A Bloomberg profile of Apple’s ‘chief chipmaker’ – SVP of hardware technologies Johny Srouji – talks about how the iPad Pro was launched behind schedule, and almost ended up being less powerful than the iPhone 6s.
The original plan was to introduce the iPad Pro with Apple’s tablet chip, the A8X, the same processor that powered the iPad Air 2, introduced in 2014. But delaying until fall meant that the Pro would make its debut alongside the iPhone 6s, which was going to use a newer, faster phone chip called the A9 […]
The iPad Pro would look feeble next to the iPhone 6s. So Srouji put his engineers on a crash program to move up the rollout of a new tablet processor, the A9X, by half a year.
While the piece predictably doesn’t reveal much we didn’t already know, it does contain one surprising fun fact about the original iPhone …
Srouji said that because the original iPhone had to piece together existing components from a range of suppliers, it couldn’t be as powerful as the company had hoped, with a low-powered processor, no front camera, connectivity limited to 2G and poor battery life. One of those components?
Elements from a Samsung chip used in DVD players.
It was disappointment in what could be achieved using existing components, said Srouji, that led Steve Jobs to conclude that Apple needed to design its own chips.
Steve came to the conclusion that the only way for Apple to really differentiate and deliver something truly unique and truly great, you have to own your own silicon. You have to control and own it.
The whole piece makes for an interesting background read.
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
“Elements from a Samsung chip used in DVD players.”
This has been known for a while.
Not everyone knew about that DVD chip. Interested read.
Great read, Ben, Thank you!
I find them testing chips for the Mac Mini interesting. Mac Mini or MacBook would make for a good testing ground for an ARM powered Mac and ARM enabled OS X.
Most interesting is the hero picture for tvis article. Looks like they have some custom blades in the racks, using magsafe adapters to power them. got a clue what they are, anyone?
I was gonna ask the same thing. Looks cool. Don’t they worry about dust?
Dust is not an issue when havinh a slight over-pressure in the server room and good air filtering. After reading the source article, I conclude this is a test-bench with Mac Minis used for testing the processors for iPads/iPhones… The custom mod for using MagSafe connectors instead of the powerbrick is something Ill explore some more…
I love these, especially from lesser “known” execs or engineers, thanks for sharing.
Now admit the Apple TV was late….and you still didn’t put the new chips in.
The secret unmarked buildings throughout the Valley is also very interesting.
“Apple’s chief chipmaker reveals how the iPad Pro was late & almost out-powered by the iPhone 6s”
And this is why Apple doesn’t comment on unannounced products – imagine if they have pre-announced and not delivered.
So what i got from this was – the pro, that isnt really much of a pro device, was gonna be even less pro…
That Apple were going to rush it to market with old components — they still did rush because they didnt work out how to implement force touch etc.
It just proves that Apple are in fact cutting corners and rushing things.