certain range, so some will always perform better than others, even when built using the same process from the same manufacturer.

Re:Too little, too late

[UnknowingFool]

That would allow customers to make an informed decision on which product to buy, the 6sm or the 6ss.

Does Intel let you know which of their plants made the Core i7 you get from Newegg?

If they are marking these products with the same part number at least they should call it the "6?", as in what will you get?

They're not the same part number; the model number A9 is the same. The internal part numbers were APL0898 and APL1022.

Re:Too little, too late

[Sponge Bath]

Does Intel let you know which of their plants made the Core i7 you get from Newegg?

Intel labels parts made on different processes with different part numbers. That allows you to choose which processor you want.

They're not the same part number; the model number A9 is the same. The internal part numbers were APL0898 and APL1022.

It's clear from my post I'm talking about the phone part number that the customer uses to order, not the internal Apple part number for the two different processors made on two different processes from two different companies with different performance.

Re:Too little, too late

[UnknowingFool]

Intel labels parts made on different processes with different part numbers. That allows you to choose which processor you want.

Really? Which plant made this processor? Can you tell me? At best you can tell it's a 14nm process but you don't know which 14nm plant made it from the information provided. You have to look at the chip when you get it, but you've already bought it at that point.

It's clear from my post I'm talking about the phone part number that the customer uses to order, not the internal Apple part number for the two different processors made on two different processes from two different companies with different performance.

I would guarantee you that every smartphone model including the iPhone has parts from multiple sources. For example the exact same model might have RAM from Samsung in one phone and RAM from Hynix in another. They shouldn't be different in terms of performance or function but if they are, the manufacturer has to trace down why. The point I'm trying to make is that there shouldn't be a difference in performance.

Re:Too little, too late

[Aaden42]

This isn’t a mid-model-year thing. They’re actively shipping both versions right now. Luck of the draw if you get the better or worse CPU, same price either way. That’s not the same as bought later, got a little better for no extra money.

Re:Too little, too late

[Aaden42]

Apple doesn’t “send down” any updates. You’re free to take or leave any OS update you like. They’re remind you a bit, but nobody is forced to upgrade the OS they have on their phone right now.

And do you *seriously* think Apple releases updates to “actively try to fuck up older but functioning hardware”? Paranoid much? Yes, some updates have made older hardware work less well. Other updates have improved long standing issues on older hardware. That’s the nature of software development. It’s not a good thing, but it’s a far distance between “didn’t test it as much on three-year-old hardware” and “let’s intentionally add this bug to make the old phone flake out.”

Re:Too little, too late

[BronsCon]

Except that there is no equivalency between two otherwise-identical mobile devices, one of which runs for 25hr on a charge and the other for 20hr (for example) due do a change in components.

Re:Too little, too late

[Sponge Bath]

Really? Which plant made this processor? Can you tell me? At best you can tell it's a 14nm process but you don't know which 14nm plant made it from the information provided. You have to look at the chip when you get it, but you've already bought it at that point.

You are very purposefully ignoring what I wrote to rage against something I did not. Intel processors made on different processes have a different part number the customer can see when ordering. Heck, they even have different part numbers for the same processor on the same process that have been binned differently. But if you want to keep talking about a the same processor made on the same process from the same company, go ahead an knock yourself out. It has nothing to do with anything I wrote.

I would guarantee you that every smartphone model including the iPhone has parts from multiple sources. For example the exact same model might have RAM from Samsung in one phone and RAM from Hynix in another. They shouldn't be different in terms of performance or function but if they are, the manufacturer has to trace down why. The point I'm trying to make is that there shouldn't be a difference in performance.

I agree there should not be a difference in performance, but there is. Whether that performance difference is a problem or not should be left to the customer.

Re:Too little, too late

[Karlt1]

This isn't a case of having resistors or capacitors from different manufacturers, something that won't affect performance in any measurable way, this is a case of having two completely different CPUs, with very different performance from the two. 6h vs. 8h in a power-consumption test is a huge, huge difference.

If Apple advertises the iPhone based on the worse case and you just happen to get one with slightly better specs, how is Apple being dishonest?

Re:Too little, too late

[Moof123]

For every phone design they run a competition among vendors for key parts that need to be custom for their plan. As their success has increased it has become clear that this model has issues. Reserving half your fab capacity for Apple in case of a design win is VERY expensive, and losing has crippled a couple of their suppliers. Similarly winning comes with the need to do a MASSIVE product ramp. As a result they have had to come up with new internal tactics to keep key suppliers from going under if they miss out on a product cycle, and to balance load if one vendor wins too many slots for their fab capacity.

It sounds like for whatever reason (necessity, or luck) they ended up with 2 viable suppliers for the CPU. Odds are that if they ONLY went with TSMC that the ramp would be much slower than demand and people would be ticked off. Instead they split the orders and announced product specs that both CPUs could meet. Some people got lucky and will get battery life better than expected, but there is nothing nefarious about this, just the realities of having to make tens of millions of something over a very narrow production window.

Whine too much and they may add software to burn extra power to dumb down the more efficient CPU's in the future.

Re: Too little, too late

[cfalcon]

He could be using any of the many apps that insist on running under ios8 or ios9, for instance. I've had games refuse to run under older versions of OSes for sure, I can't imagine its just limited to that. To be clear, the case I'm discussing is:
> You buy app X under version A.
> The OS updates to version B.
> After a bit, you find you can't do anything with app X, because it no longer accepts logins from devices with version A
> You must upgrade to version B to keep using X.

Re: Too little, too late

[Threni]

The Distance Selling Act in the EU fixes that. Get a bad one, just return it immediately for a full refund. If they ask why you don't have to answer but you could always say "you tried to palm me off with a shit one".

Re:Too little, too late

[Solandri]

It's a huge problem in the used market. Or as in this case when both versions are being sold new simultaneously (another example is when the same laptop ships with screens from two different manufacturers with one screen being visibly superior). I mean the whole rationale for Apple's simplified product line is that you only have to consider 2 or 3 models and pick the one you want. That gets thrown out the window if there are significant differences within a model.

I don't really blame Apple in this case, since theoretically the two products should perform nearly identically, and they must've run tests to confirm that prior to receiving batch shipments. I do blame them on their laptops, where it's extremely difficult to tell a 2013 Macbook apart from a 2014 Macbook (you have to enter the serial number into a website). Most of the theory around free markets is predicated on the assumption that the buyers are informed. Withholding information from customers in the name of "simplicity" is a good way to break the market.

Re:Too little, too late

[KingMotley]

Actually car makers often makes changes multiple times throughout the year as well.

Re:Too little, too late

[the_B0fh]

wow. these types of comments on a tech site that celebrates new products.

Just because you have a personal issue with the company.

Re:Too little, too late

[the_B0fh]

The only fucking reason AMD exists is because IBM mandated vendor plurality when they were creating the first IBM PC.

Re:Too little, too late

[cfalcon]

How is this really on topic? If you're in the market for a 6s, you might be:

> A compulsive Apple consumer who buys every edition on launch
> A head of family who replaces whichever the oldest phone is out of himself, his wife, and his kids, every year.
> Someone who buys phones only when his old one breaks, and his iphone 3 just broke.
> Someone who buys phones every three years, and his last model was bought in 2012.

The first category might puzzle you, but the others shouldn't, and all would be interested in knowing which processor is in their new or potentially new 6s- at least, if it has real world ramifications such as battery life as a variable.

Re: Too little, too late

[Anubis IV]

By all indications, the Samsung chip isn't performing under expectations. Based on the anecdotal evidence, the TSMC chip is better than advertised, while the Samsung chip is as advertised. Given that situation, it'd be hard to argue that anyone is getting gypped.

Some people may be getting more than they expected, but, as anyone who's done any overclocking can tell you, that's always been the case when it comes to CPUs, given that any individual chip's performance is only guaranteed to fall within a certain range. Some chips will be at the bottom of that range while others will be at the top. Introducing a second manufacturer to the mix merely adds more variation, but so long as they all meet the advertised claims made by Apple, everything will be above board. Consumers will be getting what they paid for. If some aren't happy with that, that's fine, but it doesn't mean that they got a lemon. It just means that they didn't get more than they paid for.

Re:Too little, too late

[cfalcon]

Is it intentional? I mean, it keeps happening that older phones are messed up with newer upgrades. If it's been happening for years, the difference between testing your new version less on older hardware and actually being mustache twirling villains planning to force an upgrade is not really relevant. It certainly happens, and it doesn't get fixed, and you can't use an older version.

Plus, many apps will stop working with newer versions, meaning that the stuff your phone does now it won't be able to do in four years- unless you upgrade the OS. Since the OS upgrade is a giant risk, there you go.

My experience with Apple products has been- when the product is new, an OS upgrade is safe and fun and gives you more stuff. Once it is over about two years old, it's suddenly risky to press upgrade- you will assuredly lose *something*, most often battery life. Ios 8 shredded my battery life under ios6. It was absolutely immediate and unmistakable. They did get around to (mostly) repairing that after a bit, but the phone went from lasting a work day to not at all doing that, and that was a pretty bad situation.

Re:Too little, too late

[Khyber]

"Really? Which plant made this processor? [newegg.com] Can you tell me?"

Intel Vietnam made that one.

Learn how to read part numbers.

Re:Too little, too late

[UnknowingFool]

You are very purposefully ignoring what I wrote to rage against something I did not. Intel processors made on different processes have a different part number the customer can see when ordering.

And you fail to understand the whole point of using multiple suppliers. The parts ARE NOT supposed to be different in terms of function. They are made by different people/processes.

Heck, they even have different part numbers for the same processor on the same process that have been binned differently.

As does Apple.

But if you want to keep talking about a the same processor made on the same process from the same company, go ahead an knock yourself out. It has nothing to do with anything I wrote.

No I am asking you why you feel Apple should do something that you don't expect of anyone else that uses multiple suppliers. Did you know that RAM is made all over the world? Two stick of memory from the same manufacturer with the same part number might have different chips? Shocker!

I agree there should not be a difference in performance, but there is. Whether that performance difference is a problem or not should be left to the customer.

If Apple didn't intend there to be a difference, it should be up to Apple to let the customer know which products have a difference they didn't know about? Do I understand that correctly? If there's a difference; it's a defect that Apple will have to fix. Period. Letting the customer know which phones to avoid before they knew which phones are a problem requires pre-cognition don't you think?

Re: Too little, too late

[Red_Chaos1]

To add to this, it's not unlike what was going on when the first Athlons came out. AMD was having a rough time meeting demand for lower speed chips so they started re-badging higher speed chips as the lower. I lucked out and it turned out my 750MHz CPU was actually a 900MHz CPU clocked at 750MHz. Other buyers of proper 750's would have no valid complaint, they got what they paid for.

Re:Too little, too late

[UnknowingFool]

Intel Vietnam made that one. Learn how to read part numbers.

Source?

Re:Too little, too late

[UnknowingFool]

And you know for sure that Apple tests their phones in exactly the same way that someone on Reddit did and just ignored the results?

Re:Too little, too late

[xombo]

Changing an Xbox chip to a lower sized process doesn't negatively impact things like battery life, which is an advertised spec on the iPhone. Even still, Xbox changes the model number when making hardware revisions, where as this iPhone and the similar issue with MacBook Airs a few years ago were not detectable by the hardware revision.

Re:Too little, too late

[xombo]

If it's anything like the iPhone I bought 2 years ago, it's 6-8 hours of being in Airplane mode while in standby in your pocket.

Re:Too little, too late

[thegarbz]

Yeah I don't see the complaints. The used market will be determined primarily on the condition of the device and the age of it. No one is going to offer you many dollars less in 2 years for your device because it has a Samsung chip in it. The vast majority of the people don't even know and many of those that do don't even care. It's not like one is a collectors item.

Same thing with the new ones. The only problem you run into is if you don't meet the minimum specs. Getting something extra is a pot luck bonus, and in many cases this has been the way of the PC for a good 15 years, some chips overclock better than others, some are more stable when pushed beyond their normal limits, but the key part is ensuring every chip meets the advertised baseline.

As long as Apple didn't do all the benchmarks on the superior one and then give you the less superior one I don't see a problem.

Re:Too little, too late

[UnknowingFool]

Changing an Xbox chip to a lower sized process doesn't negatively impact things like battery life, which is an advertised spec on the iPhone.

Your assumption is that Apple intended the two processors to behave differently. They didn't. As for changing the Xbox chip, shrinking the die size may have other impacts like increased heat/power which then they have to account for in the design of the Xbox. That increased heat/power may require additional fans. That affects the power performance of the console. While many people probably don't care about power in a game console, it is a change.

Even still, Xbox changes the model number when making hardware revisions, where as this iPhone and the similar issue with MacBook Airs a few years ago were not detectable by the hardware revision.

It may be detectable in the Apple iPhone 6s serial number. I don't know as I can't decipher them.

Re:Too little, too late

[thegarbz]

Suckers. That's why I use a Windows Phone. That way no one judges me for having a 1 year old device.

Re:Too little, too late

[Austerity Empowers]

It's actually pretty common amongst system vendors to sell you two systems with identical model numbers and brand names, but that have different components popped. They will advertise the spec that is the union of the boards they sell you, so you can't argue that you were delivered something below expectations.

This is all a supply chain/vendor management thing, all qualified vendors are given a percentage of the market, not necessarily equal (i.e. those that deliver the lowest cost, typically get the larger share). It's not entirely a bad practice there are a number of good reasons that this happens that benefit customers and vendors alike. But there's always the chance that one implementation or another works better/faster/has a hidden feature, etc. Most of the time you never notice...one companies sensor chip may intentionally be designed to work and act like another's, and do you care if you have a panisonic 0402 1K 1% resistor or someone elses 0402 1k 1% resistor? Usually not . It does tend to become more visible on certain parts like LAN chips, audio chips, in the old days video chips, when the functionality is the selling feature, not the brand/model..

Re:Too little, too late

[bondsbw]

I guess it's only a legal issue if they make claims based on anything but the lowest common denominator. If they advertise 6 hours of battery and some people are lucky and get 8, then it's ok... unfortunately the customer still feels shafted if his friend's identical model performs better.

Of course, this is Apple we're talking about. They provide little in terms of product specs, and I think they do it just so they can be flexible in this way.

Re:Too little, too late

[khellendros1984]

And you fail to understand the whole point of using multiple suppliers. The parts ARE NOT supposed to be different in terms of function. They are made by different people/processes.

Well, they are. They vary in a metric that's very important in a mobile device. I'll just wait here while Apple fixes the problems with the inferior version of the CPU that they accidentally released in their hardware, shall I? If Apple sent a design to multiple manufacturers, I'd expect those manufacturers to produce identical parts. As you note, that's the whole point of using multiple suppliers. As everyone else has been trying to point out: these parts aren't identical. Either Apple sent out 2 designs, for the different lithography scales, or one of the suppliers modified Apple's design. Either way, Apple has to know about the difference from internal testing, and implicitly agreed that knowingly releasing two differently-performing pieces of hardware under the same model number was acceptable.

Re:Too little, too late

[Wdomburg]

A different die size and a different process node is not a trivial difference, as evidenced by differences in battery life and performance.

Re:Too little, too late

[khellendros1984]

And you know for sure that Apple tests their phones in exactly the same way that someone on Reddit did and just ignored the results?

I know for sure that you don't take a vendor's performance claims as truth until you verify for yourself. Measurements of power consumption and processing speed for the parts from each vendor are the bare minimum of what I'd expect, since Apple has to know what kinds of marketing claims it can make. To do anything else would be negligent. What it seems that Apple has done is to base is marketing claims on the lesser of the two CPU models. Anyone that receives the TSMC CPU by chance just got lucky, since they'll get a phone that performs significantly above Apple's advertised specs.

Re: Too little, too late

[macs4all]

cool until the updates make the old versions unusable ( typing on ipad 2 whose browsers are all crashy messes since the iOS9 update)

Have you filed any bug reports with Apple, or just bitched online?

BTW, that Page took all of 1 second of Googling to find.

Re:Too little, too late

[macs4all]

I do think some large vendors are guilty of abandoning support for their legacy products a bit to quickly.

But that would not be Apple.

Heck, they introduced an Upgrade for the First Generation iPad in May, 2014, FFS!!!

And pretty much every single Mac that can run OS X 10.6.8 Snow Leopard can run 10.11.x El Capitan, which just came out a few days ago. There are Application compatibility issues as with the "x.0" version of any OS; but that is separate from "Unsupported systems", where the OS will simply not install.

Re:Too little, too late

[UnknowingFool]

I know for sure that you don't take a vendor's performance claims as truth until you verify for yourself.

That wasn't the point. The AC contended that Apple knew that there was a performance problem. That requires that they did the test the Reddit user did and found the discrepancy but ignored it. I contend that there is no proof that they did that test or that the test is somehow standard for Apple to do.

Measurements of power consumption and processing speed for the parts from each vendor are the bare minimum of what I'd expect, since Apple has to know what kinds of marketing claims it can make. To do anything else would be negligent.

But what are the parameters of this "bare minimum"? Apple might have done their battery of tests that didn't uncover the problem. Or that the production Samsung A9s are different from the prototype Samsung A9s. It is possible that a manufacturing change caused the problem. We don't know.

What it seems that Apple has done is to base is marketing claims on the lesser of the two CPU models. Anyone that receives the TSMC CPU by chance just got lucky, since they'll get a phone that performs significantly above Apple's advertised specs.

That is supposition. First, I haven't performed the test as I don't have iPhone 6s with two different processors to confirm it. Second, I don't know (and you don't know) how Apple tested their A9s.

Re:Too little, too late

[macs4all]

Apple doesn’t “send down” any updates. You’re free to take or leave any OS update you like. They’re remind you a bit, but nobody is forced to upgrade the OS they have on their phone right now.

And do you *seriously* think Apple releases updates to “actively try to fuck up older but functioning hardware”? Paranoid much? Yes, some updates have made older hardware work less well. Other updates have improved long standing issues on older hardware. That’s the nature of software development. It’s not a good thing, but it’s a far distance between “didn’t test it as much on three-year-old hardware” and “let’s intentionally add this bug to make the old phone flake out.”

Take a look at the history of Apple-Hater Posts on Slashdot. They are almost universally from Anonymous Cowards.

Doesn't that tell you something about the veracity of the Complainants?

I stick my Karma on the line with Every. Single. Post. Why don't the Apple-Haters?

And don't EVEN begin to tell me that it's because they fear for their Karma from malicious downmodding from the "hordes of Apple Fanbois" on Slashdot! That dog don't hunt!!!

Re:Too little, too late

[macs4all]

They did get around to (mostly) repairing that after a bit

Yeah, about 3 or 4 weeks.

How long do you think you would have waited on Android?

Re:Too little, too late

[UnknowingFool]

If Apple sent a design to multiple manufacturers, I'd expect those manufacturers to produce identical parts.

Apple would expect that too. But in this case it didn't do so for a test that Apple may not have used.

As you note, that's the whole point of using multiple suppliers. As everyone else has been trying to point out: these parts aren't identical.

I said they appear not to function the same but they might appear to be identical except for size.

Either Apple sent out 2 designs, for the different lithography scales, or one of the suppliers modified Apple's design.

From what I can tell by the Chipworks assessment, they appear the same with one being smaller. But then again I didn't look at the billions of transistors to determine if there are minor differences.

Either way, Apple has to know about the difference from internal testing, and implicitly agreed that knowingly releasing two differently-performing pieces of hardware under the same model number was acceptable.

They perform differently according to a Reddit user using a test Apple may not have used. How do you know that Apple should have known?

Re:Too little, too late

[UnknowingFool]

A different die size and a different process node is not a trivial difference, as evidenced by differences in battery life and performance.

Apple (or any other manufacturer) isn't expecting a huge difference between 14nm and 16nm. 20nm and 16nm maybe sorta. 28nm and 14nm definitely.

Re:Too little, too late

[imgod2u]

But not certified to run at those clock speeds at a certain power consumption level. They have an SDP, but that's a maximum, not average, power consumption. Nobody's actually bothered to look into variations between bins of the same device because it's always been the same model number. But there can be very drastic differences even within the same chip model of how much the SoC consumes at a given performance level.

That's the nature of the semiconductor beast.

Re:Too little, too late

[LinuxIsGarbage]

Did you know that car makers push out a new version, only slightly different, annually? Companies who make golf clubs, also push out new versions at least annually. And companies who make TVs, they also do this.

For most models, the car is essentially identical for about 5 years before the platform is completely re-engineered. Usually it's just minor aesthetics, or features, and bug patches in the interim. And the car is usually fully supported for at least 10 years.

On the golf clubs, as a non-golfer (only golfed 4 times in my life) I find this hilarious. The 2015 models will be outrageously expensive compared to the 2014 models. As if golf club technology actually changed that much in a year, especially for someone non-pro. It's not even like a car where it will deteriorate just sitting there. And usually the golfers will go on about how great the weight of the club is, talk about non-nonsensical technique tips, and basically be not much better than I am with the crappy 20 year old rental clubs at the course.

On TV's, they are so generic I'm surprised they put any effort into minor model revisions.

Re:Too little, too late

[macs4all]

They have a history of doing this too, because like like to have two suppliers competing.

Spoken like someone who has absolutely no idea about "sourcing" or "logistics".

As someone who has been involved in many of my own product launches, I can tell you with absolute certainty that the one thing a "buyer" (parts-procurement-person) wants is to be handed a Bill of Materials from R&D that has "Single-Source" components on it. In fact, many (most) companies that are OEMs for hardware products insist that either the R&D department or the "Product Engineering" department (which is sort of a liason between R&D, Manufacturing and Procurement, and is usually responsible for getting new products into production) "source" components from at least two sources whenever possible.

In the embedded design world that I am experienced in, that usually doesn't include the MCU/CPU, Display, sometimes certain Connectors, and some Mechanical parts. But in the case of an OEM the size of Apple, those "rules of thumb" don't apply nearly so much.

So, in a simplified scenario (leaving out things like "qualification" testing, price considerations, etc.), when fab "T" says "Thank you very much for the consideration, but there is no way we can meet this release schedule in these quantities, but we can guarantee this amount.", a company the size of Apple doesn't just automatically say "Ok, well, you're out", and go to fab "S". No, they go over to fab "S", and say "Can you meet (additional requirement) release schedule?" And when they say "Yes", then they split the difference between the two suppliers, which not only gives them the overall production releases they need, but also makes the Buyers at the OEM happy; because now a single-source component is no longer single-source!

Nothing nefarious here. It happens in every single manufacturer of pretty much every single thing, everywhere; from Apple to Xerox, Audi to Volvo, etc, etc.

Re:Too little, too late

[macs4all]

This isn’t a mid-model-year thing. They’re actively shipping both versions right now. Luck of the draw if you get the better or worse CPU, same price either way. That’s not the same as bought later, got a little better for no extra money.

Or, here's a thought:

Instead of buying online, GO TO THE APPLE STORE, like, in MeatSpace, and buy your phone. When they bring it out, ask to see the Product Number, and REJECT IT if it isn't the one with A TSMC SoC in it.

Simple. At least Apple has denoted the two different "models" in a way that a human can tell which is which without having to load an App.

Re:Too little, too late

[macs4all]

I'm sorry, but who is pushing a new iPhone "through the throats of customers"??

You are completely free to not fucking buy one.

You obviously have no clue how society works - if you're using a previous-gen iPhone, you're not cool enough, and you should go jump of a bridge.

You first.

Re:Too little, too late

[macs4all]

If sourcing substantially different parts from different vendors is necessary to meet production volume, then they need to have different part names and model names for these products. This isn't a case of having resistors or capacitors from different manufacturers, something that won't affect performance in any measurable way, this is a case of having two completely different CPUs, with very different performance from the two. 6h vs. 8h in a power-consumption test is a huge, huge difference. Intel sells CPUs all the time which are very similar, but have performance that differs to that extent: they use completely different part numbers to describe these parts.

You have ABSOLUTELY no idea how manufacturing works, period.

And if someone is only getting 6 or 8 hours on a modern iPhone, they are running it full-tilt CONTINUOUSLY for that time; which is exacerbating the (for example) 3.663 W vs. 3.664 W of power consumption between the two chips. In most use-cases, I would bet that most Users, with the exception of highly-addicted Gamers, hardly experience a difference in real world use.

That is NOT to say that Samsung doesn't have some esplainin' to do; but I would bet that this is mostly a difference between the dielectric thickness in Samsung's 14 nm Process, vs. TSMC's 16 nm Process.

Hopefully, Samsung will figure it out.

Oh, and as another Poster pointed out, Apple did give the two "variants" different Model Numbers. You just have to be a bit vigilant if you want a particular one.

For another prime example: How many "variants" does the average consumer WiFi Router have, under the exact same Model Number on the box, case-graphics, owner's manual, etc? Those people seem to routinely spawn different hardware variants every few months with absolutely no visible change, other than maybe a "Rev Number" on the bottom of the unit. And oh, BTW, those "variants" often have VERY different performance characteristics. Don't believe me? Try cruising the Reviews on smallnetbuilder.com. So, give us all a break, willya?

Re:Too little, too late

[macs4all]

I guess it true that Apple users have small penises (ii?), if you can mouth all that while sucking up so hard.

Intel calls an i5@2600Mhz different than the i5@3400Mhz. If you buy the slow one you get it cheaper. End user overclocking is unrelated so don't even try to bring that up.

For a car analogy, this is DIRECTLY comparable to the difference between ordering a v8 and getting a v6 - but the v6 is the one that burns more gas!

To use your car analogy, I guarantee that if you tested 100 different copies of exactly the same year and model car on a dynanometer, equipped the same, with the same engine and transmission options, you would get exactly 100 different horsepower/kW output numbers. And the "spread" might really surprise you.

Sometimes, these differences from different suppliers become part of the fan-folklore surrounding a particular component or product. The best example I can come up with offhand is the venerable Ford 351 V8 Engine of yore. There were 351's that were made in Cleveland, OH, and there were 351's that were made in Windsor, Ontario.

They were NOT the same. Not even close. In fact, IIRC, they were even designed slightly differently.

But if you went to the Ford Dealer back in the day and bought yourself an F-150 pickup truck, LTD or Galaxy 500 with that engine (the Pickup might have had a 360 in it, though, I'm not an expert), I'm pretty sure it was the luck of the draw which version of "351" you got, and I am sure that you, as an average consumer, could not specify, nor tell which one was which, without examining the Engine Identification Number on the Block (or maybe the Engine itself if you were an expert), or the VIN.

But if you cruise the old-timey Ford forums, you will find no end to the posts regarding which "351" (C or W) is the one to have...

Re:Too little, too late

[macs4all]

Changing an Xbox chip to a lower sized process doesn't negatively impact things like battery life,

Maybe because the XBox would run about 5 minutes on a fucking CAR BATTERY...

Re:Too little, too late

[Aaden42]

From TFA:

There’s no way to tell by looking at the packaging if the phone you’re buying has a Samsung or a TSMC processor

Different model #'s detectable in software, but not listed on the package.

Re:Too little, too late

[macs4all]

6h vs. 8h in a power-consumption test is a huge, huge difference

Initially I was in full agreement, then I realized we were talking about 6h vs 8h, not 16h vs 18h, or 6 days vs 8 days, but far too short a battery life vs far too short a battery life.

EIGHT HOURS? Seriously? That's ridiculous. That's not even enough time to go to the office and return after eight hours of productive work without plugging it into a charger.

They were trying to use the iPhone as a Toaster-Oven, FFS!

I guarantee this was with everything in the kitchen sink at full power, continuous WiFi, BlueTooth, Screen at fulll Brightness with NO sleeping WHATSOEVER.

In fact, I would be willing to bet that the average non-terminally-addicted-gamer would barely even notice the difference between the TSMC and Samsung variants in average use, because batteries "recover" quite a bit when the phone is sleeping.

This is not to say that Samsung doesn't need to address why they can't do as good a fabbing-job as dinky-little (by comparison) TSMC; but as the owner of an iPhone 6 Plus, who gets an average of 3 to 4 DAYS of moderate use, I can tell you that those numbers most certainly DON'T represent what most Users of the 6s will experience in real-world use.

Re:Too little, too late

[Anubis IV]

And now Apple itself has issued a comment over the reports, saying that their own testing and analytics indicate that there's a difference of only 2-3% in real-world usage between the two, which is well within their level of manufacturing tolerance. To quote:

Certain manufactured lab tests which run the processors with a continuous heavy workload until the battery depletes are not representative of real-world usage, since they spend an unrealistic amount of time at the highest CPU performance state. It's a misleading way to measure real-world battery life. Our testing and customer data show the actual battery life of the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus, even taking into account variable component differences, vary within just 2-3% of each other.

Which is to say, this is about as much of a non-story as can be, given that the original source was a redditor, the sample size was 1, and subsequent tests have been unable to reproduce the extreme difference reported in the original anecdote.

But hey, never forget Batterygate 2015.

Re:Too little, too late

[Grishnakh]

What kind of idiotic logic is this? Apple is the one making the phones, not Samsung. If Samsung CPUs aren't up to spec, then Apple shouldn't be shipping phones with them and claiming them to be equivalent to the TSMC ones. It's that simple. If Samsung isn't a good enough supplier, that's Apple's fault for continuing to buy from them.

This is like VW trying to claim "it's not our fault! It was some rogue software engineers!" If you ship the product, it's your problem.

Re:Too little, too late

[Grishnakh]

That does not equate to "Don't buy Apple", however; but more like "Don't buy the first production run of any new tech-Product from anybody". Just like "Never install version x.0 of an OS or other Software". Same logic.

This is even stupider. This is the iPhone 6, not the iPhone 1.0. They've been making these things for a decade now. They've had plenty of time to work things out with their suppliers, and find ones which aren't possibly hostile to them.

Re:Too little, too late

[khellendros1984]

The AC contended that Apple knew that there was a performance problem.

I'd contend the same thing, but I would classify it as a "difference", not a "problem".

That requires that they did the test the Reddit user did

It does not. It requires that they at least did an equivalent test that would expose the same difference. I don't think there's anything unreasonable about that assumption.

But what are the parameters of this "bare minimum"?

Presumably Apple has an internal test suite that they are convinced would give them performance numbers for various use-cases of the phone, and they required that suppliers' test results met or exceeded certain standards.

That is supposition. First, I haven't performed the test as I don't have iPhone 6s with two different processors to confirm it. Second, I don't know (and you don't know) how Apple tested their A9s.

I'm just following your lead ;-) You suppose that Apple tested their chips inadequately. You suppose that Apple released hardware without knowing about performance problems. You suppose (alternately) that they knew about the difference and released the hardware anyhow. I suppose that Geekbench is the 2nd item listed on the App Store when I search for "benchmark", and that it would make sense for Apple to test its hardware with the same software that large numbers of customers will be testing it with.

Re:Too little, too late

[macs4all]

If it's anything like the iPhone I bought 2 years ago, it's 6-8 hours of being in Airplane mode while in standby in your pocket.

1. I notice you don't mention a model. I call Shenanigans.

2. If that's what you were getting out of a 4s, 5, 5s or 6, then something was wrong with that particular unit. Or you are a fucking liar.

I own a 4s. If I leave it mostly in standby, even with WiFi on, I get about 2 days of "idle" time. In moderate use, it would last about a day and a half before I wanted to recharge it (usually with around 25% left).

I never owned a 5 or 5s; but a cow-orker claimed almost 3 days on his 5 (or 5s, can't remember).

My current 6 Plus, which is about a year old now, consistently gives me 3 to 4 DAYS of moderate use (and it usually has around 17-20% left when I decide to charge it). It probably sits in standby about 5-7 hours overall per day; but the rest of the time I'm reading mail, making calls, running some App (not much of a gamer), etc.

So, either you are a bald-faced liar; and/or you have a defective unit. Or a defective phone. Take your pick.

Re:Too little, too late

[dj245]

Intel also labels chips that are certified to run at different clock speeds with different part numbers, even if they were from the same design and even from the same wafer.

The big difference is that Intel charges different prices for chips with different performance. Given 2 otherwise identical chips, one made with a 14nm process and one with a 16nm process, the 14nm chip will outperform the 16nm chip every time on thermals and power draw. Intel would charge a higher price for the 14nm chip- it is superior in a measurable way. That's not unreasonable. Apple charges the same price for both and it's up to the luck of the draw which one you get.

Intel and AMD sometimes do have "good" and "great" versions of the same chip under the same model number, but most people neither notice nor care (overclockers being the exception). 2 phones which are supposedly identical with a 25% difference in battery life is something that many people are going to notice, however. They should have realized this during testing and either fixed the problem or offered 2 different SKU's at slightly different price points.

Re:Too little, too late

[macs4all]

That doesn't make their points any less valid,

So sez the Anonymous COWARD.

And yes; yes it does.

If the percentage of Apple-Hater posts (most of which are simply over-the-top) that were ACs was anything less than 97% on Slashdot, your argument would be more credible.

But it's not, and so, you're not.

Re:Too little, too late

[Grishnakh]

The difference is that passive components like 0402 resistors don't affect performance significantly, not any more than regular manufacturing tolerances. Two different Panasonic resistors will have different resistances even from the same reel, but the design accounts for that. But CPUs from different companies will definitely have noticeably different performance; this seems pretty unavoidable really unless both companies are using the same processes and mask sets. And the CPU is one of the most critical components in any technological item. It might be OK to sell a laptop computer with different LAN chips (Broadcom vs. Intel), especially when they're easily swapped out and can be specified by the customer anyway, but the CPU is a different matter; this is like buying the latest Intel CPU in your laptop and getting the last-gen CPU instead.

Re:Too little, too late

[macs4all]

From TFA:

There’s no way to tell by looking at the packaging if the phone you’re buying has a Samsung or a TSMC processor

Different model #'s detectable in software, but not listed on the package.

I thought I saw a post to this Article that alluded to a model number difference on the box or at least the outside of the phone itself.

But I can't find that post, and my own research online suggests that the only way to tell which SoC manufacturer is to use one of several software methods, some of which are pretty damned sketchy, too!

So, I apologize for my original statement; because it appears I spoke without thoroughly researching. Something that of COURSE no one else on Slashdot is EVER guilty of... [/sarcasm]

Re:Too little, too late

[khellendros1984]

From what I can tell by the Chipworks assessment, they appear the same with one being smaller. But then again I didn't look at the billions of transistors to determine if there are minor differences.

You don't have to look at the billions of transistors. You just have to run a widely-available benchmark on the two models of phone. Not even "you" personally; I'm sure that we'll quickly have documentation of the difference, independently supported by large numbers of tech enthusiasts.

They perform differently according to a Reddit user using a test Apple may not have used. How do you know that Apple should have known?

Because battery life in a mobile device is a highly-advertised, important aspect of selling the device, and it would be foolish to advertise performance metrics without thoroughly testing them beforehand.

Re:Too little, too late

[macs4all]

What kind of idiotic logic is this? Apple is the one making the phones, not Samsung. If Samsung CPUs aren't up to spec, then Apple shouldn't be shipping phones with them and claiming them to be equivalent to the TSMC ones. It's that simple. If Samsung isn't a good enough supplier, that's Apple's fault for continuing to buy from them.

This is like VW trying to claim "it's not our fault! It was some rogue software engineers!" If you ship the product, it's your problem.

Wait a minute! Who said Apple was claiming that the Samsung and TSMC variants of the A9 were "equivalent"?

Do you REALLY think that Apple does full testing on each and every iPhone? Do you think that Samsung does full testing on each and every A9? The answer is "No".

It is Samsung that apparently has a "Process Problem" (assuming that my Conspiracy Theory is incorrect). THEY ARE THE CONTRACTED SUPPLIER. If they are not meeting spec, it is primarily on THEIR head.

Now, if Apple is shipping phones that do not meet THEIR published specs, AND they don't "make good" (replace) those Phones, THEN, and only then, I will wholeheartedly agree that it is Apple's fault.

But until then, it MAY be Samsung's problem; OR it may be that the Samsung chips DO meet Apple's spec, and the TSMC chips are just a little better. That isn't Apple's "fault", either; but then, neither would that be Samsung's; but rather, "Just one of those things." Happens with ALL mass-produced items. Every. Single. One. It's just that Apple is continuously under a spotlight, and sells things so quickly at the outset, that early-on Production Kinks are magnified beyond all reason.

Re:Too little, too late

[Austerity Empowers]

I bet if you pick two Intel CPUs with the same SKU you will probably not notice performance differences (because the clock rate will be fixed for you), but you will notice power draw differences. As you probably know, even silicon in the same process with the same mask set may exhibit significant power draw differences based on how the process was trending when that wafer came off the line. Most of the noticeable difference seems to be in static power dissipation, which is often mitigated by entirely shutting off sections of the chip. But apples to apples testing one will be higher than another. Then put those identical systems in different thermal environments and the differences will be even more exaggerated. Different voltage environments? Even MORE noticeable. Better: normally with different processes the core voltages will necessarily be different. Regardless, the point is that even identical silicon does not behave identically, which OCers already know. The whole art of binning even equal parts, is painful.

Power continues to be the least well controlled outcome. When it comes to core frequency, designers sweat every picosecond and may lose months optimizing paths to hit their target frequency. Power is treated more like a budget: you identify designs that are comparatively higher/lower power and decide if the tradeoffs for lower power are acceptable, then at the end if/when you are overbudget you look for the big hitters, cut them down to size. Once you're in budget you forget about it. Then you get real silicon and the power will be somewhere around what you estimated when you designed, but not exactly, and will vary from chip to chip. Some of those chips you will throw out as being outside of your design spec and not suitable, but you try to keep as many as you can because $.

While you may prefer to cherry pick the phone you get, I think you only have a right to complain if either variant of the phone does not meet advertised specifications, not that one phone is different from another.

Re:Too little, too late

[Grishnakh]

This was in a controlled test where they were intentionally running everything probably in full-power mode specifically to test battery life under full-tilt conditions.

Re:Too little, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

See, again. You can't refute the rationale so you attack the person. If you genuinely feel you are being trolled by all these posts then why do you constantly get so upset? If they are trolls then you get reeled in hook, line and sinker every single time. Either you don't actually believe they are trolls and you use that as an excuse to try and get leverage in the argument or you really are that much of an Apple desperado that you lack the self control to resist responding to even non-genuine comments.

Re:Too little, too late

[Khyber]

Knowing Intel's fucking coding system like a real systems engineer.

"BX80662I76700K"

The first Character always denotes fab plant.

0 = San Jose, Costa Rica
1 = Cavite, Philippines
3 = Costa Rica
6 = Chandler, Arizona
7 = Philippines
8 = Leixlip, Ireland
9 = Penang, Malaysia
B = Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam
L = Malaysia
Q = Malaysia
R = Manila, Philippines
Y = Leixlip, Ireland

Re: Too little, too late

[KGIII]

Did you just call someone a hater like a 15 year old girl would? I have this strange mental image of your atypical Slashdotter bobbing their head and going "uh huh" now. Thanks. Thanks for that.

Re:Too little, too late

[BronsCon]

But when buying your product becomes a crapshoot, you have failed as a company. As somewhat of an Apple fan (despite what many here seem to think), it pains me to have to say, I think Apple has failed.

Re:Too little, too late

[unixisc]

More to the point, how can you find out which chip the phone has before buying it?

As someone who formerly marketed semiconductors, simple answer is - you don't!!! Those things are internal to the bill of materials, and a lot of things are sourced from multiple vendors. Like DRAM could come from Micron or Hynix or Samsung. Flash could come from Sandisk or anybody else. SSDs could come from Sandisk or Intel/Micron or Western Digital... Whenever any fabless company - which is what Apple is - makes any chip, they can source it from multiple fabs, multiple assembly houses, multiple test houses - in fact, for something as high running as the A9, that's what they definitely do. In fact, I'm surprised that Samsung and TSMC alone b/w them have the capacity to service Apple - I'd have thought that they'd need at least 4 fab sources for the A9

Re:Too little, too late

[radarskiy]

"fab plant"

Assembly and test plant. Intel has no fabs in Costa Rica, Philippines, Malaysia, or Vietnam.

Actually, they don't have an assembly and test plant in Costa Rica any more, either.

Re:Too little, too late

[mysidia]

Different model #'s detectable in software, but not listed on the package.

Tell the employee, you need to get an iPhone with the Samsung 14nm version of the A9 processor.

As soon as you get it, inspect it, and if it is found to have the 16nm TSMC chip, then promptly return the unit at the store for a refund, or keep exchanging, until you get a 14nm one.

Re:Too little, too late

[mysidia]

because now a single-source component is no longer single-source!

This is great, only if in fact the specifications are identical. If one of your sources has a defective, slower, or less-efficient component that impairs the product, then it sucks for the customer who gets the bad luck of the draw.

Re:Too little, too late

[mysidia]

My phone is still an iPhone 4S.

Re:Too little, too late

[Stolpskott]

Simple answer... you cannot. Useful answer, buy from a place that has a "full refund" policy which will not be invalidated by you doing enough with the phone to install the app that will tell you which chip you got.
Cannot get a suitable refund guarantee? Then either do not buy the phone or buy one and take pot luck.

Re:Too little, too late

[jez9999]

Makes me glad I have my LG G3 with its Snapdragon processor. :-D

Re:Too little, too late

[macs4all]

because now a single-source component is no longer single-source!

This is great, only if in fact the specifications are identical. If one of your sources has a defective, slower, or less-efficient component that impairs the product, then it sucks for the customer who gets the bad luck of the draw.

I'm sure the Specifications TO both suppliers were identical; however, supplier "S" MAY have not MET those specs, or it MAY have MET those specs, but then supplier "T" may have EXCEEDED them.

Now what? Does Apple go back to supplier "S", having MET the terms of Apple's CONTRACT, and say "Do Better"? Does Apple VIOLATE the Terms of It's own Agreement with supplier "S" to purchase a minimum of "x" Quantity over "y" Months, when that supplier WAS meeting ist end of the deal, JUST BECAUSE supplier "T" was producing "better" parts?

So you see, a LOT of this hinges on whether Samsung is, or is not, MEETING Apple's specs. If they are, then Apple is actually in a bit of a bind; they cannot arbitrarily just change their Requirements, so that only supplier "T" meets them. Supplier "S" would sue for breach of contract, and they would WIN. And meanwhile, consumers would be waiting for MONTHS to get their phones and tablets, while supplier "T" catches up with demand. Same thing if supplier "S" says "We have a process issue, but it is going to take us 6 months minimum to fix it." Even if Apple would agree to that, it would be the death of this particular product-cycle. In fact, even a ONE month delay would be pretty serious, because App,e would have to the RE-QUALIFY the new parts, which, even if expedited, would take precious weeks or even months, itself.

The real answer is that Apple needs to buy or build its own fab line, and it has to be a huge one!

Re:Too little, too late

[UnknowingFool]

By definition, chips with a smaller feature size draw less power and are faster than chips with a larger feature size.

As a general rule, smaller feature size should draw less power but the smallest sizes start to leak current. Chip designers have had to do things like finFET to compensate for this paradox.

The TSMC chips might have extra cache,

Unlikely as they are the same identical physical design as far as I can tell.

Apple might be clocking the Samsung chips at a lower frequency because of poorer heat dissipation

Maybe but this might more of an automated thing not specifically targeting Samsung chips.

Re:Too little, too late

[UnknowingFool]

Intel has no fab in Vietnam. No, the first character designates the "assembly plant", not the fab. You don't know the fab because it's not on the part number. It is however on the chip. But to examine it, you have to have the chip.

Re:Too little, too late

[UnknowingFool]

You don't have to look at the billions of transistors. You just have to run a widely-available benchmark on the two models of phone. Not even "you" personally; I'm sure that we'll quickly have documentation of the difference, independently supported by large numbers of tech enthusiasts.

I don't know what's in the GeekBench and if Apple used it to test their phones. At this point all I have is a single point of data from someone on Reddit. If Consumer Reports did the test, I'd more likely trust it as the have some documentation on methodology, experience during testing, etc.

Because battery life in a mobile device is a highly-advertised, important aspect of selling the device, and it would be foolish to advertise performance metrics without thoroughly testing them beforehand.

My point is Apple's tests may not be the same as this Reddit user. All we have from the reddit user are two photos. Not tables. Not methology. And what we can tell is the TSMC one had a SIM and the Samsung didn't which already brings questions as the methodology.

Re:Too little, too late

[Khyber]

You are wrong. Intel has a fab in Ho Chi Minh and the fucking job advertisements are posted directly on Intel's career page.

Only a fool uses wikipedia instead of going straight to the source.

Or, Oh, I dunno, read on the internet where this plant has been known of FOR FIVE FUCKING YEARS http://www.computerworld.com/a...

Re:Too little, too late

[UnknowingFool]

It does not. It requires that they at least did an equivalent test that would expose the same difference. I don't think there's anything unreasonable about that assumption.

And their equivalent test may not have shown any difference. I wasn't in Apple's testing facility and neither were you.

You suppose that Apple tested their chips inadequately.

No that's not what I said. I said you don't know how Apple tested their chips.

You suppose that Apple released hardware without knowing about performance problems.

That would be evident IF the Reddit user's tests can be verified. At this point a single point of data is hard to base any larger conclusion.

I suppose that Geekbench is the 2nd item listed on the App Store when I search for "benchmark", and that it would make sense for Apple to test its hardware with the same software that large numbers of customers will be testing it with.

Again you don't know Apple tested it. GeekBench is what consumers can use; the manufacturers may have their own software because GeekBench doesn't test for the same things.

Re:Too little, too late

[Khyber]

Assembly and Test is a step in fabrication.

Or are you unaware that 80% of Intel's procs since the 4th gen i-series has been manufactured in that plant?

Re:Too little, too late

[UnknowingFool]

From your own article, the first sentence is "Intel on Friday announced the opening of a massive $1 billion chip testing and assembly facility in Vietnam, the biggest such facility for Intel anywhere in the world." Again, Intel has no fab in Vietnam. It has an assembly plant. Just admit it that you're wrong as facts are not on your side. To figure out the fab, you have to read the other numbers on the chip.

Re:Too little, too late

[UnknowingFool]

Assembly and Test is a step in fabrication.

Um no. In the world of chip production, "fab" means specifically the facility that produced the chip from the wafer. It does not mean "plant".

Re:Too little, too late

[Plumpaquatsch]

It's a huge problem in the used market. Or as in this case when both versions are being sold new simultaneously

Who fucking cares - the difference between the two versions is way smaller than the gain to last years iPhone, as well as that over CPUs found in Android devices.

Re:Too little, too late

[khellendros1984]

Well, and that Chinese site that found the same issues, with numbers that match very closely to the Reddit guy's, but with more explanation of the methodology...

Re:Too little, too late

[Samizdata]

That analogy doesn't work. Unfortunately, with computer gear (and especially Apple), you run into issues where older kit is no longer supported. To follow up with your analogy, you have to buy the newest car since the highways will ban the older cars from driving on them.

Re:Too little, too late

[khellendros1984]

OK. another test by a Chinese site that has very similar numbers. If this is really a practical problem (which I have no reason to doubt), we'll continue seeing things like this published.

You suppose that Apple tested their chips inadequately.

No that's not what I said. I said you don't know how Apple tested their chips.

Either Apple found the issue, or they tested their chips inadequately. By definition, tests that don't find significant problems are inadequate.

Re:Too little, too late

[Samizdata]

They did get around to (mostly) repairing that after a bit

Yeah, about 3 or 4 weeks. How long do you think you would have waited on Android?

Blame the carriers for that one. One would almost think they would want more secure devices on their network, but, whatever.

Re:Too little, too late

[macs4all]

They did get around to (mostly) repairing that after a bit

Yeah, about 3 or 4 weeks. How long do you think you would have waited on Android?

Blame the carriers for that one. One would almost think they would want more secure devices on their network, but, whatever.

Who CARES about the finger-pointing? The end-result is the same to the User: No Updates.

Re:Too little, too late

[radarskiy]

I am aware of exactly where all of Intel's fabs are, as well as the difference between a fab and an assembly and test plant.

If wafers come out, it's a fab; if wafers go in, it's assembly and test.

Re:Too little, too late

[Mirddes]

and this is why i recently bought a refurbished droid4 from ebay. 5.1.1 doesn't seem as responsive as 4.4.4

Re:Too little, too late

[jrumney]

Sample size 1 of each. Configuration - one (8 hours) with SIM inserted and strong cellular network signal, the other (6 hours) with no SIM. No, I would hope that Apple uses statistically valid comparisons to evaluate their phones.

Re:Too little, too late

[jrumney]

When Newegg sells you a "Core i7", it could be one of any number of parts from Intel under that family. At the consumer level, you purchase one off parts like this, because effectively you don't care whether it is 32nm, 22nm or 14nm, or which of Intels many wafer fab plants or packaging plants it has come from. For a bulk purchaser like Dell, they are ordering a part number which guarantees a consistent spec (all 22nm for example). If they think there is enough difference between plants, they can order under a different part number that is for one fab and packaging plant combination only, and probably Intel will charge them a bit more for that, as it complicates their logistics when they cannot fulfil the orders from whichever plant has spare capacity.

In this case, not only do the two processors in question have different part numbers, but the phones containing them do too. Just because the store down the road is selling you an "iPhone 6S", does not mean that a bulk purchaser could not order the model "N71mAP" to ensure a consistent build configuration.

Re:Too little, too late

[Mirddes]

mine is a droid 4 bought refurbished 4 months ago cm12.1 on skinny in new zealand is pretty good, i imagine 4.4.4 would be faster though, especially overclocked. mugen batter, 64GB microsd. whats not to love with a qwerty keyboard and specs similar to iphone4?

Re: Too little, too late

[macs4all]

Passing QA to the customer is unacceptable.

There should be no bug reports to file, and if there are, the company is to blame not the user.

That's so ignorant of the real world, it's laughable.

Do you want me to link to the thousands of bug reports filed by Users for Linux, or Windows, or fucking BeOS, or any other published software package or OS more complicated than "10 GOTO 10", FFS?

To publish such ignorant drivel on a site that is frequented by many software Developers is either completely funny or completely foolhardy...

Take your pick, Anonymous (but stupid beyond belief) COWARD.

Re:Too little, too late

[zentigger]

The difference is that When Ford brings out a new model, you can usually count on the old one working for another 5, 10, even 20 years. iPhone, not so much. Usually when Apple ships a new product, they target updates to the operating system for the latest platform, while failing to address manufacturing defects (yes, bad software is paramount to a manufacturing defect) and ceasing support the previous generation. In fact the updates are ofter to the detriment of the older platform, causing huge performance degradation, despite the fact that the phone is perfectly suitable for most people's needs, thus people are in fact forced to buy the new phone.

  At least with a car, once it is out of warranty, and the manufacturer has ceased to support it, there are plenty of after-market vendors that are still willing to support it. I can still buy newly manufactured parts to operate and maintain my 1972 vehicle without getting sued into bankruptcy and thrown in jail.

So to counter your supposition,

Battery Life

[Lab Rat Jason]

Eight and six hours (respectively) battery life is not very impressive... is that because they measured battery life through some standard benchmark? I've got a 4s that can still pull off a 16 hour day if I'm careful with my screen time.

Re:Battery Life

[TWX]

I've found that battery life on standby is very much dependent on carrier accessibility. My employer's campus has a power distribution station on the East side and is ringed on the North, South, and West sides by power lines that reach the station. We get very poor signal strength and my old Galaxy SII is lucky to survive the eight hour shift on battery if I'm at the office all day, even on standby.

Contrast to at home, where that city mandated all infrastructure be buried, and the power lines are only for neighborhood final distribution as opposed to regional distribution, and my phone can go a whole weekend on standby.

Re:Battery Life

[Anonymous Coward]

Power lines cause very little interference to cell phones. It is very likely your office has eco-friendly windows. They have a very thin metal coating which greatly attenuates the signal. It is the same at my company. A part of our bulding recently had new windows (and some other eco-tweaks) installed and the signal there is almost gone, returning to almost full strength when the window is opened.

Re:Battery Life

[ledow]

I charged my Samsung (non-i) phone once this week.

And that was only because it dipped below 30%.

Admittedly it's not calling 24 hours a day, but it's on 4G all the time and has modern smartphone capabilities.

16 hours battery life? That's pathetic. Really?

The one thing I have to hand to iPads is that they last a long time on battery. But 16 hours? That's just the perfectly ANNOYING level of battery life. Not enough to survive a day.

Re:Battery Life

[Lab Rat Jason]

I'm not defending 16 hours as great battery time... but you may have missed the part where I said "4s". When new, it would run for several days, but I hammer on it pretty hard (pandora streaming + bluetooth headphones), Youtube videos, etc., mostly over 3g (no wi-fi at work) and it's showing it's age.

Re:Battery Life

[Anubis IV]

Correct, they were being run through a variety of synthetic benchmarks and taxing real-world scenarios (e.g. streaming online video for hours at full brightness). From what I've heard, there was a pretty significant jump in the battery life for the 6-series phones and beyond, though I'm still using an older 5s model that can get through 2-3 days without a charge under typical (admittedly light, in my case) use.

Re:Battery Life

[peragrin]

Had the same issue. At home I have next to no signal for 200 meters around my apartment.

I switched to the iOS 9 beta in August to finally get wifi calling on AT&T and my battery life at home jumped up massively.

Not spending 8 hours trying to reconnect to nothing helped a lot.

Re:Battery Life

[TWX]

I have no windows at all. Relatively secured buildings generally don't get windows.

Re:Battery Life

[alvieboy]

and my phone can go a whole weekend on standby.

What have your turned on ? My Lenovo A840+ (Android 4.2.2, Octa-core 1.4 GHz Cortex-A7) can withstand almost three weeks (weeks, not days) in standby when with good cell reception but with wifi and data connection off. I only start worrying about charging it (I mean, charge it on the same day, not immediatly) when it reaches about 8% battery.

Alvie

Re:Battery Life

[Dixie_Flatline]

Really? My friend can't make it through half a day without running to charge her Galaxy S5, whereas I get 12 hours of actually tapping on my screen on my iPhone 6.

My anecdote is at least as good as yours.

The 6 and 8 hour values are through synthetic benchmarks that purposely stress the processor and display things on the screen non-stop. I've never gotten as little as 8 hours from my phone, even on a day where I all I do is play games and load webpages. Apple's devices generally get about 10 hours of usable battery, and that's exactly how it's been for the last 4 years.

They do it as a trade-off for phone thinness. I'd rather have a thin phone and a thin case than a bulky phone that lasts 2 hours--or even 10 hours--longer. If I change my mind, I can buy a case that has a battery built in to it. But if I start with a bulky phone, I can't make a thin phone out of it. That's the tradeoff I'm willing to make.

Re:Battery Life

[jwdb]

They may not, but they probably get rebar instead. That's a pretty good reception killer as well. Or, if it's a very secure building, maybe they cladded it in tinfoil.

GP's probably right about power lines not interfering - wrong scale to have any effect.

Only seen in specific benchmarks

[hattig]

http://www.macrumors.com/2015/...

As suspected from early results yesterday, the takeaway from Morrison and Evans' videos today seems to be that while intense cases like synthetic Geekbench tests designed to push devices to their limits can reveal significant differences in battery life between devices using the two chips, real-world impacts are much smaller and are likely to be unnoticeable to many users.

Re:Only seen in specific benchmarks

[Jappus]

To clothe it in a car analogy: The difference is about the same as there being two cars, one has a top speed of 170 km/h, the other one of 200km/h. Certainly sounds like a huge difference, does it?

Unless you'll be driving both almost exclusively in a city, where the speed limit is only about 80 km/h at most. All you'd notice is a hardly perceptible difference in acceleration, as both cars don't even reach 50% of their maximum speed.

Stops sounding so terribly significant, does it?

Samsung Trojan Horse :)

[Hougaard]

If we can't beat them, at least we can loose our semiconductor business ?

Re:Samsung Trojan Horse :)

[Anubis IV]

Samsung this week posted their first profit growth since 2013, and it wasn't because their phones were selling better. It was because their chips were selling better. In other words, yup, that's exactly it.

That explains a few things...

[__aaclcg7560]

My friend and I both got iPhone 6s. His run hot, mine run cool. Go figure.

Re:That explains a few things...

[Huge_UID]

Letting us know which phone has which chip will explain it better.

Re:That explains a few things...

[__aaclcg7560]

Or we can extrapolate from the summary: hot = Samsung, cool = TSMC.

Re:That explains a few things...

[Sqr(twg)]

Or they have the same chip, but his friend has an app that uses a lot of cpu cycles in the background.

Re:That explains a few things...

[__aaclcg7560]

I forgot about the CPU-sucking apps. My friend's Purchased list in iTunes is 3,000+ apps long.

One no sim??

[Anonymous Coward]

How come

On the chinese test, the Samsung has an extra app installed on it (see the screen of the doc).
And on the Reddit users test, the TSMC has a sim card installed, the Samsung not.

Really would it have killed them to keep the same spec for each?

Re:One no sim??

[MatthiasF]

I wish I could up-mod but this is very important.

If both phones are using different parts of the hardware, for instance if the Samsung is connected to an 802.11 ac network while the TSMC is only connected to LTE, then the Samsung might be using more power.

The phones should be compared in Airplane mode.

16 nm vs 14 nm

[chris200x9]

It's kind of interesting the CPU built on a larger process is faster, cooler, and has less power draw.

Re:16 nm vs 14 nm

[mrlinux11]

It sounds fishy to me about that too, most processors speed up when the die size is smaller

Re:16 nm vs 14 nm

[TheRaven64]

I'm not particularly familiar with either company's process, but it's been a couple of generations since you could actually make meaningful comparisons based on the quoted nm size, because everyone has different smallest features that they measure when deciding that they are Xnm. That said, we passed the end of Dennard scaling a long time ago. You'd expect the same chip to be consuming about as much power, be slightly more able to dissipate the heat. It may also have less leakage, though that depends on a number of other factors.

Re:16 nm vs 14 nm

[UnknowingFool]

At increasingly smaller sizes, there's something called the short-channel effect or leakage because the size of each gate is starting to be affected by atomic forces not shown in larger gates. It's why chip companies are employing multi-gate devices like FinFET.

Planar transistors have been the core of integrated circuits for several decades, during which the size of the individual transistors has steadily decreased. As the size decreases, planar transistors increasingly suffer from the undesirable short-channel effect, especially "off-state" leakage current, which increases the idle power required by the device.

The reason companies are pushing for smaller size is economics. Reducing the feature size allows for more chips to be made from a single wafer. The move from 20nm to 16nm is about 15% more from what I remember.

Re:16 nm vs 14 nm

[alvinrod]

What companies choose to label their process is largely up to them and has almost no real bearing on the performance relative to other similar process nodes. From what I've read, it sounds like TSMC has significantly better yields on their process so they can be a lot more aggressive with their binning whereas Samsung likely needs to hand over anything that meets the minimum specifications to meet their shipment quotas and obligations.

What this means in the real world is that you're a lot more likely to get a TSMC chip that could have been bumped up a few hundred MHz in clock frequency while still staying withing TDP limits than you are to get one from Samsung that would behave similarly.

Re:16 nm vs 14 nm

[Anonymous Coward]

As Intel found out a long time ago, die shrinks don't always give you automatic power and cooling savings. Beyond a certain threshold, current leakage coupled with the higher density becomes a serious issue that has to be worked around.

Re:16 nm vs 14 nm

[radarskiy]

The fact that one process is called 16nm and one is called 14nm tells you almost nothing about the relative sizes of equivalent features.

These days, a process is called "14nm" because the previous one was called "20nm" and the next is going to be called "10nm".

Re:16 nm vs 14 nm

[UnknowingFool]

The fact that one process is called 16nm and one is called 14nm tells you almost nothing about the relative sizes of equivalent features.

Um, yes it does. 14nm is the smallest size possible that can be reliably produced by the process. It does not say that ALL features are 14nm. Where possible, the feature will be 14nm, but not all of them will be for practical reasons.

These days, a process is called "14nm" because the previous one was called "20nm" and the next is going to be called "10nm".

You seem to imply that die shrink is completely fictitious because of naming.

Re:16 nm vs 14 nm

[robi5]

This. How can this ever happen. Also, the battery rundown difference is very large for this half pitch difference, unless the battery test switches off everything else like the screen and wifi, or there are other big process differences.

Re:16 nm vs 14 nm

[radarskiy]

a) No effective sizes are reliable.
b) At Node N it is even money whether there is any dimension, drawn or effective, that is actually N.

"You seem to imply that die shrink is completely fictitious because of naming."

No, but I am plainly stating that there is not necessarily anything of dimension N in process node N.

it's already been debunked

[known_coward_69]

real world usage shows both are virtually identical with TSMC coming out on top by a few percentage points. this is only for the benchmark idiots who think benchmarks mean anything

Re:it's already been debunked

[known_coward_69]

the tests were only done once on one set of CPU's. needs to be done a few hundred times at least to statistically compare the results.

Referenced app not on app store

[Anonymous Coward]

So I went searching for the app in question and lo and behold, it isn't available on the Apple app store. I was inclined to think it was a conspiracy and that Apple didn't want people returning phones because they contained a certain processor. After some digging I found this on Reddit and this on Twitter explaining why it was taken down. Long story short the dev took it down saying "We will take the App down in 24 hours until we can release a decent update."

Re:Hilarious

[Anubis IV]

These are synthetic benchmarks and real-world scenarios designed to put high demands on the devices (e.g. streaming online video for hours at full screen brightness), hence the 6-8 hour battery life. In typical use, iPhones routinely get similar results to the ones you mentioned for your phone (my iPhone 5s gets about the same battery life as your Samsung, but there's always variation from user to user, so take my info as the single data point that it is).

Re:Hilarious

[thoromyr]

and my iPhone 4S lasts for a week on a charge (despite being old and weary). Its all about how you use it. Is it constantly waking up and fetching email? How much web browsing? Playing music? Watching videos? What about bluetooth? GPS? You even mention you kill "the internet browser task". I've never had to resort to killing tasks in order to maintain battery life.

Anecdotes from individuals about battery life are pretty meaningless when the variabilities of usage far outweigh the baseline power for operation.

Maybe...

[wardrich86]

There really hasn't been a significant enough test on these chips yet to say for sure that the Samsung product is inferior. Lets wait until the phones are out in the wild for a few months and heavily benchmarked. Or maybe TSMC is a secret subsidiary of VW...

In fact a new version often is how it should be

[Sycraft-fu]

Companies should regularly update their products to use the latest tech. There is no reason to freeze a product and not update it for a long time just to make owners feel like they still have the "latest". Rather they should update as often as changes in available technology/manufacturing/etc dictate. Customers then buy new ones as often as they feel it useful.

That's how it has been with desktop computers, excluding Apple, forever. Few, if any, people upgrade every time something new comes out because the changes are usually minor. They buy something, stick with it for a few years, then buy something new when they feel like they want or need it.

The problem is that Apple devices seem to be something that some people wrap their ego in. They feel a need to have the newest device to be "cool" or some such and thus get mad when a newer device comes out that they cannot or do not wish to purchase since they feel it somehow lessens what they do have.

Re:In fact a new version often is how it should be

[fulldecent]

Yes, the opposite is Canon. They have many models and cycle features between them, adding and subtracting so there is no clear winner. Then they have long release schedules.

Their goal is to get you to choose a product line and buy old technology -- because you wont expect "that model" to be replaced any time soon.

Re:In fact a new version often is how it should be

[zieroh]

The problem is that Apple devices seem to be something that some people wrap their ego in. They feel a need to have the newest device to be "cool" or some such and thus get mad when a newer device comes out that they cannot or do not wish to purchase since they feel it somehow lessens what they do have.

I think you're suffering from cognitive dissonance. The hint is that you're suggesting a rather absurd explanation -- that people buy new phones just to be cool -- and ignoring the much more obvious explanation: that the additional features are compelling enough for them to upgrade. It seems likely that you yourself do not feel that the additional features and improvements are sufficient to warrant an upgrade -- and that's okay. But to project your sensibilities onto the entire rest of the world and then to suggest they are behaving in a rather irrational manner is itself as irrational as it gets.

Re:In fact a new version often is how it should be

[iampiti]

I agree it's mostly an ego thing but it's not exclusive of Apple at all. I've seen many people complain that Samsung released Galaxy sn too soon and so that makes their sn-1 "old" and then they're not cool anymore

Re:In fact a new version often is how it should be

[cfalcon]

> Companies should regularly update their products to use the latest tech.

The problem here is that you get a bunch of subversions, and it's much harder to find your problem. When you have an issue, going to a forum for "iphone 6" is going to be helpful, but if the iphone 6 spanned several subversions that all require different debug / fix steps, then you can't figure out what you actually have any more. You end up with one of the downsides of the "build your own PC", without getting all the upsides of doing that.

Re:In fact a new version often is how it should be

[cfalcon]

If you bought a product because you wanted it to be the best in that line, then the upgrade rate is definitely a consideration. It's not particularly rational, but remember that these products are also status symbols and in some cases jewelry, so at the very least being *predictable* is a boon for consumers.

Opus said it even better.

[Futurepower(R)]

Digital Turnip Twaddling

Samples sizes of 1

[radarskiy]

"tests of a pair of 6s Plus phones"

You can't argue with the statistical validity of that analysis... because there isn't any.

Apple reporting bias

[krisbrowne42]

C'mon folks, you're missing a grand opportunity for a conspiracy theory! Taking it one way, Apple could've used this as a way to defame Samsung for providing less capable parts... Or going the other way, Samsung could be trying to make the 6s look bad by messing with the experience.

Re:Apple reporting bias

[UnknowingFool]

Well that conspiracy theory relies on the both parties not concerned with self-interest. Sure, Apple gets a chance to defame Samsung, but Apple has to deal with angry customers wanting brand new phones, not Samsung. At best Samsung will have to supply more chips while Apple gets a black eye from customer. Sure Samsung can stick it to customer. A customer that buys millions of chips from them a year. But other customers (and potential customers) of Samsung are not very willing to applaud this behavior as Samsung could do it to them.

Yeah....no.

[Radical Moderate]

You don't want to keep your iPhone forever. iOS 9 is not compatible with anything older than the 4S. My 4S is 3 years old, when iOS 10 comes out next year I doubt it will run it. So if unless you like running an unsupported OS and old apps, 4 years is about the limit.

"Pushing it through the throats of customers" is a bit hyperbolic, but not entirely inaccurate.

Figuring

[SuperKendall]

It's quite impressive you both run exactly the same software with exactly the same background/location/notification settings... do you get together once or twice a day to make sure you have identical settings?

Re:Figuring

[__aaclcg7560]

Uh, no. We're exact opposites. I got 16GB, he got 128GB. I got rose gold, he got space grey. I got a dozen apps, he got 3,000+ apps.

Re:Figuring

[SuperKendall]

So he has 3000+ apps, some of which are in background, and it's a mystery why his runs hotter?

Come on.

Re:Figuring

[Dixie_Flatline]

It's probably not much of a factor. iOS apps are aggressively throttled in the background. Facebook plays all sorts of dirty tricks to keep running (apparently like trying to pretend it's an audio app, I've heard?) but otherwise, most apps happily accept the kill signal and take up no additional CPU time.

Re:in a previous article about the new chips.....

[UnknowingFool]

For the following post, the sarcasm flag is assumed to be active.

1. has to rely on 3rd parties to integrate their hardware into an existing enterprise..

Yes because Apple's primary focus is enterprise. It's not like Dell or HP ever rely on 3rd parties for consumer or enterprise. Ever.

2. Srir was a huge failure even with 3rd party support

That's why they removed and banished it from all iPhones and iPads and they didn't include it in the new AppleTV.

3. Newton (even with the greatest minds it still could nto get off the ground)

Yes because 20 years ago, mobile hardware was much superior than it is today. Also at the time, Apple was a tightly focused machine.

4. Deperciation of the equipment as compared to its "PC" equiv. is way out of whack.

That's why whenever I go to buy used Apple machines, they are 1/2 of what the comparable Dell or HP is. They are so cheap, people are begging me to take their Macs.

5. They have to reply on 3rd parties for any and all laptop/desktop hardware (intel)

Yes because Dell, HP, Lenovo, Samsung, Asus, etc have all started to make their own processors now. Every single one of them even have their own GPUs and make their machines by hand. I've seen the farms where they grow their cases from the soil. It's all organic.

6. they bastardized a variant of BSD and "made it their own" also a 3rd party reliance.

Instead of every other OS out there that magically one day was born. Linux isn't based on Unix at all. And Windows was created completely by Gates and Co one night and didn't rely on design cues from VMS or DOS or anything prior.

7. They tried to tout a turnkey infrastructure (X system [xserv, etc]) which lasted 2-4 years and resembled SUN equipment..

Because every time a company makes a product they should sell that product FOREVER even if it isn't very profitable or core to their strategy. That's why Microsoft and Dell still make MP3 players. IBM still makes PCs right?

8. the cost of the equiv. equipment (PC) is a 3rd of the cost.

In every single case this is true. That's why people still buy Macs; suckers!

9. For any credible attempt at repair, a device must be taken to a service center, no way to "HOME-FIX"

Yes, the internet and websites dedicated to fixing computers don't exist. Also all other manufacturers will honor your warranty when you try to fix things yourself. Warranty, schmwarranty, they say.

10. when people in my env. request a mac. after about a week or so they request a windows 7 vm poped on the "DESKTOP" so they can remain productive and still have the nice SHiny..

This has nothing to do with the fact that some companies rely and insist on Windows only things. I mean, IE is famous for being completely compatible with every other browser known in existence. This is the opposite of those PCs where they have only 1 option: Windows or die. That's fine. Less choice is so much better.

So now we are on the 6th gen of the Iphone, and.......... Samsung the #1 Iphone competitor is varying their production of chips to Apple, like thats a suprise.. It actually seems so friggin lame..

Yes because chip fabs are everywhere. You can't go down the street without some homeless bum offering to move me to a 10nm process. Especially companies like NVidia who didn't decide to use Samsung to fab the Tegra X1. And Apple didn't do a responsible thing by using 2 different fabs for redundancy. Not at all

With so Much Apple has going for itself.. Why can't it just produce their own products and why with all the brilliant pe

How many samples in the test?

[dhaen]

This

Must be why Apple is near bankruptcy.

[Brannon]

Or perhaps this one guy's experience (with a 3+ year old phone) is not typical when compared to the hundreds of millions of people who have an iPhone with a battery that lasts well over 16 hours.

Process labels are mostly meaningless nowadays

[Brannon]

Different manufacturers don't necessarily measure the same feature to give that size (i.e., minimum L1 metal width or poly width or whatever) and there are so many second-order effects which influence density, performance, and power that the difference between 14nm and 16nm is pretty meaningless.

Re:Two cases

[Budgreen]

I'm sure it has nothing to do with the other options.

3.) apple did a bad optimization
4.) apple crippled the chips in design or by software to give samsung a bad name.

Re:In other news

[jez9999]

Yep