According to TechCrunch, that represents 5 per cent of Apple’s entire non-retail workforce. Crazy. But also brilliant. Apple was one of the first to start moving to flash memory for non-phone devices, and that helped them modernise form factor as we know it right now. But also, the every-last-drop graphical performance of the A5, and future chips, presumably, allows Apple to make products that perform well with lesser specs than competitors, such as the rumoured 512MB RAM in the iPhone 4S.
So yeah, we knew that moving us past the PC era is a huge priority for Apple, but dedicating this many employees to pushing its mobile, tablet, and whatever untold new frontiers might be out there forward shows just how serious they are. [TechCrunch]
MotorMouth
Wednesday, October 12, 2011 at 10:48 AMYet they still can’t match the likes of nVidia’s Tegra which, in it’s 3rd iteration, is set to blow the rest of them out of the water.
Then their is Microsoft, whose new OS is able to flatter lesser hardware. My netbook went from being a typical netbook experience to now feeling as fast as my workstation most of the time. (I’m typing this on it, while my workstation looks on with envy.)
So Apple need to put a big effort into their R&D if they want to remain competitive.
bryan
Wednesday, October 12, 2011 at 1:01 PMAre you stupid? Apple is struggling to remain competitive? Yes. You are stupid.
MotorMouth
Wednesday, October 12, 2011 at 1:43 PMI think you have a problem with comprehension. When I said “if they want to remain competitive”, that indicates that I believe they are competitive at the moment. But with things like 5-core Tegra 3 devices due before the end of the year and a raft of new WP7 phones about to hit the market, the bar is being raised significantly at an unprecedented pace. Apple can only rely on their marketing and the general ignorance of the market for so long. Once big companies like Toshiba, Acer, et al can boast 5 CPU cores to Apple’s 2, people will sit up and take notice, believe me. I think Tegra 3 could be a real game changer, especially once Win8 becomes available to make it seem even faster, and Apple are going to have to really pull one out to keep up. Just think about it, who would stump up for a new iPad 2 when they could be running all their familiar PC applications on a slick looking 16:9 tablet that feels twice as fast and costs about the same?
Joel
Wednesday, October 12, 2011 at 2:06 PM‘Just think about it, who would stump up for a new iPad 2 when they could be running all their familiar PC applications on a slick looking 16:9 tablet that feels twice as fast and costs about the same?’
The general public, whose whole reason for buying an iPad with iPad specific iOS is so that they DON’T have to run shitty windows applications.
miguel sanchez
Thursday, October 13, 2011 at 1:14 AMIt’s all about the user experience, you dolts!