Apple’s new A5X chip may not come to the next iPhone, analysts say

[Corey]

Apple on Wednesday announced the new iPad at a press event in San Francisco. Along with a Retina Display and improved camera, the slate is equipped with Apple’s A5X processor. The chip has two CPU cores, just like the A5, and four graphics cores for superior gaming and smooth operation of the high-resolution display. Apple has previously used the same chip in the company’s iPad and iPhone, however the A5X may not be ideal for smartphone use and the Cupertino-based company may instead look for a more power-efficient chip for the iPhone 5, MacWorld reported on Thursday. Read on for more.

“I think that this new chip is probably just for the iPad,” said Linley Gwennap, founder and principal analyst of The Linley Group. “It looks like they planned ahead for this.”

Gwennap believes that Apple may have moved forward with the A5X because it didn’t want to wait for a 28-nm chip. Mercury Research analyst Dean McCarron also believes the current A5X is unlikely to make an appearance in the next iPhone. “There’s no technical reason to make the iPhone display better,” he said. “For phones in particular … there’s a lot of incentive to use the latest process.”

McCarron agreed with Apple’s decision to remain on a dual-core CPU, claiming that most of the existing Apple software wasn’t designed for a four-core processor.

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