[hmurchison]

ARM hits 32nm and enables 1080p HD video in a small package

High-end smartphones could see a 10 percent to 20 percent improvement in battery life but process data faster with the 32-nm chips, Bruce said. The chips will integrate 1080p video encoding and decoding, and high-speed network capabilities. The level of integration could also bring better processing capabilities to smartphones. The quad-core Cortex-A9 chip will be the first chip rolled out using the 32-nm process, and it could go into both smartphones and netbooks, Bruce said.

Nice battery life improvement if they can hit the upper end of that 10-20 percent improvement. The integrated 1080p video would be nice as well. I guess now we can see why Grand Central and other Snow Leopard tech is so vital to Apple and in a way why PPC support is being jettisoned early.

Gives credence to the former Quad Core iPhone rumors

I'd say that the 2010 iPhone is going to be flaming lava hot. I'd expect nothing less than

A device with HD Video capture and playback
AMOLED screen
At least dual cores
Much better camera
PowerVR SGX 5xx series graphics

If one is to buy a 3rd gen iPhone they can wait for second generation multi core iPhones in 2011 and imagine the power of iPhone revision 5.

[psmith2.0]

Wow.

My general plan was to "step up" this summer, and try to get a 32GB (all my music - ~15GB - with plenty of room to spare for apps, photos, etc.). But as long as this little first-gen 4GB model chugs along, maybe I'll wait.

Then again, it would be nice to have 3G speeds (most places I go don't have WiFi), so maybe I will do what you suggest (and stick to my original plan): a third-generation phone this summer (two years after my first one), skip the 2010 model and then, two years later, get a 2011 model of whatever is out there.

An iPhone every two years probably allows for enough improvement/innovation to make it feel like a true improvement or upgrade. I'm not going to do the yearly, "every time there's a new model" change (unless they got down to $99 and it wasn't such a big hit).

BTW, did everyone catch the alleged leaked photos of the upcoming iPhone, with a more matte, textured finish on the back? I'm not sure how legit these are being viewed...

[hmurchison]

Same here Paul. Software generally trails the hardware so say Apple does deliver a PA Semi massaged Quad Core iPhone next year you really won't see a lot of apps taking advantage until 2011 is my guess. If we don't see AMOLED screens in Rev 3 I'm sure we'll have them by 2010.

LG has been doing a lot of work on them and we all know Apple invested 500 million in LG for their display tech.

Next up we need DisplayPort to ratify their Mobile Display interface so that a dinky little phone size connector can output HD files and support the ugly but necessary HDCP encryption.

[Dorian Gray]

Interesting. Soon the iPhone will be more powerful than the PowerBook I'm typing on!

From the article:

Last week, Intel announced that it would be moving rapidly to 32-bit nanometer production of its microprocessors. Arm wanted to show that its partners will have access to similar technology, Bruce said.

With Intel's Atom and derivatives, and ARM's increasingly powerful chips, it looks like Intel and ARM are on a collision course. Adobe's announcement that Flash is coming to ARM devices will add energy to the collision, as will the adoption of cloud computing. I wonder if x86 will still dominate personal computing in ten years.

[Miko]

With Apple's track record lately I'm also with scates. I will just jump on the latest model once my contract is up for renewal.

I really am a casual app user so a quad core while it sounds great, I have gotten along just fine with the current iPhone set-up and hardware. all I really care about is how good the call quality is and the improvements to the OS to keep up with other advanced phones like um... Palm's pre.