Qualcomm’s SVP Calls Apple’s 64-bit A7 Chip A “Gimmick”

When the iPhone 5s was announced last month one of its key features, apart from the upgraded camera and Touch ID fingerprint sensor, was its A7 chipset. Granted the A7 turned out to be a dual-core chipset, which one paper makes it seem inferior to the quad-core chipsets found on Android phones these days, it was an industry first as far as smartphones were concerned as it was a 64-bit chip. While there aren’t many apps out there who are taking advantage of the 64-bit chip set, some have praised Apple’s forward-thinking, which in a way set a new bar for the industry.

However it turns out not everyone was amazed by Apple’s introduction of the 64-bit chip in the iPhone 5s, and Qualcomm’s senior vice president and chief marketing officer, Anand Chandrasekher, was not one of them. According to him, “I think they are doing a marketing gimmick. There’s zero benefit a consumer gets from that.” He notes that one of the benefits of 64-bit processors is to allow for more memory, but with the iPhone 5s only sporting 1GB of RAM, it would hardly be taking advantage of that. However Chandrasekher did admit that Qualcomm would be working on a 64-bit chip themselves since ”from an engineering efficiency standpoint it just makes sense to go do that.” What do you guys think? Gimmick or forward-thinking?

Tyler Lee
Categories: Apple, Cellphones
Tags: iPhone 5S