The iPhone 5's A6 SoC: Not A15 or A9, a Custom Apple Core Instead
Wow, I hadn't realized Apple had bought into the 'Sun' model that to be the best you had to have your own CPU. Well I knew they were doing their own silicon, I think that is actually kind of nominal for folks who want to innovate in the small device space since you can't get to the components otherwise, but to change the CPU architecture in the process is a pretty bold step. Sun discovered that you can get a jump on the competition like that, the first SparcStations really blew away the competition, but ultimately you can't outspend even three other competitors at the same time.<p>Of course this was also why Samsung has been a much bigger threat to Apple than the other Android handset makers, they too make their own SoC silicon.<p>So we get to see three companies pursuing products in the same space with three different strategies:<p>Apple - Custom OS (iOS), Customized Silicon<p>Samsung - Third party OS (Android), Customized Silicon<p>Asus/HTC - Third party OS (Android), Third party silicon (nVidia)<p>These kinds of situations don't come around that often so when they do they make for great learning experiences.