With the iPad, Apple begins to explore the possibilities of creating its own hardware

Apparently, no one paid attention to an important detail of the iPad's launch: Apple started (or had again) a more comprehensive involvement in the elaboration of its products in terms of hardware. Within all the models of your tablet, your first 100% customized processor will be present: the Apple A4.

During yesterday's presentation, none of the presenters went into detail about the new processor obviously because Ma shouldn't be interested in selling it on demand, but based on the little bit Jobs said about it, it is a solution. system on a chip with operating frequency of 1GHz. This means that A4 is not just a conventional CPU: it also has a graphics processing core and an integrated memory controller.

This type of solution appears to be the way chosen by the company to deliver optimum performance power to users of its gadgets, since the fact that the A4 is capable of handling graphics and processing in a single component can be very good in the future, for parallel processing. However, even if this is never explored by Apple, the chip is probably already being used very well to make the iPad a very powerful product and capable of displaying high definition video limited to 720p, good to remember.

As the iPad runs a version of the iPhone OS, it is also clear that the Apple A4 based on ARM architecture is currently the fastest and most economical for mobile devices. In reality, Apple through P.A. Semi, a company acquired in 2008, licensed this architecture to develop its own chips and to be independent of Samsung's processors, currently used in the iPhone and iPod touch.

It is not yet known whether all Apple gadgets will migrate to the A4, but the trend is that this will happen in the future. There is also no official information clarifying whether the new processor single or dual-core, but a brief analysis by some readers of the iFixit based on the image at the beginning of this post it indicated to be a chip with more than one core probably based on the ARM Cortex A9 architecture. Perhaps this is the secret of the enormous energy efficiency of the iPad. It has a battery life of 10 hours for high definition video, or up to 30 days in standby.

Do I know Apple creating its own processors? Will this work?

By the way, if you found the name familiar, know that we are in 2010. Exactly a decade ago, Apple launched its first Mac with a PowerPC processor G4.