Since the release of the first iPhone in 2007, Apple has come a long way. Apple’s first-generation smartphones were slow and couldn’t even perform the most basic tasks, such as copying and pasting text. Its battery life is very poor, the camera will make the supermodel look like “the Frankenstein’s bride.” The original iPhone had almost no multitasking, and it was driven by a chip running at 412mhz. This phone is actually a patchwork combination of many parts, using components including Samsung DVD player chips. It’s hard to imagine that such a device would one day subvert many areas of mobile phones, computers and communications.
Apple quickly realized that if it wanted to stay ahead of its competitors, especially those in the Android ecosystem, it needed to build a complete stack, which was a fairly complicated process. At some point in 2008, Apple decided to design and manufacture its own chips. At the time, the company had only 40 engineers working to integrate chips from different vendors. Then in April 2008, Apple spent $287 million to acquire a chip startup called P.A. Semi. As a result, the total number of Apple chip engineers has increased to around 150, and brings the most important expertise to the mobile phone – energy efficiency.
The work of this group of people was first shown to the world through the iPad 4 and iPhone 4. These devices use the processor name A4, which is an improved version of the ARM Holdings chip design. The main function of the A4 is to make the retina display glow. Over the years, Apple’s chips have supported many novel features that will surprise most people at their famous launch conference. Siri, video calls, fingerprint and image-based recognition, camera features, and more, all of which are the result of Apple’s chip technology advancements.