Source code snooping points to upcoming quad-core Apple processor

By on Sep 23, 2011 at 12:30 PM
mobile September 23, 2011

Apple may already be working on a quad-core Apple-branded mobile processor for inclusion in upcoming iPhone, iPad and iPod touch models. Apple’s eventual move to a quad-core chipset in its iOS devices seems certain, but it looks like we now have evidence that preliminary quad-core testing may already be under way. While inspecting the source code for the Clang compiler bundled with Apple’s Xcode developer tools, an unnamed developer alerted Ars Technica to new references within the code that add support for a quad-core processor. Read on for more.

“A developer who works on low-level ARM assembly coding for security products was the first to alert Ars that support had been added for Armada’s Cortex A9-compatible processors in the latest version of Xcode (a claim that we later confirmed first-hand),” Ars Technica’s Chris Foresman wrote on Friday. “The source code for a part of Clang that interprets what CPU type is being targeted for optimization includes a definition for an architecture type of “armv7k” and CPU type “pj4b“. PJ4B is a specially optimized CPU design used in Marvell’s quad-core Armada XP embedded processors. Source code available from the LLVM project, including Apple-specific branches, doesn’t contain any reference to the Marvell design.”

Foresman goes on to suggest that the most probable explanation for the inclusion of the code in Apple’s bundled compiler is that the company may be using quad-core Marvell chips in prototype iPhone and iPad hardware — or even in an ARM-based MacBook Air — for testing as the company preps its own quad-core offering. A screenshot of the source code in question follows below.

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  • Anonymous

    sweet!!

  • Anonymous

    Analysts predict this will be in far from upcoming Iphone 6, that will also have LTE, and will be produced one year after Android phones have quad core processors.

    • KCRic

      Got to love those anal-ysts. I should have got a degree in that. It’s like being a weatherman.

      • High School’s Kewl

        Aren’t you guys late for fifth period or something? Gym class maybe?

      • http://twitter.com/iMarky_Marc Marc Jarvis

        Like android fanboys go to gym class, star wars club maybe?

      • Anonymous

        I’d rather go to a stars wars club meeting than a gay bar like most Iphone owners.

      • Remington Jackson

        Hey that’s enough of that since both platforms have their strength, but you know they are right android phones will have quad cores (really five cores since that is what Kal-El has) before any iphone device. Well maybe a new iPad if icomes out next year. I have to say I may not be gay, but using it in that way is really offensive.

    • Anonymous

      It will be in the iPad 3 in early to mid 2012, and in the late 2012 iPhone. The devices will be much faster than quad-core Android devices, because iOS is so much faster than Android (compiled code, GPU support, mature OS core) and because Apple’s chips have by far the biggest mobile GPU’s. They design their GPU’s for the iPad. Everyone else is doing GPU’s for phones.

      • Anonymous

        keep on dreaming

      • Anonymous

        actually, though he was exaggerating a bit, the ipad 2 is much more powerful than competing tabs, not that it means the same will be true of the ipad 3

  • Anonymous

    Nice. Should speed things up..

  • Bringit

    the best gets better.

    • Anonymous

      Really! what’s the best.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Umairmuhammadalikhan-Umairkhan/100000724275502 Umairmuhammadalikhan Umairkhan

    Mighty iPAD3

    • Anonymous

      I don’t like your username.

  • Anonymous

    quad core iPhone 6

  • http://www.droiddoes.com/ Norm

    DROID will have this before apple ever does

    • Anonymous

      No this is a newly magical concept, says “the sheep”.

      • Anonymous

        I know, right.  We, Goofans (aka Apple Haters) AKA GSheep, have been told, and we believe, you need a quad core processor on the phones and because Google says it, well, it MUST be true.

      • Remington Jackson

        Hey Google never even said it needed dual cores that is part of the reason why all the nexus phones, well until the primes comes out dont have them. Really its up to the OEM if they want that, seeing how motorola jumped on the tegra first Im sure another company will go ahead in put Kal-El or another quad core in an android phone during the Q1 2012. IOS has gread hardware optimization, but you dont get the latest. Just get some people like android for what it is, not just because they hate apple. I mean would you want to leave in a world where everyone used the same things, come get variety in your life. Not saying that going with apple is wrong just don’t put down people that don’t see a reason to buy apple products.

      • Anonymous

        Hey man. All good points.

        I’m going to get out of character for a minute.

        I’m a big fan of both. I love all my Google products and Apple products. I just like to have fun with the guys here that really dread touching Apple because they are afraid of what their friends will say. By the way, the same happens with the Apple fanboys. So I’m just having fun Norelco. :-)

        That last line was back in character by the way!

    • Anonymous

      Android have almost everything before apple does. And it sucks.

      • Anonymous

        I agree, Apple sucks.

    • Anonymous

      Yeah, but Android needs faster software. It runs too slow on dual 1.5GHz. It doesn’t use the GPU. The apps are not compiled. With iOS, Apple is able to get teh snappy even with the chip idling at half speed to save battery life. iOS users are not asking for more speed, they are asking why their other devices seem so slow compared to iPad or iPhone.

      • Anonymous

        baah baah baah

  • BBA Brian

    lol quad core on a smartphone…..

    you don’t even need quad core on PC’s….

    • Anonymous

      You should try running that bloated piece of shit iTunes. It needs all the power it can get.

      • Anonymous

        It is a POS, but sadly it is still better than what others offer =(

      • Anonymous

        fre:ac + drag and drop do the job perfectly.

      • IPwn

        My MacBook pro runs iTunes just fine no quad core required

      • Anonymous

        Try Safari or iTunes on a Windows PC. You will be in tears by the time it eventually loads.
        And no, the problem isn’t Windows, it’s Apple and their poor, bloated software.

        It’s great that you have a MacBook Pro. Awesum in fact.

      • IPwn

        Ya in windows it isn’t pleasant I agree. However Microsoft makes crappy bloate software for Macs. I have Office 11 for school and it takes forever for word to open or excel. On a windows computer no problem.

      • s3cz0n3

        Of course it does, iTunes on OS X was written using the native Cocoa API. A long long time ago when NeXT was still in business they created a software product called YellowBox that allowed applications written in the OpenStep API, what later became cocoa, to be compiled as a windows application. NeXT’s products; NeXTStep OS/OPENSTEP OS and the OpenStep API, we’re popular amongst financial and intelligence agencies b/c it offered the ability to rapidly develop and deploy complex modeling applications. At the time NeXT thought it wise to create a suite of tools that allowed OpenStep code to be easily compiled in windows(98 at the time). Anyhow, it is extremely likely that Apple has maintained and evolved YellowBox over the years alongside of OS X in order to develop windows apps like iTunes and Safari. Unfortunately, it was a project that likely only had one or two software engineers assigned to it. Translation: YellowBox was never properly optimized and therefore resulting applications are slow and shitty. Why apple simply didn’t develop iTunes and safari using native MS API’s is beyond me. I guess it allowed them to maintain a fairly similar code base. Really the only point of safari on windows was because iTunes on windows needed its integrated WebKit engine and the only reason for iTunes was that Apple likes selling iPods, iPhones and iPads.

        It’s not that the design of iTunes is all that bad. It’s actually rather functional IMO and a pleasure to use in OS X. The real problem lies under the hood, in Apple’s antiquated and poorly optimized proprietary/in-house SDK for windows. It’s rather ironic that for a company that invests so many resources into and values UX at such a ridiculous level that they would even allow iTunes for windows in its current state. They place such high value on every aspect of the Apple experience, from the buying experience, to unboxing to exactly what is allowed on their platform. iTunes on windows just seems like such a glaring oversight, but then again SJ uses a Mac!

      • Anonymous

        I’d rather have that than Android offering nothing at all on the PC.

      • Anonymous

        fre:ac + drag and drop work for me but there is a little more than “nothing” on PC.

        Try MediaMonkey, WinAmp, DoubleTwist, iSyncr or Songbird to “sync” music. Hell, if you’re on Linux, use Banshee, great open source application. If Google Music is available in your country, cut the cord and use that.

        I do hope that you’ve learned something today.

      • Anonymous

        @Chaz_UK If you think that iTunes for PC is just a sync tool then you shouldn’t have replied. The only thing that compares is MS’s own solutions, which I think is better. 

      • Anonymous

        You won’t catch me hating on Microsoft’s Zune software. It’s fucking awesome.

        Performs brilliantly, well coded and feature packed. I’d rather have nothing if iTunes is all that’s on offer.

        I prefer being able to drag and drop media to and from my Android phone. I like to be able to use any browser wherever I am to source and install Apps. I have zero interest in purchasing drm laden video content. I’ll purchase my music from Amazon and enjoy better prices that way.

        At most, all I’ll use iTunes for is to sync my iOS devices. Not because I want to mind you.

      • Anonymous

        If you are running it on Windows, yes.

        But iTunes is being replaced by iCloud in like 2 weeks.

    • Anonymous

      Um, yes we do!

  • Anonymous

    A quad core on a tablet or smartphone? Why? What are you gonna do on a tablet that’s going to take advantage of four cores?

    • Steveblow Jobs

      Look at the pics of your momma that’s what..

      • Anonymous

        So you enjoy looking at dead people? Get help quick

    • Anonymous

      The main reason why iOS is limiting is because there is limited processing power on these devices. When they get better processors, they can add other PC-like features to iOS. iOS isn’t limited because it lacks a physical keyboard or mouse.

    • Remington Jackson

      Well besides high graphic games it makes video editing a bit better as long as the gpu is integrated nicely. Beyond the video encoding would be good, but I dont see that as reason since most tablets and smartphone don’t handle as wide of a variety of video formats compared to desktops or laptops.

  • http://twitter.com/Technogies1 Technogies

    thats a nice technogie……

  • http://profiles.google.com/jshurak Jeff Shurak

    2014

  • Jraphael25

    There is no-way Apple will let Android beat them to this punch. I am willing to bet that iPhone 5 has Q4.

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=25001493 Hank Godwin

      Nope.  Android phone manufacturers beat Apple to dual-core and they will most likely be the first with quad core CPUs.

  • Anonymous

    The reason I, and the rest of the Goofan (aka Apple Hater) nation, like this is because Samsung, because they are closely aligned with Google, are NOT an evil corporation.  

    • http://profiles.google.com/jshurak Jeff Shurak

      And apple is all about butterflies and puppies right?  Why is there an obscene number of apple people on here that pretend to be android people?

      Furthermore, 90% of the time, you only succeed in trolling apple fans. Its like scoring on your own goalie.

      • Anonymous

        What?  Are you out of your freaking mind????  Don’t say that out loud.  If my fellow Goofans (aka Apple Haters) heard you, I would be banned from our association.  Dude, you have to be careful!  

      • Remington Jackson

        Please you are too obvious, get off this board with that.

  • IOS Pilfer

     All Hail IOS ! .. wait a minute Cisco Had that name first for their Switches and Routers IOS, and Apple pilfered the name.. For a place that is suppose to be creative they are copying quite a bit …

  • http://www.apple.com/ios/ios5/ BoyRetardedReport

    I don’t understand why everyone wants a Quad Core? I would much rather stay with a Dual Core, I think Single Core is just as good as well… Why do you need more power? My iPhone runs extremely fast, never crashes, and barely lags… I would rather keep a Dual Core than have a Quad Core with 1/4 of the battery!

    Same with 4G! Why do you want a 4G phone so bad? 3G works excellent and if you aren’t in a 4G area it drops to 2G which sucks ass. Also when you are in a 4G area it drains the battery ridiculously fast

    Right now, Android companies are at a spec war with each other, they think people are going to look at the specs and see ’1.5GHz, 4G, 5.3″ screen, ect.’ and they think people are going to buy it because of monster specs, I bought my macbook instead of a totally pimped out Sony because Apple products… just work!

    • Remington Jackson

      You are right the average person doesn’t really know a lot about specs. Really most people don’t even realize that we really don’t even have 4G based on the ITC. However, companies like verizon, at&t, sprint, and tmobile keep sending out messages how what they have now is better than normal 3G. 

      So really companies like HTC, Samsung, and Motorola are competing in a spec, but why not as long as they show why in an easy way they will capture enough people. Remember what works for you does not work for everyone, in fact it may not even work for the most people if you look at global market share. So stop hating, especially since apple helps google. I mean you can still use google apps on your phone, plus it helps with mobile search. 

  • Tedley

    And unless the iPhone battery is 3″ thick due to a 5000mAh battery, it may not make it through the boot sequence without a battery charge.  LOL  

    Android handsets will be praised for their long battery life in comparison. 

  • Anonymous

    That guy must be an idiot.  Armada XP is a SERVER chip drawing 10w of power.  With a large 10 inch Retina Display with a 25w/h battery, you would be getting less than an hour of battery life.

  • Anonymous

    They are going to double the cores every year. This is no surprise at all. The bigger these chips get, the more advantage Apple has, because OS X is a desktop class system. The sooner we get to 16 cores, the better for Apple. They have been running OS X on 16 cores for many years now.

  • Anonymous

    A post like this have to come from zach honestly you can spot his work a mile away another rumor NEXT!

  • Anonymous

    if quad core helps battery life as well as ive heard, the ipad 3′s battery life will be insane

  • Guest

    I’ll save BGR some time:
    Devices that are single-core… eventually become dual core.
    Dual-core will eventually become quad-core.
    Etc.

    Since you don’t know that’s going to happen in 2014 (or even next month)… what’s the point????

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