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Mon, Mar 22, 2010 - 07:41 AM EDT — AAPL: 222.2499 (-2.4001, -1.07%) | NASDAQ: 2374.41 (-16.87, -0.71%)

Apple’s mysterious chip plot thickens

Tuesday, April 28, 2009 - 12:29 PM EDT

"The mystery Apple chip plot thickens today with the news that the company has poached the CTO of AMD's Graphics Products Group, Bob Drebin. The million dollar question is, what will Drebin do for Apple as Senior Director," Jon Stokes writes for Ars Technica.

"When Apple bought low-power processor maker PA Semi just over a year ago, it sparked a ton of speculation that the company would get into designing its own chips, most likely for its iPhone and iPod lines. I speculated that Apple would probably get into designing custom, ARM-based system-on-chip (SoC) parts for its handhelds, and then later in the year we got even more evidence that this is what Cupertino had in mind with the purchase," Stokes writes.

"With Drebin's hire, we still have no idea what GPU Apple will put on its forthcoming SoC, but at least we know the guy who will almost certainly make that call," Stokes writes. "It was clear enough at this past year's GDC that both Apple and developers are serious about the iPhone and iPod touch as mobile gaming platforms, so I expect that job one for Drebin will be to make Apple's handhelds—both the models that exist and any that are still unannounced—into serious mobile gaming contenders."

More in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: We recommend that senior executives of mobile device makers who rely on off-the-shelf chips (that'd be basically everyone, but Apple) immediately stock up on Depends. Get the Boost Inserts. You're gonna need all the capacity you can get.

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Apr 28, 09 - 12:32 pm Comment from: LateRegistrant

Why don't we ever hear about mysterious plots thinning?

Apr 28, 09 - 12:34 pm Comment from: Hg Wells

Something remains seriously wrong with those who have not stocked up on AAPL when its price was down.

Price still is down.

Apr 28, 09 - 12:34 pm Comment from: Steve516

all the mystery makes people nervous, and thus we munch a bunch and get thicker... it's just natural...

Apr 28, 09 - 12:39 pm Comment from: Lenore

"Why don't we ever hear about mysterious plots thinning?"

That would be the grass around Edgar Allan Poe's grave.

Apr 28, 09 - 12:58 pm Comment from: SirROM

“Why don't we ever hear about mysterious plots thinning?”

That's because once the plot is thinned enough, it becomes news.

Apr 28, 09 - 01:04 pm Comment from: Macaday

It will help Apple fight those thieving bastards in China too...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/28/technology/28cell.html

Apr 28, 09 - 01:56 pm Comment from: cptnkirk

I find this incredible that Apple is quickly cornering the mobile gaming market. Again, another come-from-nowhere story with Apple taking the crown in short order. Who knew? (Steve, I guess!) LOL!

Apr 28, 09 - 02:07 pm Comment from: SickOfThis

BWAHAHAHA.

Hilarious MDN take. Made my day.

Apr 28, 09 - 02:28 pm Comment from: Bartsimpsonhead

Bob Drebin?

Is he any relation to Frank Drebin from the 'Police Squad'/'The Naked Gun' films..?

Apr 28, 09 - 02:29 pm Comment from: The MacDaddy-Oh!

Does anybody know what a 90 year old woman tastes like?

...Depends?!

Apr 28, 09 - 03:19 pm Comment from: 84 Mac Guy

I suspect there is much more to this story than Apple simply improving their gaming capabilities.

Apr 28, 09 - 03:55 pm Comment from: Soup's On

"Does anybody know what a 90 year old woman tastes like?"

Chicken?

Apr 28, 09 - 05:24 pm Comment from: Indy Mac

Classic MDN take... Loving it!!

Apr 28, 09 - 06:16 pm Comment from: Rainer

BTW: Drebin, as in "Frank Drebin"?

Apr 28, 09 - 06:21 pm Comment from: History Repeats

Steve could call this the PowerPC II or Maybe the 68000 plus.

Look forward to a bunch of iPods and iPhones that fall increasingly behind their competitors in terms of performance, until Apple finally goes back to a mainstream chip.

Apr 28, 09 - 08:08 pm Comment from: NCMacMan

History isn't repeating here at all with ARM chips. the majority of the major phones today are running on the ARM architecture and although there are other options out there like AMD's new mobile chip, there is plenty of power to go around.

The largest difference between the the desktop and phone markets has to due with the severe limitation to power consumption. The Palm Pre will end up sucking the life out of its batteries just as WinMo and the BlackBerry Storm already do (with backgrounding on, of course), and until there is significant progress in battery technology, the largest hindrance to battery life will be the processors (anyone who has jailbroken their device and has run backgrounded applications will tell you that the iPhone is no different in this arena -- Apple has purposefully restricted this to increase battery life).

That being said, I really don't think that PA Semi will end up manufacturing all of the mobile chips for Apple. The design is probably already set and the manufacturers have shipped back these chips to Apple for testing and benchmarking. Get ready for the next gen iPhone!

Apr 28, 09 - 08:34 pm Comment from: Troll Patrol

"History Repeats"

You're out of your league. STFU while you're behind.

Apr 28, 09 - 11:03 pm Comment from: me

@Troll Patrol

You guys did have crap CPUs.

Apr 29, 09 - 12:26 am Comment from: radiomoscow

Papples mysterious thip lot chickens?

Apr 29, 09 - 06:58 am Comment from: Troll Patrol

"me"

Congratulations for your understanding of past tense. Maybe your friend can grow up as well.

Apr 30, 09 - 08:17 am Comment from: History Repeats

"You guys did have crap CPUs."

And yet you pretended those turds were golden, right up until Steve finally switched you to Intel.

Personally I think Apple's competitors will cheer if Apple goes down the line of developing it's own CPUs.

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Mon, Mar 22, 2010 - 07:41 AM EDT — AAPL: 222.2499 (-2.4001, -1.07%) | NASDAQ: 2374.41 (-16.87, -0.71%)

Apple’s mysterious chip plot thickens

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Mon, Mar 22, 2010 - 07:41 AM EDT — AAPL: 222.2499 (-2.4001, -1.07%) | NASDAQ: 2374.41 (-16.87, -0.71%)

Apple’s mysterious chip plot thickens

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