The Hidden Job of the M7 processor in the iPhone 5s
blog.firmhouse.com
blog.firmhouse.com
The application was populated with my movement data of the past week instantly. Instead of needing to use the application for a week to get sense if I like it, I could decide immediately.
I have to wonder, by what order of magnitude this improves the precision of "THEIR" geolocation data, when "THEY" collect on persons of interest.
(they? they who? gee, who's they???)
No, M7 is a coprocessor (according to Chipworks it's an NXP LPC18A1 which would be a customized LPC18xx chip), and it does handle the storage of the data it collects.
The sensors are sitting around it on the logic board: http://69f7c92b9620aa3c39c3-1b6df36b3db30f59ea35f42c7c7c4ffb...
"The M7 processor contains all the hardware for tracking purposes."
I thought it was going to be a negative, but the end of the post was positive. I'm unsure how I feel about a chip that seems to be dedicated to tracking all that data from Day 1, what with all the surveillance talks lately...
But then, I remember that using a mobile phone is pretty inherently insecure anyway; carriers know where you are at pretty much any point, text messages are terribly easy to get for any LEO-type adversary, etc.
Still, the UX part of it is kind of neat, as are the benefits for battery life -- I do like the idea of low-power chips to handle tasks so the main application processor doesn't have to. I know a lot of phones actually have a dedicated co-processor for the Radio (which is what the radio firmware blobs run on), so it's not unprecedented.
I'm very curious what bioanalytics apple is collecting via the M7 though. Are they testing to see how you use your device to better inform the creation of a bioaugmentation device like the iwatch?
As someone who has tried to design some augmentation software, getting an better informed persona about the user and transforming the UI to work based on car, train, bike, running would be an awesome future step.
This also accounts for Touch ID. Currently it's just for unlocking your phone. And more people in a family could unlock a device without sharing a code. On a usability level this also provides options; for example when I unlock my phone with my left thumb, open e-mail instantly. It's might not be novel, perhaps it's done before. But it sounds useful to me.
I'm sure it's a step towards an iWatch.
The point of the article is that the M7 is always active (even if you aren't running apps), so the battery usage of the M7 is baked into the phone itself. This means you can't compare the M7 to non-M7 because you'll actually be comparing the 5S to earlier phones, which have different processors/batteries/etc.
I doubt most apps take advantage of the M7 yet. So if you run them on a 5S, they are going to be using battery, and the built-in logic is going to be using battery.