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Intel exec: ARM to blame for slow iPhones

Suzanne Tindal ZDNet Australia

Published: 22 Oct 2008 12:44 BST

Any speed shortcomings in Apple's iPhone are the fault of rival chipset manufacturer ARM, a senior Intel executive said in Taiwan on Tuesday.

"The shortcomings of the iPhone are not because of Apple," Intel's director of ecosystems for its ultramobility group, Pankaj Kedia, said at the Intel Developer Forum in Taipei, Taiwan. "The shortcomings of the iPhone have come from ARM."

The comment followed statements from Shane Wall, Intel's vice president of the mobility group and director of strategic planning, platform architecture and software for the ultramobility group. "Any sort of application that requires any horsepower at all and the iPhone struggles," he said.

Wall said that, although Apple's iPhone generated a massive buzz, due to an impressive user interface and Apple chief executive Steve Job's ability to sell, the hyped device fell short in a number of areas.

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Kedia didn't just stop at the iPhone. He also claimed ARM chips are an affliction affecting smartphones in general. "The smartphone of today is not very smart," he said. "The problem they have today is they use ARM."

The discussion came after Wall's keynote. "If you want to run full internet, you're going to have to run an Intel-based architecture," he said, claiming that Intel processors achieved two to three times the performance of ARM equivalents.

Wall said he believes the situation is unlikely to change in the near future, adding that Intel is two years ahead of its rival. He said a fast, full internet would not be coming to ARM-based devices in the near future. "Even if they do have full capability, the performance will be so poor," he said.

Kedia agreed. "I know what their roadmap is, I know where they're going and I'm not worried."

Credit: Intel slams 'slow' iPhone ARM CPU from ZDNet Australia