The AnandTech Podcast: Episode 6
by Anand Lal Shimpi on September 27, 2012 8:57 AM ESTSorry for the delay this week! With Brian in Seoul, me getting back from NYC and Ian in London it was difficult to all get together for our usual Friday recording sessions for the podcast. We managed to get this episode recorded on Monday, but I then had to run off to DC for another NDA event. We did finally manage to get things edited so today we have the delayed episode 6.
This week's podcast begins with our review impressions of the iPhone 5. We also go over the other major smartphone announcements from the past week: Motorola's Medfield powered RAZR i, HTC's Windows Phone 8X/8S and LG's Optimus G. Last week we talked about Haswell from a platform perspective and this week we talk about it more from a CPU performance perspective. Finally, Ian shared his thoughts on Borderlands 2 and playing the title with NVIDIA's Physx enabled.
Also, due to popular request, we have submitted our podcast for inclusion in the Zune Marketplace although we haven't seen approval yet. Show notes including time stamps are also on the to-do list but they didn't make it in this round.
The AnandTech Podcast - Episode 6
featuring Anand Shimpi, Brian Klug & Dr. Ian Cutress
iTunes
RSS - mp3, m4a
Direct Links - mp3, m4a
Total Time: 1 hour 35 minutes
As always, comments are welcome and appreciated. Let us know what you liked, hated and want to hear more of.
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dishayu - Thursday, September 27, 2012 - link
Doesn't show up in my rss feed yet. Will have to download the m4a, i guess.n00by - Thursday, September 27, 2012 - link
Whoop Whoop, thanks for the awesome podcast! :DFiercé - Thursday, September 27, 2012 - link
...I'd like to suggest a roundtable on the relatively new Smartphone OS environment. With the iPhone5 gorilla getting its annual walk up the tallest skyscrapers of the press corp, I'm very interested to hear opinions and impressions on where Google, Microsoft and Apple stand with their Windows 8 Phone, Jellybean and iOS6 situations.Particularly with the lauded performance improvements encountered on iPhone5 hardware, I'd like to know where Android is with it's Project Butter and how Windows Phone 8 stacks up at stock. I have an HTC One X and while I agree the series doesn't get nearly as much love as it deserves (from a previous podcast), I'd much rather settle for updated timetables regarding Jellybean updates from HTC, Samsung and their ilk as well as if Project Butter will be included in those updates indicating Adreno 225 can handle it... or if we'll have to wait another eternity for another validation period.
This is of particular interest to me now that HTC has released Windows 8 Phone devices, as that suggests a possibility of split resources for OS improvements at HTC HQ.
Cheers!
Fiercé - Thursday, September 27, 2012 - link
Geez, I absolutely butchered the Windows Phone 8 nomenclature.More coffee, more coffee...
Impulses - Saturday, September 29, 2012 - link
I doubt you'll get any kind of accurate update timetable out of HTC or Samsung, although I believe the latter promised JB by end of year and update leaks have already been floating in the wild, so that's a good sign.Frankly I'm not terribly concerned with Jelly Bean, the performance improvements and updated notifications are nice but it won't drastically change how I use my phone, my EVO LTE is already pretty damn snappy and if I get a hankering for JB I can just flash CM 10.
I'm much more curious about the future direction of the Nexus line and the rumors of an expanded manufacturer lineup.
tipoo - Thursday, September 27, 2012 - link
Speaking of the Lightning cable, what do we think of that maybe-authenitcation chip found inside it? Will that block third party cables,or at least make them significantly more expensive?tipoo - Thursday, September 27, 2012 - link
And also since the same port can be used for different outgoing connections, maybe when they shift to USB 3 the same port will be compatible, but you'd need yet another cable becauseof the new pins in USB 3. With 150MB/s smartphone memory chips coming out soon, we may want those sooner than expected.scavio - Thursday, September 27, 2012 - link
Most people seem to think that it will take a long time before we see fully compatible non authorized third party cables (if at all) due to the chip. I would think that third party cables in general would be more expensive.Has anyone figured out what exactly the chip does? Hopefully the knock off folks can figure out how to get cables without the chip to at least charge the phone. Maybe it'll only work if you insert it a certain side up or something. I haven't owned an iPhone for a while, but having to purchase $20 cables so that I can charge a phone would stink.
tipoo - Thursday, September 27, 2012 - link
Yeah, maybe that chip detects which way it is connected and reroutes the signal, and third party cables would work without it but only in one orientation. I hope, at least.repoman27 - Thursday, September 27, 2012 - link
I was hoping the topic of the "authentication chip" would be addressed. It's right along the same lines as the iPhone 5 "NFC" chip identified by the same reliably inaccurate rumor sites.Lightning is clearly not a bog standard USB interface. It supports at least USB 2.0 OTG and HD digital video output just like MHL. However, since Apple has announced Lightning to HDMI and VGA cables (and not adapters that require an external power source), it's fairly obvious that Lightning is Apple's implementation of MyDP over their own custom connector.
If you look at the ribbon cable that the connector is attached to in the iPhone 5 teardowns, there only appear to be two differential signaling pairs. I'm not sure the Lightning interface is anywhere near as "adaptive" as some people are making it out to be. While the connector is reversible and the system can use either of the signaling pairs interchangeably, auto-MDIX has been around for Ethernet cables since '98, so this isn't terribly revolutionary. I'm sure it's extensible and we may see SuperSpeed USB and increased video bandwidth in future iterations, but for now I think the design is fairly straightforward.
Also, regarding the pricing, you get a Lightning to USB cable with every device you purchase, and additional ones are $19—the same as an Apple USB to 30-pin dock connector cable. I'm not sure how anyone can rationalize the cost of designing and engineering a new connector like Lightning with this move being a cash grab on Apple's part. At this point, they're making a lot more profit off of the $19 30-pin cables that they're still selling. It is odd that they don't have Lightning cable / power adapter bundle out yet though.