Intel distanced itself from criticism of Apple's iPhone made by executives at the company's Intel Developer Forum conference in Taipei, saying the comments were not appropriate. The chip maker also acknowledged its own products weren't yet suitable for such a product.Earlier this week, Intel executives Shane Wall and Pankaj Kedia described the iPhone as slow and said the popular handset wasn't able to run the "full Internet" because it uses an Arm processor, instead of an Intel chip. The executives comments -- which neglected to note that Intel doesn't make a low-power processor capable of powering a handset like the iPhone -- were reported by ZDNet Australia, causing consternation within Intel's PR ranks.
Intel's low-power Atom processor does not yet match the battery life characteristics of the Arm processor in a phone form factor; and, that while Intel does have plans on the books to get us to be competitive in the ultra low power domain -- we are not there as yet," the statement said.
The comments by Wall and Kedia are at odds with other statements by Intel executives, who generally lavish praise on the iPhone for its design and success in giving users easy access to the Internet. The remarks may have also put Intel in a difficult spot with Apple, since Intel is widely believed to be hopeful that Apple will use its low-power processors in future products.
THIS WEEK CURRENT NEWS
*Microsoft's chief financial officer outlined a three-part plan the company will undertake to weather the current economic crisis, which spurred Microsoft to lower its revenue and earnings expectations for fiscal 2009 on Thursday.
*Sun hasn't had much good news to report lately, so it wasn't surprising that it went into spin mode Thursday after startup company Arista Networks announced that it had snared Andreas Bechtolsheim, Sun's chief scientist and a highly regarded systems designer, to be its chief development officer.
*Microsoft at its Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles next week will expand access to its Surface SDK for building applications for its surface computing platform.
*Amazon Thursday announced that after two years in beta mode, its Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) cloud computing service is now generally available. At the same time, the company said the hosted service is adding beta-level support for Microsoft Windows and SQL Server.
* Intel's upcoming Calpella platform, which is due next year, focuses primarily on energy efficiency and battery life.
Intel® Core™2 Extreme quad-core processor
When more is better-with four processing cores the Intel Core 2 Extreme processor delivers unrivaled¹ performance for the latest, greatest generation of multi-threaded games and multimedia apps.
Now with a new version based on Intel's cutting edge 45nm technology utilizing hafnium-infused circuitry to deliver even greater performance and power efficiency. The Intel® Core™2 Extreme processor QX9770 running at 3.2 GHz delivers the best possible experience for today's most demanding users.
* 12 MB of total L2 cache * 1600 MHz front side bus
Intel® Core™2 Extreme mobile processorExperience the world's highest performing mobile processor². Bar none. Now you have the performance to play the latest multi-threaded games anywhere, with the Intel® Core™2 Extreme dual-core mobile processor X9000.
* 6 MB of shared L2 cache * 800 MHz front side bus
Now every new Mac ships with an Intel processor. Experience delightful responsiveness from the smallest Mac mini to the most beefed-up Mac Pro. Use one of more than 7,000 universal applications that take full advantage of the Intel chip. Run programs from your PowerPC-based Mac in translation. Powered by Intel chips, your new Mac will do all those things that only Macs can do — and do so at an astonishing level of performance.IntelThe new Mac core
Every Mac uses a chip based on Intel Core technology, the next generation in processor design from the world’s leading chip maker. The result of massive R&D effort involving thousands of engineers. An entire collection of revolutions shrunk into an unimaginably small space, consuming less energy, too. Two cores work together to share resources, and are designed to conserve power when their functions aren’t required. Whether in an ultra-sleek MacBook, or workstation class Mac Pro, Intel Core technology lets you get more power with less power.Mac Pro and Final Cut StudioFour on the floor
And that means pure creative exhilaration with four 64-bit cores inside the new Mac Pro. The Core-based Intel Xeon is so power efficient, that Apple engineers were able to remove the liquid cooling system from the previous Power-PC based model. Which means you can load up the Mac Pro with more cards, more hard drives, more memory. So you can do more with Final Cut Studio, Aperture, Logic Pro, and the growing number of universal applications for creative professionals.Intel Core DuoDual-roar
The Intel Core 2 Duo is actually two processors (cores) engineered onto a single chip — offering virtually twice the computational power of a traditional single processor in the same space. With two cores tightly integrated, increased L2 cache, and a host of engineering breakthroughs, the Intel Core 2 Duo delivers higher performance for all the things you do — from enhancing the family photos to rendering special effects for a feature film.
Now with a new version based on Intel's cutting edge 45nm technology utilizing hafnium-infused circuitry to deliver even greater performance and power efficiency. The Intel® Core™2 Extreme processor QX9770 running at 3.2 GHz delivers the best possible experience for today's most demanding users.
* 12 MB of total L2 cache * 1600 MHz front side bus
Intel® Core™2 Extreme mobile processorExperience the world's highest performing mobile processor². Bar none. Now you have the performance to play the latest multi-threaded games anywhere, with the Intel® Core™2 Extreme dual-core mobile processor X9000.
* 6 MB of shared L2 cache * 800 MHz front side bus
Now every new Mac ships with an Intel processor. Experience delightful responsiveness from the smallest Mac mini to the most beefed-up Mac Pro. Use one of more than 7,000 universal applications that take full advantage of the Intel chip. Run programs from your PowerPC-based Mac in translation. Powered by Intel chips, your new Mac will do all those things that only Macs can do — and do so at an astonishing level of performance.IntelThe new Mac core
Every Mac uses a chip based on Intel Core technology, the next generation in processor design from the world’s leading chip maker. The result of massive R&D effort involving thousands of engineers. An entire collection of revolutions shrunk into an unimaginably small space, consuming less energy, too. Two cores work together to share resources, and are designed to conserve power when their functions aren’t required. Whether in an ultra-sleek MacBook, or workstation class Mac Pro, Intel Core technology lets you get more power with less power.Mac Pro and Final Cut StudioFour on the floor
And that means pure creative exhilaration with four 64-bit cores inside the new Mac Pro. The Core-based Intel Xeon is so power efficient, that Apple engineers were able to remove the liquid cooling system from the previous Power-PC based model. Which means you can load up the Mac Pro with more cards, more hard drives, more memory. So you can do more with Final Cut Studio, Aperture, Logic Pro, and the growing number of universal applications for creative professionals.Intel Core DuoDual-roar
The Intel Core 2 Duo is actually two processors (cores) engineered onto a single chip — offering virtually twice the computational power of a traditional single processor in the same space. With two cores tightly integrated, increased L2 cache, and a host of engineering breakthroughs, the Intel Core 2 Duo delivers higher performance for all the things you do — from enhancing the family photos to rendering special effects for a feature film.
