A Qualcomm executive has claimed that Apple’s 64-bit A7 processor is a marketing ploy. Anand Chandrasekher, senior vice president and chief marketing officer at Qualcomm, claims that there is no benefit to consumers from the processor being 64-bit. This is because the iPhone 5s only has 1GB of DRAM, a smaller amount that would necessitate a 64-bit processor, according to Techworld:
“Predominantly… you need it for memory addressability beyond 4GB. That’s it. You don’t really need it for performance, and the kinds of applications that 64-bit get used in mostly are large, server-class applications,” said Chandrasekher, who previously ran Intel’s mobile platforms group.
Chandrasekher’s comments should be taken with a grain of salt. Qualcomm supplies the processors for hundreds of devices running Android and Windows phone, and it sounds like they won’t be producing a 64-bit chip just yet. They have a vested interest in downplaying the importance of the A7. On the other hand, apps like djay 2 and vjay have been updated with faster audio analysis, precision key detection and key matching, and a host of HD video playback and recording improvements, all of which have been attributed to the A7’s 64-bit processing.
Mike Ash analyzed the A7 and found that the reality landed somewhere in the middle. There are some significant gains that come from the A7’s 64-bit processing, but it’s not exactly a revolutionary step forward.
Consider as well that Apple rarely, if ever, markets on specs. There aren’t any ads about the A7 chip. And there were never any ads for the A6, or A5, or A4, either. During their event last month, Apple said 64-bit, talked a little bit about performance and the secure enclave for Touch ID, and that’s it. Most consumers ultimately don’t care about specs. They don’t care about the name of the chip or the fact that it’s 64-bit. If Apple could get the iPhone 5s to run on a Dorito, consumers still wouldn’t care. They just want their stuff to work.
Source: Techworld