Can someone explain to a layperson such as myself what's the benefit of creating a 64 bit A7 processor? I know the main benefit in the x86 world is the ability to address up to 256 TB of RAM versus 4 GB of RAM for x86 processors. I don't think we're expecting to see 4GB + of ram on IOS devices anytime soon. Is this marketing hype (aka Atari Jaguar & Nintendo 64) or real innovation?
Real innovation. It brings mobile device CPUs to parity with current Macs/PCs. See Wikipidea for more technical info. Once apps begin to be updated to take advantage of the increase bit depth (and apparently the transition is easy) you should see major leaps in performance. BTW the "64" in Nintendo 64 referred to bit depth in graphics -- a completely different thing.
As a developer I have no idea how to take advantage of this I'm guessing it's some pretty low level stuff.
There is a pretty geeky discussion going on over at Anandtech about this topic. I think the answer is it really depends what exactly Apple added to the A7 processor. BGR also had an article saying basically that Apple is planning for the future when IOS devices will have more than 4GB of ram.
As long as there are lots of iPhone 4 and iPod Touch 4th users out there, we, developers, can't easily push the graphics to a higher level unfortunately. Some developers take the risk and don't support those devices but having lots of 1 star, because there we cannot say "I don't support iPhone 4" in iTunes Connect. Long story short, 64-bit does not mean anything to me.
64-bit CPU doesn't bring anything "useful" for 99% apps and for 100% games Not until we get more RAM top utilize the obvious advantages. But A7 is not all about being 64-bit - it is about being much powerful beast than (already really good) CPU in iPhone 5. And that is nice As for me, I am really looking to see what will be the performance of new GPU as games tend to push more pixels than computational tasks
Is the consensus that the faster processor is a shiny coat of pain but ultimately meaningless without higher RAM and due to market/user demands still requiring limitations sufficient for 4G compatibility? That seems deceptive of Apple...
You mean like the "powerhouse" A5X? Yes. The age of 64-bit phones is eventually coming, and Apple's just getting a head start converting software beforehand. It just has to do with how the system manages RAM when it's over 4gb. In fact, depending on the internals, 64-bit might actually negatively affect the chip's performance in some ways.
We shall soon see, as I've got something lined up soon. I'll be testing Killer Instinct arcade with mame4ios on someones iPhone 5S. I'll report back... And record the improvement. Just so y'all know. Ki runs worse on an S4 & a LG Optimus pro G & LG G2... & Note 2, Than on my iPhone 5.
I'm sure Apple will have some plan for allowing developers to use 64bit without alienating the 32 bit devices. Whether this is actually having separate versions of the apps or (probably more likely) a single version of the app hat contains both 64bit and 32bit code. That sounds wasteful, but as I understand it the bulk o the size of apps is in the sound and graphics which would be common between both versions. All the same it's going to be a few months before we start seeing those advantages. It's more likely to really benefit the iPhone 6.
Low level things lke assembly code can/will see a huge bump if done proper. But at the moment it won't mean much, but moving to 64bit is definitely a must. We can't stay on 3gb RAM for all eternity. I for one would love to have a 8gb ram iPad right now, and be friggin done about constantly worrying about iOS shitty RAM handling while working on an iPad.
I can't for the love of God understand why people are so hooked up on the size of ram memory when trying to assess the benefits of 64 bit processors. A processor being 64 bit means mainly two things; first the instructions that it executes read and write to 64 bit variables instead of 32 bits. Second, it reads from and writes to its main memory (the ram memory) in pieces of 64 bit values instead of 32 bits, since the bus between the processor and the memory has a width of 64 bits instead of 32. This enables the processor to read data from its memory faster, process it faster and then write back to the memory faster. As an example consider reading a small file from the main memory, inverting every bit it contains (making 1s to 0s and vise verse) and then simply writing back the result to the memory. Now suppose the file is 6400 bits large. A 32 bit processor would have to execute a total of 200 memory read operations, 200 inversion instructions and also 200 memory write operations. But each of these numbers would be halved by using a 64-bit processor. More practical examples of how things can be done faster include the automatic verification performed on large apps/updates downloaded from the app store; encrypting photos for transmission to your online backup service or decrypting then once you have downloaded them; applying a bunch of filters on the large number of your photos to make them to look cooler; video editing. And a lot of times these benefits come automatically without the need of the developer to do something in particular, because the compilers that the developers use these days are smart and know when to use the 64-bit capability of the processor.
Surely the best result of this happening is for the next few iterations of ios devices rather than the current. There is always a catch up period and when you add the new abilities of ios 7 plus the external controller options the future is very bright indeed.
soon i will buy the new i5S and i will test it all day to see if are that many diffrences comparing to iphone 5
