Why is AnandTech running damage control for Apple?

[BenSkywalker]

is the new article about the A6 SoC "damage control" too?

Why would it be? That isn't apologizing for a glaring feature omission, it is talking about the architecture of the new processor(well, not really, vague generalization and guesswork but the most in depth I've seen yet).

If AT ran an article explaining why an Android manufacture chose to use plastic over metal for their chasis would the faithful not strenuously object? Of course they would, and rightly so. Apple made a design choice, they wanted to be very thin, and they wanted to have monster profit margins to they removed a feature to hit those goals. You can try and state that this article is a technical breakdown, which I guess for the people on this forum it probably seems that way, but the reality is that all it does is explains that Apple had a choice to make due to technology, they picked form over function as they *always* do. Any time an Android manufacture picks function over form, which honestly it most of the time, the Apple crew bashes them without hesitation. If they truly care about form over function, which they have spent years proving they do, the fact that Apple once again chose function over form should be something they champion.

Be that as it may, trying to excuse Apple instead of pointing out that they removed functionality to hit their form isn't honest analysis. There are technical reasons for it, that is a given. Were they capable of doing it another way? Absolutely, without a doubt. They chose form over function. If you love the form, and you don't care about the functionality, then this should not be an issue to you.

 

[Fx1]

Maybe next time Anand will be more careful about telling the world that he knew it was an A15 core inside.

I called this on the day he said it and i had a feeling he was wrong.

Its one thing speculating which is fine but its another thing that AT did.

ASS U ME comes to mind

 

[SKORPI0]

I don't see why this shortcoming of the iPhone 5 is damage control for Apple. They simply choose over form over function. Glad to know that "Anandtech" pointed it out amongst the other reviews. Awesome as always.

 

[dagamer34]

Maybe next time Anand will be more careful about telling the world that he knew it was an A15 core inside.

I called this on the day he said it and i had a feeling he was wrong.

Its one thing speculating which is fine but its another thing that AT did.

ASS U ME comes to mind

Yes, he did assume, but he corrected himself as soon as he discovered new information. That's all one could ask for. When I asked him why he thought it was a Cortex A15 chip, it's because Apple hired the chief architect of the CPU from ARM (so it was absolutely 100% plausible). And the amount of performance gain stated without loss of battery life meant that a single die shrink wasn't enough and that it wasn't Cortex A9 either.

His only mistake was not writing an article presenting all of the options but instead stating it was a Cortex A15 core while the press conference was going on. Wishful thinking often gets the better of us during events like these.

 

[Pressurge]

They do similar levels of reviews for the top Android phones as well. I think Anandtech is actually one of the best places to come for detailed mobile phone reviews now, which is a real testament to the amount of effort and apparent lack of bias that goes into each one.

Yeah, the recent HTC One S review (which is supposed to be one of HTC's flagship models) definitely is a "similar level of review" to last year's iPhone 4S review.

/sarcasm

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Yes, he did assume, but he corrected himself as soon as he discovered new information. That's all one could ask for. When I asked him why he thought it was a Cortex A15 chip, it's because Apple hired the chief architect of the CPU from ARM (so it was absolutely 100% plausible). And the amount of performance gain stated without loss of battery life meant that a single die shrink wasn't enough and that it wasn't Cortex A9 either.

His only mistake was not writing an article presenting all of the options but instead stating it was a Cortex A15 core while the press conference was going on. Wishful thinking often gets the better of us during events like these.

That's a pretty big one IMHO. If you're doing a liveblog, you need to make sure you give us the facts. Part of a liveblog is to transmit close to 100% of the information given at those conferences/unveilings, but if you're going to add your thoughts, make sure they're either close to 100% factual or if you're making a wiseass comment, make it pretty obvious there's satire involved.

In this case he made an assumption and he was probably the only guy to go on a liveblog to say this. All other sites effectively pointed to Anandtech for the A15 reference. That's bad. Sites like Gawker or Fudzilla and BGR are known to be rumor sites and it would be more acceptable for things like this to go there, but for Anand to do that? Kinda bad.

 

[badb0y]

Yeah, the recent HTC One S review (which is supposed to be one of HTC's flagship models) definitely is a "similar level of review" to last year's iPhone 4S review.

/sarcasm

One S is not the flagship HTC device this year.

 

[Pressurge]

One S is not the flagship HTC device this year.

Well, then substitute in the HTC One X, since the One X/One S series have been their flagship devices this year (unless you're going to move the goal post to something else, even though Anandtech themselves described the two devices as such). And the One X review was the same length as the One S's... (which isn't surprising, given the general similarity outside of the exterior materials of the phone).

 

[Minerva]

I will never pick up an HTC device until they hire engineers that are not aurally challenged. Their video recording capabilities are so limited for audio it's not funny. 🙄

 

[mikegg]

Yeah, the recent HTC One S review (which is supposed to be one of HTC's flagship models) definitely is a "similar level of review" to last year's iPhone 4S review.

/sarcasm

Because Anandtech should devote the same amount of resources to a phone that is almost like any other Android phone over the once-a-year iPhone that tens of millions of people will buy.

/sarcasm

It doesn't make any business sense for Anandtech to devote that much resources to a single Android phone. And for the record, the One S review was still far more detailed than 99% of the crap reviews on another site.

 

[s44]

Because Anandtech should devote the same amount of resources to a phone that is almost like any other Android phone over the once-a-year iPhone that tens of millions of people will buy.

/sarcasm

It doesn't make any business sense for Anandtech to devote that much resources to a single Android phone.

LOL, you have it backwards.

The number of iPhone buyers who care what a review says is a miniscule fraction of Apple's market. It's new, it's Apple, they want it. Some take this to the extreme shown on Kimmel's show.

The Android market has competition, comparisons, and is much more review-driven. People care that the phone actually delivers (or doesn't).

 

[Fx1]

To be honest the endless coverage of the iPhone on apple is way biased. I have never seen an S3 review on here which is Apples biggest competition.

Apple doesnt really put much effort into its "technology" that goes into its phone so why does it need all the coverage? iPhone 4 vs 4S anyone? What exactly changed there?

It runs iOS which hasnt changed in about 4 years. it runs mediocre ARM cores and decent GPU's But why bother with a GPU review of a phone that is so locked down you cant use the GPU for anything other than playing Infinity Blade.

At least Android opens the door to do things with the technology included in the phone. Apple has become a fashion accessory and belongs on a Fashion Blog.

And i have owned the iPhone for 5 years so i know what im talking about here.

 

[Gooberlx2]

After reading the article, it is absolutely a damage control piece.

I do not think that term means what you think it means.

 

[pm]

I have never seen an S3 review on here which is Apples biggest competition.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6022/samsung-galaxy-s-iii-review-att-and-tmobile-usa-variants

 

[dagamer34]

To be honest the endless coverage of the iPhone on apple is way biased. I have never seen an S3 review on here which is Apples biggest competition.

Apple doesnt really put much effort into its "technology" that goes into its phone so why does it need all the coverage? iPhone 4 vs 4S anyone? What exactly changed there?

It runs iOS which hasnt changed in about 4 years. it runs mediocre ARM cores and decent GPU's But why bother with a GPU review of a phone that is so locked down you cant use the GPU for anything other than playing Infinity Blade.

At least Android opens the door to do things with the technology included in the phone. Apple has become a fashion accessory and belongs on a Fashion Blog.

And i have owned the iPhone for 5 years so i know what im talking about here.

1) Galaxy S III Revealed: http://www.anandtech.com/show/5808/the-samsung-galaxy-s-ii-revealed-launching-globally
2) Galaxy S III Performance Preview: http://www.anandtech.com/show/5810/samsung-galaxy-s-iii-performance-preview
3) Galaxy S III US Marketing: http://www.anandtech.com/show/6033/samsungs-galaxy-s-3-us-marketing-focuses-on-features
4) Galaxy S III Review: http://www.anandtech.com/show/6022/samsung-galaxy-s-iii-review-att-and-tmobile-usa-variants

It took me 5 minutes to find these posts with a Google search. Honestly, don't make statements that can be so easily disproven.

 

[cl-scott]

If what I've read is accurate, you and Anand are pretty tight, do you think Anand would be swayed by this kind of behavior from Apple or just run a story about how they attempted to intimidate him?

The only media outlet I'm aware of with problems with Apple is Gizmodo.

And to be brutally honest, your presence here, along with your custom title and job, concerns me significantly more than anything Apple is alleged to have done.

I'm not really sure where you're getting that. The tagging of my username is mostly to avoid confusion in the events when I go into my more "official" mode to help someone having issues with an Asus RMA. Otherwise, I'm just another member of the Anand community. In fact, I try and go out of my way to avoid even the appearance of promoting Asus products, since I'm under strict orders not to do anything that might be seen as spamming.

The whole Gizmodo incident with the iPhone 4 is a good one however to illustrate my point. Some ex-cops on the Apple payroll go around intimidating basically a (no offense to the poor guy) no-name journalist who happened to luck into getting a huge scoop the likes of which could launch and make a career. These ex-cops dressed up like they were still on the police force, and in a couple of cases the local police force was actually there, though not "officially" participating. All of this over what is, at its core, a civil matter. Now maybe there's a part of this story where Apple actually asked to have the lost prototype phone returned and the journalist refused, and that would cast something of a negative light on the journalist, but it still would in no way justify the extremely heavy handed approach Apple took. And as far as I'm concerned, there are several SF Bay Area police commanders who should be raked over the coals by the local city councils for allowing officers to go along on these "raids".

Anyway, don't read too much into the fact that I work for Asus. It's not like I'm running around badmouthing Dell, Acer, HP, Toshiba, or whomever else at every turn. I worked as a Dell tech for a time too, and by and large have little but good things to say about that experience. Apple is another story, and I have personally been on the receiving end of repeated abuse from them. However, you don't need to take my word for it, find an independent AASP in your area and buy some of the techs a beer some evening. I can pretty much guarantee you that you will hear stories that echo mine, so unless I'm coordinating some massive smear campaign against Apple, and am good enough to place people at every AASP in your area, then if numerous people, none of whom have ever met, are all telling you the same basic story... Well, I guess I can't speak for you, but I'd tend to start to believe there's something to it.

 

[annomander]

To be honest the endless coverage of the iPhone on apple is way biased. I have never seen an S3 review on here which is Apples biggest competition.

Apple doesnt really put much effort into its "technology" that goes into its phone so why does it need all the coverage? iPhone 4 vs 4S anyone? What exactly changed there?

It runs iOS which hasnt changed in about 4 years. it runs mediocre ARM cores and decent GPU's But why bother with a GPU review of a phone that is so locked down you cant use the GPU for anything other than playing Infinity Blade.

At least Android opens the door to do things with the technology included in the phone. Apple has become a fashion accessory and belongs on a Fashion Blog.
.

What? You've just embarrassed yourself. Doesn't put much effort into technology when its just created its own custom ARM CPU that by all accounts is pretty fast 🙄

 

[Fx1]

What? You've just embarrassed yourself. Doesn't put much effort into technology when its just created its own custom ARM CPU that by all accounts is pretty fast 🙄

I didnt do anything.

They made a custom SoC. And since they bought Imagination Tech years ago its about time they did something with it.

But this SoC doesnt exactly do anything interesting that he new generation of A15 cores wont do and it wont do a heck of a lot of stuff that A15 will do.

Its hardly going to make ANY difference to the iPhone anyway. Its like putting an EE intel CPU into a Nintendo wii. With a locked down OS and no freedom to use that power then what exactly is it good for? Opening Notes 2x faster? Lol.

iOS isnt exactly slow anyway. Its biggest problem is its locked down nature and kiddy gloves approach to its OS.

 

[MrX8503]

I didnt do anything.

They made a custom SoC. And since they bought Imagination Tech years ago its about time they did something with it.

But this SoC doesnt exactly do anything interesting that he new generation of A15 cores wont do and it wont do a heck of a lot of stuff that A15 will do.

Its hardly going to make ANY difference to the iPhone anyway. Its like putting an EE intel CPU into a Nintendo wii. With a locked down OS and no freedom to use that power then what exactly is it good for? Opening Notes 2x faster? Lol.

iOS isnt exactly slow anyway. Its biggest problem is its locked down nature and kiddy gloves approach to its OS.

Ah yes, designing your own SoC is easy peasy. lol

ARM 15? what devices can I buy in a week that has an ARM15? The A6 is a dual core beating out quad cores, while using less power. I think Apple is pushing hardware pretty hard.

 

[mikegg]

LOL, you have it backwards.

The number of iPhone buyers who care what a review says is a miniscule fraction of Apple's market. It's new, it's Apple, they want it. Some take this to the extreme shown on Kimmel's show.

The Android market has competition, comparisons, and is much more review-driven. People care that the phone actually delivers (or doesn't).

According to Google's search insight tool, there are 110,000 monthly searches on the keyword "iphone 4s review" and 14,800 monthly searches on "htc one s review".

Even though the iPhone 4s is already 1 year old, it still garnered about 8 times more searches on Google than the One S last month.

Do you realize how many people are going to search for "iPhone 5 review"? I'm guessing the number is going to hit several million during the first month of release. According to Google's search insight tool, yes, people do search for iPhone reviews and they do read them before buying.

Like I said, people don't have much business sense here. It's all about specifications here.

It makes absolutely no business sense to devote as much resources on an Android phone review as an iPhone review. Perhaps the Galaxy Nexus or GS3. Certainly not the HTC One S.

 

[Fx1]

Ah yes, designing your own SoC is easy peasy. lol

ARM 15? what devices can I buy in a week that has an ARM15? The A6 is a dual core beating out quad cores, while using less power. I think Apple is pushing hardware pretty hard.

Please come back when we get some reliable benchmarks for the A6 vs the S4 and other SoC's

Right now the S3 international is hitting 1800-2000 Geekbench scores and the A6 shows 1600.

So its hardly quad core beating

 

[badb0y]

Please come back when we get some reliable benchmarks for the A6 vs the S4 and other SoC's

Right now the S3 international is hitting 1800-2000 Geekbench scores and the A6 shows 1600.

So its hardly quad core beating

Oh yes that's after turning off Wifi, Bluetooth, making the screen brightness low, and turning off every other service in the background that may slow down the phone while overclocking the core and probably running a custom ROM with root with bloatware removed. This is exactly how I and 99% of the population use our phones day to day.

 

[Fx1]

Oh yes that's after turning off Wifi, Bluetooth, making the screen brightness low, and turning off every other service in the background that may slow down the phone while overclocking the core and probably running a custom ROM with root with bloatware removed. This is exactly how I and 99% of the population use our phones day to day.

I downloaded and ran geekbench as the phone was. At stock on a beta Jelly bean rom.

I have never got below 1600 on that bench no matter what i run in the background.

There is no big conspiracy here. You can see overclocked CPU in the bench results and people are hitting 2300 on a 200mhz overclock.

The CPU side of the bench is far superior on the S3 anyway. A6 gets most of its points from Memory Performance improvements that apple made in the new SoC.

 

[mikegg]

I downloaded and ran geekbench as the phone was. At stock on a beta Jelly bean rom.

I have never got below 1600 on that bench no matter what i run in the background.

There is no big conspiracy here. You can see overclocked CPU in the bench results and people are hitting 2300 on a 200mhz overclock.

The CPU side of the bench is far superior on the S3 anyway. A6 gets most of its points from Memory Performance improvements that apple made in the new SoC.

So are apps and the interface faster on the Android than they are on iPhone 5?

 

[MrX8503]

Please come back when we get some reliable benchmarks for the A6 vs the S4 and other SoC's

Aren't you making performance claims based on unofficial benchmarks as well?

Right now the S3 international is hitting 1800-2000 Geekbench scores and the A6 shows 1600.
So its hardly quad core beating

http://browser.primatelabs.com/android-benchmarks

Hmm a quad core at 1.4ghz pretty close to an A6 1ghz dual core. Oh look, there are quad cores below that.