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Apple iPhone 7 Plus Packs 3GB RAM, Early A10 Fusion Benchmarks Look Very Strong (hothardware.com)
MojoKid writes from a report via HotHardware: Apple's A10 Fusion processor, paired with the iPhone 7, is already making its mark on benchmark circuit. Although you may or may not be impressed with Apple's new handset, as usual, Cupertino's latest smartphone is looking very strong performance-wise. According to Geekbench numbers, which showcase the iPhone 7 Plus running iOS 10.0.1 (Golden Master), the 5.5-inch smartphone has 3GB of RAM onboard (the iPhone 7 reportedly contains 2GB RAM). Compared to the previous generation iPhone 6s Plus, this is an increase of 1GB. Compared to Android flagships, which come with 4GB or even 6GB of RAM, 3GB might seem paltry. However, benchmarks show time and time again that Apple's SoCs are among the fastest in the industry and simply do more with less resources. Apple says that the advances it has made with the A10 allow the processor to be twice as fast as the A8 in the iPhone 6 Plus and 40 percent faster than the A9 in the iPhone 6s Plus. The iPhone 7 Plus received a Geekbench single-core score of 3233, while its multi-core score comes in at 5363. For comparison, the beefy A9X processor in the iPad Pro -- also paired with 3GB of RAM -- puts up scores of 3009 and 4881 respectively. Likewise, these numbers far outpace those of the iPhone 6s Plus, which delivers 2407 and 4046 respectively.
Whoa, twice as fast? My boring conference calls will be cut in half. Thanks Apple!
Ah yes, crippling the iPhone further with the removal of the highly standardised headphone jack, requiring a pricey and fragile, easy-to-lose, bulky adapter. They're seemingly trying to make the iPhone as useful as a pet rock, and similarly overpriced.
Why is Apple doing this, really? The reason isn't waterproofing (both Samsung and Sony meet at least IP68 ratings, and for some models, even Milspec 810G) without sacking the headphone jack. It isn't technology-related, since both Sony and Samsung fit far more features into less space - again, without sacking the headphone jack.
It's about having yet another expensive-yet-fragile-and-easy-to-lose mandatory accessory, or to create a sense vendor lock-in (because they'll be telling their gullible customers "by the way we make some premium headphones to match our pet rock") so they can sell more expensive yet inferior and terrible sounding headphones by Beats, which literally include weights to lend the illusion of high quality heavy magnets in the drivers. See:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sci...
http://bgr.com/2015/06/19/beat...
http://www.popularmechanics.co...
I'm happy with my Samsung S7 Edge, thanks - the iPhone 4 was my last; after seeing the direction it was going with the 4s and 5 I made the switch back to Samsung phones (my phone prior to the iPhone 3GS was a Samsung) and am sticking with them.
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Isn't A10 Fusion a bit of a weird name? AMD called their APU's "Fusion" when they first came out and gave them model numbers A6, A8, A10.... Even though they dropped their "Fusion" branding, I am sure I am not the only tech guy who upon hearing "A10 Fusion" thinks of an AMD APU. And it's been just five years since they came out, it is not like you have to be an old geezer to remember.
Unless I've missed something and Apple now uses AMD APUs on their iPhone...
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
Apple's CPU design work doesn't seem to get much coverage outside the highly technical trade press, but they have and continue to produce great designs on the ARM base. Not sure if their license allows them to sell their chips to 3rd parties, but I'd think both the 9 and 10 series would be attractive to many systems designers (aerospace, etc). Also wondering if Apple is moving toward at least a dual-CPU (x86 + A10, say) design for the next generation of Macintosh.
sPh
They could include both IP67 AND a headphone jack. Like Samsung, Sony, and almost all other competitors.
Why doesn't Apple create a non-water resistant iP7 SKU with a headphone jack?
Because Apple purchased the worlds largest wireless headset company 2 years ago, and the only way they will ever get their money back is if they transition Beats from trendy to essential.
"His name was James Damore."
I'm fighting what seems to be the majority opinion with this ... but I really don't take issue with Apple ditching the headphone jack on the iPhone 7.
For starters? It's always been a troublesome connector when dealing with phone cases. Many of them didn't allow you to push a given 1/8" jack far down enough into the phone to make a connection. (Always depended on how much plastic material someone happened to put around the metal part of the jack and so forth.)
When using a $100 extended battery case, such things become serious problems, because you're losing the functionality you paid that much to add, every time you have to take the phone out of the case to use a set of wired headphones, or to plug it into the AUX jack in a car, or ?? That was the problem that initially drove me to start using bluetooth stereo earbuds. (I have pretty good results and sound quality with the LG Tone Infinum.)
Besides that, though? I'm already attaching my iPhone to my Alpine stereo via a USB to Lightning cable in my Jeep. Not using the headphone jack at all for that. That allows the stereo to control much more on the phone than if it was just using an analog audio plug connector.
There have been some good arguments made against this change and DRM, arguing that eliminating the 1/8" stereo jack in favor of something like Lightning connectors amounts to finally plugging the "analog hole" that ensures non DRM access to audio content. But I think it's VERY far-fetched to suggest the entire industry would ditch the analog audio jack. The connector is so prevalent because it's very inexpensive, as much as anything else. It's so easy to implement an audio jack in a circuit and the cables for it are about as cheap as they get. This is just something Apple sees benefits to doing (a way to ensure all the gadgets attached to the new phones use a digital audio pathway with power and control channels as part of the standard). It means more profits for Apple too, certainly. But Apple doesn't make these changes JUST because they can charge more afterwards. They only do it when they see a way to improve the user experience.
Apple has a long-standing fascination with changing around connectors and jacks when they think they have a superior way to handle one of them. The "mag-safe" charging connector on their laptops is a good example. Yeah, it's proprietary and costs more than a barrel plug, up front. But it sure did put a stop to all those costly laptop repairs when someone breaks the charging jack loose inside of it.
I don't find people complaining about performance that much. I hear more battery life complaints, fragile and breakage issues. When Apple talks about performance I just shrug anymore. Yeah it's noticeable on paper but who cares. I'm not trying to run complex computations through it. Just watch videos, text, and play simply games. I could do that on a iPhone 4s. Save your money on hype and still get a audio jack and buy a model below the 7 series. Same would go for a Android. Don't waste extra on the latest and greatest.
I'm reminded of a conversation with some co-workers when the new MacBook without an optical drive came out. I was told about how Apple was being stupid for leaving out such a critical piece of hardware, that they'd never buy such a computer, etc.
My response to them then, and my response to critics now, is the same. No one is forcing you to buy Apple hardware. Apple still offers the older product with the hardware you desire. You quite likely are not their target demographic. Apple cannot provide every product to meet every possible customer desire, compromises must be made.
I then asked them about how often they actually used the optical drive they have in their computers. Since Apple included a disc with the MacBook that had software that allowed one to share an optical drive in another computer, MacOS or Windows, I asked if they had more than one computer at home. What I found out is that people rarely used their optical drive, and they all had more than one computer at home. So while they didn't like the idea of needing a peripheral to access an optical drive they did agree that not including the drive did not prevent them from reading optical disks.
What is interesting here is that this analogy only carries so far since this time Apple includes as a peripheral what they left off by default. It'd be like putting an optical drive in the box with every MacBook. Yet people still complain. Apple in both cases was not the first to do this, but the first (or even second) guy didn't make near as many waves. Why is that?
Mock Apple if you want. I even hesitate to come to Apple's defense since they don't need my help and I'll likely be labeled as a "fanboi" for doing so.
What confuses me further about this is that this forum, like my co-workers, consists of largely of people that are (or at least claim to be) knowledgeable of electronics and its industry. Is it so confusing to people that a business case was made for this decision long before the product made it to store shelves? They figured this out. As evidence I'll give the popularity of the MacBook and iPhone product lines, much less that Apple is still around to be mocked. Not only can a business case be made but this was expected to happen eventually.
Thing is that I'm not likely to even buy this new iPhone, I bought a new "dumb" phone a few months ago and I'm happy with it for now. I didn't buy one of those MacBooks either, but I did get one when someone else was paying for it. I'm not in their demographic either but I'd like to think I know a good business choice when I see one. I think Apple did good here, or at least not bad. Now, if all iPhone models lacked the headphone port then we'd have a different conversation.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
I then asked them about how often they actually used the optical drive they have in their computers.
And that should instantly lead you to why removing the optical drive was a non-issue compared to removing the headphone socket.