Comments Locked

96 Comments

Back to Article

  • Synomenon - Friday, September 16, 2016 - link

    Interested to see whether the 7 and 7 Plus have the same camera sensor for the main camera. There were people posting before that the 7 had a slightly larger sensor for its camera than the 7 Plus.
  • Samus - Friday, September 16, 2016 - link

    Also interesting about the DAC for the lightning port. Makes me feel a little different about the whole 3.5mm jack being removed, but still kind of turned off none the less. I use square to take credit cards for my business, a digital 3.5mm thermometer when I travel, and occasionally a micro boom 3.5mm microphone when recording video of my daughter playing hockey, etc.

    I guess the revised lightning port to emulate a 3.5mm jack explains why all these accessories, at least according to square and some other manufactures, continue to work even with the adapter, because the adapter isn't really emulating anything it's just bringing the signal down from the port...
  • thope - Friday, September 16, 2016 - link

    looks like lightning port was highly programmable. just tried with 5C and audio dongle. On IOS 9 i get and error saying accessory not supported and in iOS 10 it works. I have compared the sound and it seems identical on both the jack and the adapter.
  • Constructor - Saturday, September 17, 2016 - link

    And that is why it needs to contain a DAC in the adapter. It could not work with the old devices otherwise, which have always required peripheral DACs for Lightning audio.

    And, wouldn't you know, Cirrus has just the exactly matching special chip for precisely this purpose, namely interfacing with Lightning on one side and headphones on the other (it's also almost certainly built into the Lightning earbuds): http://www.cirrus.com/en/applications/app/detail/A...
  • Constructor - Saturday, September 17, 2016 - link

    So when will anybody finally crack their Lightning adapter open to check? iFixit hasn't bothered, which is a severe omission.
  • londedoganet - Tuesday, September 20, 2016 - link

    Good news: A Vietnamese site known for its iPhone leaks has torn one apart.

    Spoiler: There's a DAC from Cirrus Logic inside the adapter, exactly as you said, because of course there was, and everyone else theorizing about secret changes to the Lightning specification was just being silly.

    Link: http://www.macrumors.com/2016/09/20/lightning-earp...
  • Constructor - Wednesday, September 21, 2016 - link

    Well, at least very speculative...
    But it was an interesting theory nevertheless!
  • thope - Monday, September 19, 2016 - link

    You are forgetting that lightning headphones always worked with iPhone 5/5c. If the adapter had a dac it would not matter if the software was iOS 9/10. I am convinced that lightning port always had the capability to send analog audio. I am sure the cable has apples authentication chip to inform the phone of what accessory is connected. Also, Given the size of the adapter it is highly unlikely that there is a dac in there. Also, there is still a cirrus headphone amp/dac present onboard. I have the audeze sine cipher cable and it has an active dac. The remote part itself is much bigger that the dongle.
  • Constructor - Wednesday, September 21, 2016 - link

    It just has to be a new kind of device with special driver needs even while it's similar to existing ones in order to require an iOS upgrade, and it looks as if it's just that.
  • HunterKlynn - Friday, September 16, 2016 - link

    Phil Schiller explicitly said they're identical, so I'd be surprised if they're not.
  • jwcalla - Friday, September 16, 2016 - link

    Throwing in the Intel marketing slide was classy.
  • Meteor2 - Friday, September 16, 2016 - link

    ...and interesting.
  • JoeyJoJo123 - Friday, September 16, 2016 - link

    RIDICULOUS!

    Anandtech still hasn't posted [supposedly late promised review of XYZ pointless electronic doodad], and they're promising another review later this month for the iPhone 7!? Way to show that Apple favoritism.

    I'm gonna stop reading these articles, but I'll still stop by every day just to post useless comments here on every article reminding you about reviews that I'm entitled to!
  • fanofanand - Friday, September 16, 2016 - link

    Despite your obvious sarcasm, it actually is a bit ridiculous that Apple is prioritized over EVERYTHING. Apple does make great products, but seriously they ought to just rename the site everythingapple.com. Timely reviews of products appear to only happen when it comes to Apple, still missing several deep dives, nothing on the HTC 10, very little done on the GPU front but if Apple farts holy cow everyone write an article QUICK!
  • The Garden Variety - Friday, September 16, 2016 - link

    Literally no one cares. You are typifying the reality that internet commenters are useless, and there's a reason why more and more sites are just turning off comments. There is literally nothing of value added. Any sense of "community" was lost long ago when people decided that being Partisan Warriors®, the last line of defense over the tyranny of invented bias, was more important than being civil, interesting, or even intelligent.

    Anandtech, and sites like it, are an amazing resource. But that resource is 100 percent in the articles itself, and 0% in any (*any*) of the comments attached to articles. The forums should exist, and are an important resource for the adults who want to contribute time, knowledge, and ideas. But there is not a single intelligent reason why stories should have comment threads. It's a tired tradition that is as quaint as a floppy disk at this point.
  • bodonnell - Friday, September 16, 2016 - link

    Best comment I've read all week!
  • Meteor2 - Friday, September 16, 2016 - link

    A bit harsh, I think. After all, you're reading the comments.
  • Alexey291 - Friday, September 16, 2016 - link

    Oh is that why the vast majority of their traffic is in the forum and not the articles?

    But go on, tell me more about how their articles are amazing. Especially this one which is basically regurgitated content from somewhere else.
  • tuxRoller - Friday, September 16, 2016 - link

    You are wrong about the comments providing no value. Just...so very, clearly, wrong.
    There are some extremely knowledgeable posters on this site.
  • forgot2yield28 - Friday, September 16, 2016 - link

    Eh, I cared when I needed a new reasonably priced phone last year and they neglected to ever review the 2015 Moto X Pure. And they ignored every comment calling them out on it. I enjoy reading most of the reviews, but when it came time to actually use one to base a real world purchase on, they let me down. And the comments are one of the ways that we, the readers, have to direct discussion on what we want to see. After all, without readers, they won't exist.

    (I'm still curious why they reviewed every other generation of Moto X and every generation of Moto G, but didn't even comment on why they left the 2015 version out in the cold)
  • Michael Bay - Saturday, September 17, 2016 - link

    Only explicitly leftist sites do.
  • Cygni - Friday, September 16, 2016 - link

    Considering how many people use Apple phones, how strongly Apple drives the market as a whole, and how Apple articles drive clicks... cranking out articles on the iPhone ASAP is an incredibly important aspect of their business.
  • bodonnell - Friday, September 16, 2016 - link

    Exactly! Apple articles bring readers which in turn brings in advertising revenue. People forget that they are running a business here and they have to prioritize use their resources based on what drives revenue.
  • Samus - Friday, September 16, 2016 - link

    Apple is a small company that needs all the free press it can get.
  • Alexey291 - Friday, September 16, 2016 - link

    Which in common parlance is called 'creating clickbait trash'
  • Ryan Smith - Saturday, September 17, 2016 - link

    I take any concerns about clickbait seriously. If you believe we're being clickbaity, please let me know and why. You guys are our customers - our reason to be - so if we're not doing right by you, that's a problem for us that we need to correct.
  • mkaibear - Saturday, September 17, 2016 - link

    >creating clickbait trash

    Bull. Your definition is total bull.

    Clickbait articles would have no content or no useful content at all. Producing deep dives and reviews on products is not remotely clickbait. Just because something you don't want to see reviewed is being reviewed doesn't make it clickbait.

    Apple reviews drive traffic, that is true, but it doesn't make them clickbait. If you could point at an Apple review and say "the content on this article isn't up to AT's usual standards, they have done a slapdash job in order to get some page views" then maybe you could throw that accusation of clickbait - but I defy you to find somewhere where that is true.
  • Icehawk - Sunday, September 18, 2016 - link

    I agree completely, having been a reader since just about day 1. Apple products are important and drive viewership and that is critical - same reason Intel gets more coverage than AMD. Articles here are still excellent but I would agree that the timeliness of some is very poor
  • lilo777 - Friday, September 16, 2016 - link

    "Considering how many people use Apple phones..." How many indeed? Is it still at 15% or lower?
  • alphasquadron - Friday, September 16, 2016 - link

    I think it's pretty unfair to criticize the site when you do not have to look at the expenses and revenues of the site. Sure it would be nice if they put out all phone reviews at the same amount of time but reality never works ideally as people want it to. These people are human and have flaws like being late but knowing that Apple articles probably have higher views than others and brings in more ad revenue. Who is to blame for that? Blame the people who seem to keep reading Apple articles.

    Also imo, the flaw of being late on other hardware vs Apple is based on revenue and not on favoritism or biases which is what I think people come to this site for: an unbiased mainly sticking to the facts presentation.
  • Matthmaroo - Friday, September 16, 2016 - link

    depending on the metric apple has around 30% - 50% of the US market for iphone , yes android is the other 50 -70% but of that 50 - 70% , HTC is around 2%

    nobody has a HTC 10 is my point - they after readers and clicks - not 1 guy with some very obscure phone ...
  • Vagabondjonez - Sunday, September 18, 2016 - link

    Agreed 👍 no htc 10 follow up. The editor doesn't really give a care. I reached out to him on Twitter.
  • Meteor2 - Friday, September 16, 2016 - link

    It's not much of a promise, and probably worth the same as their previous ones.
  • powerarmour - Friday, September 16, 2016 - link

    Completely agree, it's a joke.
  • fanta666 - Friday, September 16, 2016 - link

    When can we expect the HTC 10 review? been 5 months now.
  • svan1971 - Friday, September 16, 2016 - link

    Lets take a poll, how many viewers wish to see whatever you want reviewed vs those who are interested in having the iphone 7 review.
  • darwiniandude - Friday, September 16, 2016 - link

    I want the iPhone 7 review
  • 0iron - Saturday, September 17, 2016 - link

    Off course, I also want iPhone 7 review but not just part 1 (if they're planned it). A10 deep dive is more important. Next is 820 vs 8890 deep dive (which has long overdue). HTC10 is less relevant now.
  • bebaile - Friday, September 16, 2016 - link

    Hi guys! Nobody seems to comment on that but we have on one hand a UE Cat 10 Intel baseband device and on the other hand a UE Cat 12 Qualcomm device. What do you think is Apple strategy regarding the Qualcomm based iPhone theroretically capable of supporting 600 Mbps DL throughput ? Officially, the iPhone 7 is capable of 450 mbps max throughput and I understand that this is because Intel XMM 7360 doesn't support more. But still ...

    Obviously there are just a few Cat 12 LTE networks deployed currently (5 Cat 11 network according to gsacom) so this is of little interest today but still, do you think that Qualcomm baseband will be locked to support only cat 10 ? Is there any component missing to fully support cat 12 in CDMA iphone 7 and 7 plus ?
  • fanofanand - Friday, September 16, 2016 - link

    Until you can find a carrier to give you 450 mbps download speeds I'm not sure it really matters. If you find that carrier please let us all know! Most of us are in the 25-75 range so this climbing of theoretical download speeds is a bit silly. Some day of course we will have that, but by then this phone will have long been obsolete.
  • bebaile - Friday, September 16, 2016 - link

    Well in that space, and although limited to most dense areas, things are moving fast as the launch of LTE-Advanced Pro networks in several countries in 2016 has shown and by the end of the year 1 Gbps network services should be launched in most advanced market (either with the help of unlicensed spectrum or not).

    Besides the point is not to say that people individually need 600 mbps throughput, just that the higher the maximum throughput, the higher the average throughput so yes it matters in the end. I admit that from a commercial point of view, users will be equally happy next year or the year after when they will see that their iPhone is capable of 600 Mbps since that capability will have been deployed in more network but as a user i prefer to make an enlightened choice between a Qualcomm based iPhone 7 and an Intel based iPhone 7.
  • sonicmerlin - Friday, September 16, 2016 - link

    Why does it feel like I'm the only one annoyed we now have GSM only and CDMA only iPhones? Apple went backwards. My 6S is a nearly global phone that can be used on almost any network, and makes switching between American carriers extremely easy.

    Why would Apple give itself more work in terms of managing radio firmware and device models?
  • mkozakewich - Friday, September 16, 2016 - link

    If you buy one unlocked, you'll undoubtedly get the Qualcomm one. The Intel chip was probably cheaper, and would end up in all the carrier-locked versions on GSM networks.
  • name99 - Friday, September 16, 2016 - link

    Why indeed...
    As always the internet is obsessed with the shiny ("ooh, no headphone jack") and incapable of looking at the big picture.

    Apple is already now shipping a custom wireless chip. Yes, it's (apparently) BT only (though if it supports BT3, it may also have a WiFi element to it). But moving wireless processing onto their SoC, and having a wireless portfolio, has long been an obvious move in terms of reducing space and giving them another place where they can try to control power and provide new experiences outside the constraints of how QC thinks wireless should be done.

    So how do they get access to those wireless patents and know-how? Sometimes you have to take one for the team, and in this case taking one means making a deal with Intel. "We'll buy your modem, we'll accept the flack that comes from people saying it's inferior (both by specs, and perhaps, by performance), we'll put up with the SKU hassle. And in return, here's how you will help us"...
  • stlc8tr - Friday, September 16, 2016 - link

    "Why does it feel like I'm the only one annoyed we now have GSM only and CDMA only iPhones?"

    For the US market, you can have a GSM-only iPhone (AT&T/TMobile) and a GSM/CDMA iPhone (Sprint/Verizon). There is no CDMA-only iPhone.
  • iwod - Friday, September 16, 2016 - link

    Its time for Anandtech to do a article on Intel modem as well. After all these years Intel has finally shipped a modem on a Smartphone that Actually has MANY people using it.

    I would really like to know what node is the 7360 fabbed on.
  • Ariknowsbest - Saturday, September 17, 2016 - link

    7360 is most likely fabbed on TSMC 28nm, like the rest of Intels modem.
  • Pneumothorax - Monday, September 19, 2016 - link

    In other words, inferior to Qualcomm. Now we're getting reports that the Intel chipped 7's are having frequent wifi/LTE disconnection issues requiring a reboot. Now why does this sound so familiar?! Hint Hint: many laptops/tablets with Intel wifi issues.
  • Deelron - Friday, September 16, 2016 - link

    It wouldn't be the first time they used different components in a device that had marginally different specs. As long as both modems meet he advertised speed, it's not concerning in that sense.

    I doubt Apple has any strategy given the modem differences, I doubt (in the real world) there will be enough of a noticeable difference in speed to mean anything over a 3 year life cycle, and if it does work out for an individual here or there, great you got a slight bonus
  • stux - Friday, September 16, 2016 - link

    In answer to your question, yes, imo, knowing apples style, they would lock it down to Cat 10 rather than bifurcate the userbase. Also simplifies conformance testing.

    Doesn't mean they have of course
  • zeeBomb - Friday, September 16, 2016 - link

    >2900 mAh (rumours said 2675)
    > Both cams have OIS
    >Still the good Cirrus Logic audio
    >Still rated a 7 even though it's waterproof
    >INTEL!!!
  • zeeBomb - Friday, September 16, 2016 - link

    >Larger force touch on +
    >dat second speaker cheese
  • tipoo - Friday, September 16, 2016 - link

    I thought ifixit said only the main camera had OIS, not the zoom camera?
  • tipoo - Friday, September 16, 2016 - link

    Oh, or did you mean both as in the base 7 and the 7 Plus.
  • danbob999 - Friday, September 16, 2016 - link

    Haven't his web site said in the past that Apple couldn't use an odd number (such as 3 GB) for RAM since Apple used a dual-channel architecture and it would reduce performance?
  • lowlymarine - Friday, September 16, 2016 - link

    I believe only the X-series Apple SoCs (A8X, A9X, etc.) use dual-channel memory controllers.
  • Ryan Smith - Friday, September 16, 2016 - link

    One of the more interesting aspects about LPDDR4 is that it can come in non-power-of-two quantities. So Apple would still be using an even number of dies to fill out a 64-bit wide memory bus.
  • danbob999 - Friday, September 16, 2016 - link

    Is this confirmed by the teardown?
  • Ryan Smith - Saturday, September 17, 2016 - link

    That it's 3GB? Yes, the iFixit teardown confirms this (and Samsung has a suitable part in their public parts list).
  • azulon1 - Monday, September 26, 2016 - link

    Are you saying that you do not need a 192 bit bus in order to do 3 GB, in other words is it going to be like the Nvidia GTX 970 were a part of the memory is not used effectively or at the same speed? Please someone needs to explain this because I don't want to buy the iPhone 7 Plus if this is the case. I asked an employee at the Apple store but he said he had no idea even though he works there and then he asked the manager and the manager said he had no idea. And then I called Apple and they said they don't disclose that kind of stuff. Don't disclose? How is someone supposed to buy things if they don't inform us. I don't want something like The GTX 970.
  • evefavretto - Friday, September 16, 2016 - link

    Worth noting that the iFixit 7 Plus is a Japanese model(A1785). That probably explain the Qualcomm modem, since it has CDMA.
  • Spoony - Friday, September 16, 2016 - link

    I'm waiting patiently on the camera sensor sizes and lens Z-Depth. The only site I can find which digs in a little on this is here: http://www.astramael.com/5

    And they are, as they say, just speculating. The computed EXIF claims don't appear to be valid?
  • Ej24 - Friday, September 16, 2016 - link

    Interesting that theres a DAC upstream of the lightening port. It makes sense to put it there rather than the adapter/dongle because that would make the dongle 10x more expensive. Though this does somewhat negate the reason for foregoing the 3.5mm jack as the DAC is still taking up space.

    Personally I'm glad they kept the DAC in the phone, I've used micro-usb to 3.5mm on my Galaxy S6 with standard headphones, out of curiosity, and it was an abhorred experience without a DAC anywhere in-line. The worst sound quality i've ever experienced. Unfortunately I can imagine many android OEM's not including a DAC in their phones without 3.5mm, leading to horrible experience when using headphones without an internal DAC. Now we'll all have to pay attention to who has the best DAC in their headphones. We're really no better off...
  • solipsism - Friday, September 16, 2016 - link

    " Though this does somewhat negate the reason for foregoing the 3.5mm jack as the DAC is still taking up space."

    Not as much as the audio jack component. Plus, the DAC is a flat chip that can be placed pretty much anywhere, and the port component uses the internal thickness and has to placed on an edge, and on the top or bottom.
  • name99 - Friday, September 16, 2016 - link

    And, once again, there is a longer game here --- maybe the reason Apple succeeds is that they are thinking three years ahead, not three weeks ahead?

    The longer term game is, of course, universal wireless headphones, and AirBuds as Apple's second wearable platform. (Why not immediate wireless? My guess is that, at least in part, Apple want to see how different wireless form factors play out --- do people prefer larger headsets? Do they want a cord joining the two buds? Are they comfortable with the stalks that hold the AirBud mics? etc. They will, I am sure, be very closely tracking the sales of AirBuds compared to the different wireless form factors that Beats offers.)

    There are many ways this could play out. For example Apple could also sell the W1 chip to third parties as its first "Apple Inside" piece of hardware. Most of the value for Apple of the W1 is in the way it works well with the rest of the Apple ecosystem; so there's really no downside to Apple becoming a chip vendor for Bose, Sennheiser, etc. And once Apple get's comfortable selling its first chip, the way opens for them to grow a whole new business on the side...
  • lilo777 - Friday, September 16, 2016 - link

    What's W1? I am pretty sure it's just a simple SOC with standard BT and a few extra Apple-specific features. Why would anyone even want to license it?
  • name99 - Friday, September 16, 2016 - link

    Uhh, to GET those "few extra Apple-specific features." Duh.
  • stux - Friday, September 16, 2016 - link

    Yes, if upgrade both my phone and Bose headphones if Bose came out with a W1 enabled set of qc headphones
  • Death666Angel - Friday, September 16, 2016 - link

    How can you get any sound without a DAC? Or was the DAC in the microUSB to 3.5mm adapter?
    I think this will just further muddy the waters, now there will be DAC enabled lighting headphones, non-DAC lightning headphones, people using them on older iPhones. I wouldn't want to be someone having to explain any of that to your typical iPhone user.
  • Constructor - Saturday, September 17, 2016 - link

    You're describing the problems correctly which would indeed be a consequence of such a design, but the new adapter actually works with all Lightning devices according to Apple themselves, including the oldest ones which definitely needed an external DAC for Lightning audio; So the only possible conclusion is that the new adapter does in fact contain its own DAC, as all other Lightning audio devices have before it.
  • Pneumothorax - Sunday, September 18, 2016 - link

    The other possibility is that the lightning port is more customizable with software upgrades than previously thought as after iOS 10 upgrade my Air 2 is now working with iPhone 7 adapter. One other plausible explanation is that Apple had plans on eliminating headphone port years ago with the implementation of Lightning. Your theory will be right of course once someone tears apart the adapter.
  • Constructor - Sunday, September 18, 2016 - link

    As far as I've heard so far, in the iPhone 5 there is no audio going into the Lightning host adapter chip, so no chance of that. And "configurability" is no actual magic. You'd still need a DAC, and the older devices clearly didn't have one for Lightning.
  • mkozakewich - Friday, September 16, 2016 - link

    Something I heard was that the iPhone Plus might need more RAM for the camera fusion it's doing. It could be that and the screen resolution together required this increase in RAM.
  • blackcrayon - Saturday, September 17, 2016 - link

    Yeah. And I bet it doesn't need a whole other *GB* of RAM, but that's the next convenient amount. And of course a little nice-to-haveness when not using the camera (went with the 2 GB 7 myself though).
  • azulon1 - Monday, September 26, 2016 - link

    Yea I don't get this how do you do 3gb for a chip that does 2gb? I mean you can go 4gb but how 3gb. Let's assume 128bit bus. How do you do 3gb on that?unless Apple is doing 192 bit bus. This is annoying they could have just done 4gb. Damn this stinginess. I am happy but still dam this stinginess with RAM.
  • zodiacfml - Friday, September 16, 2016 - link

    That chip is huge. I am not a fan of Apple but they just push it when it is necessary or even cool.
    Isn't it overkill for this kind of performance?
  • Death666Angel - Friday, September 16, 2016 - link

    Intel Broadwell U CPU with Iris Graphics has 133mm² die size, the smaller CPUs have 82mm². So this thing is huge at 125mm².
  • Morawka - Friday, September 16, 2016 - link

    wish the A10 had hardware h.265 support.. hell or even software support.
  • name99 - Friday, September 16, 2016 - link

    It does, as did the A9. It just hasn't been evangelized by Apple
    (I'm guessing as part of some sort of hardball negotiating strategy over the h.265 patent pool nonsense --- Apple can tell the patent holders "well, you can keep being dicks for as long as you like, but every month you refuse to be reasonable is a month you're not getting your content in our store, you're not getting your brand out, and we're investigating switching to VP9.
    tick tock. tick tock. tick tock.")
  • tipoo - Friday, September 16, 2016 - link

    Not at all - by spending more on a larger die, they can go with wide large designs that perform well at relatively modest clock speeds - they're only breaching 2GHz now when others were trying to shove way above that with narrow low IPC cores.

    This means they throttle a lot less at high load than the "racehorse" cores that try to make up for low widths with high clocks, and that doesn't go well.

    It's the Piledriver vs Intel i situation all over again in phones, really.
  • negusp - Sunday, September 18, 2016 - link

    Not really, because the A10 in the iPhone won't be licensed out and iOS, being closed-source as it is, doesn't even use a fraction of the A10's potential.
  • azulon1 - Monday, September 26, 2016 - link

    There are many many many many ways to use the power of this chip in iOS. For example you can use apps like pipe in a store in order to process code and furthermore you could obviously edit 4K movies that you shoot using this camera and then there's all those games.
  • name99 - Friday, September 16, 2016 - link

    It's 20% larger than the TSMC A9. It's 85% of the size of the A9X. It's basically the size of the original A5 (122sqmm)

    Let's not get carried away with this "That chip is huge" nonsense. It's perfectly in keeping with Apple's chip sizes for the last 6 years or more.
  • newtech2016 - Friday, September 16, 2016 - link

    Dont like the way things are going, there is a big diference betwen 7 & 7plus. Really I didnt like the two camera setup for the larger iPhone. Jobs wouldn´t allow this in the first place.
  • darwiniandude - Friday, September 16, 2016 - link

    You don't like the dual cameras? The dual cameras are a way to get past the form factor limits of phones. The 56mm with telephoto group in that space has to have no optical image stabilisation and a smaller aperture letting less light in, so it's a compromise, they need the normal camera as well.

    Job's wouldn't have allowed this? A better camera? I think he'd be thrilled about it. This setup has never been done before.
  • SyukriLajin - Saturday, September 17, 2016 - link

    Never been done before? Lol
  • BillBear - Friday, September 16, 2016 - link

    According to Gruber, Apple confirmed to him that both cameras on the plus use the same sensor, although the secondary camera lacks optical image stabilization.

    http://daringfireball.net/2016/09/the_iphones_7
  • tipoo - Friday, September 16, 2016 - link

    It's interesting that no one seems to have a Globalfoundries chip model yet, as the 6S was a lottery between that and TSMC...I wonder if they stopped dual sourcing.
  • name99 - Friday, September 16, 2016 - link

    What are you talking about? There was never even a rumor that GF was in the running. And given that Apple is taking advantage of InFo (which right now is a TSMC specialty), there's zero reason to believe they're in any way part of the A10.

    IF (and this is a BIG IF) GF has a working 10nm process in place right now that they've kept secret, they might have a chance with the A11. But TSMC has already announced publicly its 10nm process is up and running for early development, and you can bet Apple has A11 prototypes on it.
  • jaxdid - Saturday, September 17, 2016 - link

    It's not a piece of plastic. Its a barometer.

    Highlights vis-a-vis comments here that no matter how much espouse the supposed engineering Apple should have done, most people don't have a clue.
  • solipsism - Monday, September 19, 2016 - link

    It's weird that both iFixit and AnandTech would report it as a near useless piece of plastic used as a bumper for the haptic motor when it clearly has a cable connecting it to the board and a water-resistant seal around it when it sit over the holes in the casing.
  • lefty2 - Saturday, September 17, 2016 - link

    > Until you can find a carrier to give you 450 mbps download speeds I'm not sure it really matters.
    You're right. The download speed probably doesn't matter too much. What does matter is the Qualcomm modem is much better than Intel's. Better signal reception and lower power consumption. Also, I believe the X12 is 20nm, while Intel's modem is on 28nm.
  • mrvco - Sunday, September 18, 2016 - link

    As homogenized as the smart phone market has become, I'm surprised anyone still bothers with these teardowns.
  • kfishy - Monday, September 19, 2016 - link

    Regarding where the smaller cores are, it looks like it may be sandwiched in between the two SRAM blocks. The L1 and L2 caches look quite small, but since it's so close to L3 and clocked so low it may not make a difference.
  • Vulpy - Saturday, September 24, 2016 - link

    Looking at the iPhone 7 HW, I can't stop thinking of Nokia s last yrs as a phone manufacturer.
    They played it so safe (I was an engineer in the mobile comm business working with them and Samsung at that time), and they thought innovation is an outdated concept, believing that people look for absolute performance e as opposed to new ideas, design and customization.

    Apple is heading that way too, give them 2 yrs and they will be history.
  • lowtolerance - Monday, September 26, 2016 - link

    LOL that is nothing but magical thinking. Apple has enough cash on reserve that they could operate as they do today and still last way longer than two years even if they never sold another device.

Log in

Don't have an account? Sign up now