Competition for quad-core smartphones to heat up in Q4, says report

Jul 6, 2012 07:54 GMT  ·  By

A report coming from one particularly spotty Taiwanese source says Apple is gearing up to release its sixth-generation iPhone based on Samsung’s Exynos 4 quad-core architecture.

The Cupertino giant, however, has secured numerous IPs in the ARM department in the past few years, allowing it to design and optimize its own architecture for iOS and the iPhone hardware.

The A4, A5 and A5X chips are perfect for the iPhone and iPad, and there’s no reason Apple should abandon this strategy. We should also expect the quad-core A6 relatively soon.

“Competition for quad-core smartphones will heat up in the fourth quarter of 2012, triggering by the roll-out of much speculated new iPhone and models built based on Qualcomm's quad-core chips,” industry sources reportedly told the publication.

“Additionally, Apple is also expected to release its next-generation iPhone built on Samsung's Exynos 4 quad-core processor in the second half, heating up competition in the segment,” the sources reportedly commented.

Electronista appropriately points out to a Steve Jobs quote in Walter Isaacson’s biography of the visionary genius, outlining the strategy behind Apple’s acquisition of several processor designers to churn out its own ARM chip, in order to keep Intel out of its iPhone and iPad.

Jobs specifically said, "There were two reasons we didn’t go with them [Intel]. One was that they are just really slow. They’re like a steamship, not very flexible. We’re used to going pretty fast. Second is that we just didn’t want to teach them everything, which they could go and sell to our competitors."

In that respect, it’s pretty hard to believe Apple will forego its own research and development in favor of Samsung’s Exynos 4.

Then again, the two companies are already working together to create the A-series chips inside the iPhone and the iPad. Apple could re-brand the Exynos to “A6” for its own products.