THAT is why cube is NOT playable on my iPhone....DAMN!!!
This is definetly not cool!
Thanks for the info.

I'm afraid if there will be games especially for the 2g

Was wondering about this. Noticed the difference on my original iPhone versus my dad's iPod Touch 2G. Thought maybe it was due to my iPhone having more apps. At least now I know why.

Aren't the chips under clocked? and couldn't Apple make them faster with a software update?

I guess doing this could bring heat/battery issues

Wow. Didn't know there was a difference in processor speed. There's one more thing to add to my list for MacWorld '09. 32gb of space and now a faster processor on par with the touch!

Is this new "news" or has this been a known thing all along? This could cause some controversy.

@Hari Seldon: My research indicates that the ARM1176 is capable of operating at 620MHz.

news fake!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm on a first gen touch and have not noticed the performance issues others continue to complain about. I am planning on picking up the third generation whenever it comes out, as I see that this could be a major limitation to my gaming in the future.

If there is a MAGIC button to push the speed of the iTouch platform internals to full speed and game developers pulled it, what wold it do to battery life? I don't even want to go there. We are talking about a 22% or so difference in speed here. Nothing to laugh at.

Although it takes a bit more thought, time and asset creation, Developers can easily dynamically adjust the levels of detail in the game, push off as much processing to the GPU as possible and have a cohesive game experience across all of the iTouch devices.

This - of course - makes development for the platform a bit more complex - and - it requires developers to actively test and adjust their product across all four systems. But then again - shouldn't developers be doing that in the first place?

3D Games can run fast on older hardware, but be prepared for a slight drop in resolution. 2D games on the iPhone are another story. But then again - since the devices run at different speeds - developers need to adjust their games accordingly.

I would be curious to find out whether the ipod touch 2G has the MGX gpu and not the MGX lite like the ipod 1G and iphone 1G. That would explain the huge polygon difference.
My old palm ran at a stock 400mhz, but I found, and so did apple it seems, that 412mhz has less 'bottlenecks' in the system. 532mhz was the max I could push my pda to while it remained stable. 620mhz was not always stable, and it would only last a few seconds at 708mhz.

Curious if someone could compare iPhone 3G clock/bus speed in 2.2 now to see if there's a difference from 2.0/2.1... Performance has seemingly improved a bit but not sure if it is general OS optimization or a simple boost elsewhere.

From the developer standpoint, the fact that there are better performing iterations of the hardware out there doesn't (or at least shouldn't) matter.

The right approach is to optimize the performance the game needs from the hardware that's the lowest common denominator, that being the first iPhone & iPod touch.

There is no reason anyone should worry about purchasing the older hardware any more than, say, buying an older PS2 as opposed to a new one. Any developers who expect the performance of 2G iPod touch will only shoot themselves in the foot.

@Frand: There is zero performance difference between the oldest and newest PS2. That's not the case with the iPhone / iPod touch, clearly. I find it a curious thing that Apple did not "lock the platform" - at least while the hardware is basically the same between all units - rather than varying the clock, etc.

One great thing about console gaming is that the hardware is ALWAYS locked so the developer has just one target and can optimize like mad for that target. I am surprised Apple didn't stay on that train.

@blakespot: You're right, but my point is that any additional performance is simply a bonus to the consumer, just like the memory upgrade of PSP Slim & Lite that improved the loading times. Games should still be developed to the original spec and optimized to run smoothly on that.

@Frand
Yeah but the current games on PSP take advantage of a 333MHz CPU, whereas the first titles ran on a 222MHz CPU...
Current games couldn't run on the CPU as it was when the PSP launched...

@henr1kk: Current games run on the original PSPs at 333MHz just fine. The performance unlock from 222 to 333 did not fragment the hardware landscape.

Same here with iPods: yes, 2G iPod will load games faster. But it's the job of the developers to make sure their games run smooth on all of the device models. This is achieved by developing, testing and optimizing for the original iPod touch.

All this conversation is seriously risks derailing the perception of the available hardware. It's important to remember that the first iPhone and iPod touch are powerhouses when it comes to handheld gaming, and you can create absolutely beautiful games on them. You can kill ANY console by throwing too many polygons at it, and again it's the job of the developers to make sure they don't.

Another nice tidbit that was not specifically mentioned here but that made it into the update of the in-depth look article I've references is verification that the iPhone includes a PowerVR VGP Lite vertex geometry processor. That was somewhat up in the air as my research had been inconclusive, if leaning towards it being present.

@Frand
That's not what I meant.
I meant that the games designed post-333MHz won't run on the 222MHz CPU...
I don't believe that there's anyone in the world that hasn't updated their PSP's firmware but if there is, they can't play the most recent games...

But yeah, the Touch 1G and the original iPhone are still great gaming devices and I have no doubt that most devs will optimise their games to run flawlessly on every device. But I wouldn't be surprised if some devs release games that take advantage of the 2G's faster processor.
These games will either have increased poly counts and faster loading times than on other platforms or will be entirely exclusive to the Touch 2G.

Only time will tell...
The DSi is a Nintendo DS and plays Nintendo DS games... But Nintendo have already announced that DSi games won't work on the original DS or DS Lite...

@henr1kk: All PSP games come with the necessary firmware upgrade on the UMD, so it's a rather moot point...

However, with all this news, it will be interesting to see how things develop in the future. While we currently treat the iPhone & iPod touch as a game console, it's clear that it's not: it competes in the mobile phone market, which is probably the fastest progressing segment of any consumer hardware. I would be very surprised to see the current screen resolution and hardware stay fixed for the next five years.

How will we manage hardware compatibility and platform fragmentation in the future? I have no idea, and hopefully it won't all be developers' responsibility. But perhaps that's exactly the reason why Apple has made it so easy to update the apps!

@Frand
While I agree that the iPhone is not a gaming platform, the iPod Touch is being advertised as one...
Me and most of my friends have bought Touches for games, music and video (in order of importance), so it's really settling in as a mobile gaming platform...

I don't expect App Store's games in 2010 to be compatible with my iPod, but if Apple really wants to go all-in with gaming on the Touch, they need to stop with the anual hardware revisions/upgrades on this device...

@henr1kk: I think it's a great gaming platform, as long as the games are designed for its strengths

The hardware will probably go through revisions, but hopefully there won't be a loss of binary compatibility. After all, the addition of a speaker and volume button in the 2G iPod touch were very nice.

LMAO!! But sad too. They give the 2nd gen touch a better processor, yet rip us off in the firmware updates/

Due to the universal binary idea, that is, Apple's architecture agnostic application packages on desktop OS X, it should be very possible for apps to have both binaries in the download, a graphics optimised version for the faster 2009 iPhone with 256mb ram, and a more basic binary with the extra settings turned off, suitable for 'classic' iPhone devices. I'm sure this is what they'll likely do, as the rumored, yet probable later transition to PA Semi based iTouch devices will require this no doubt. Once Apple is using those chips vs the current samsung sourced arm system on a chip other manufacturers won't be able to match the iPhone hardware specs wise with of the shelf gear.

Disclaimer: I have no insider knowledge, this is purely rumor based on my own observation of way too many rumors.

What most of you seem to forget is that at any time apple can bump up the CPU of the original iphone, 1g itouch, and the 3g iphone to be on par with the 2g itouch.

The 2g itouch doesn't have a faster CPU, apple simply lauched it clocked at a higher speed. Later on apple can release an update which raises the CPU of the others. And remember one developer said that every game out right now, probably only uses 10%-20% of its power. So even with the CPU clocked down we'll still see some pretty crazy stuff as time goes on.

On a side note, one thing I hate about apple is how they release a new ipod EVERY single year. However they might have to slow that down when it comes to the itouch, and the iphone and put off any major updates (more CPU/GPU power, higher res screen) for at least 3 years, otherwise the developers couldn't keep up with the harware revisions.

I would expect very minor changes for the 3g itouch and the 09 iphone.

@iced: Can you really confirm that the chips in 2G iPod are not of a newer revision?

How about the battery? Note that despite the upgrade in CPU and bus speed, the battery life of 2G iPod touch is specced as better than the original model. (36h for audio, 6h video vs. 22h audio, 5h video)

If not, anything you mentioned is just speculation. There are thermal and battery life considerations when clock speeds are chosen, and I doubt Apple would have any motivation to arbitrarily boost them on older hardware.

Future games for iPhone and iPod touch will look and play better, but it's not due to the device having magical resources that are not yet unlocked. Improvement comes from using the existing resources smarter.

iced, the 2nd generation iPod touch features a different processor than the 1st generation iPod and iPhone. This is the reason why the 2nd generation iPod touch has yet to be jailbreaked, and it's likely the reason why the 2G Touch has better battery life than the 1G touch.

If Apple would increase the processor speed on the 1G iPhone/Touch and 3G iPhone, you will see a decrease in battery life on those devices so they won't be doing so anytime soon.

It's not just the cpu speed, the bus speed has been upped to 133MHz as well (from 100).

@iced said: "The 2g itouch doesn’t have a faster CPU, apple simply lauched it clocked at a higher speed. Later on apple can release an update which raises the CPU of the others."

Apple can and has altered the clockspeed of the iPhone's CPU core and bus with a software update. But according to this information we've received, the 2G touch uses an ARM1176 v4.0 core, while the rest of the family uses a ARM1176 v1.0 core. Now, I don't know the specific differences between the core versions, but it is possible that the more recent core can run at a higher clock with lower power usage / heat dissipation. Just speculation, but it could be that it's "easier" to run the more recent core at a higher clock.

take the stopwach

#1 iPod Touch 2nd Generation 17.4 sec.
#2 iPhone (original) 23.6 sec
#3 iPod Touch 1st Generation 24.3 sec
#4 iPhone 3G 25.8 sec

so now leave comments

Wow, so much information it's unbelievable. The ipod touch and 3g iphone have the same exact processor with a maximum speed of 667 mhz and a operational frequency of 533mhz. The same screen, GPU same everything.

This can be easily verified.

http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/productInfo.do?fmly_id=229&partnum=S3C6410#component03

The original iphone and ipod touch used the S3C6400.

Why so misinformation. There you go. No secret. The game developer in the article said the load times were the new ipod touch the quickest, followed by the 3g iphone.

The article just speculated that the iphone was running at 412mhz. That 412mhz is from a firmware update from the original iphone. How is that revelant to the 3g iphone? That article is a bunch of crap and so is BGR for not knowing better.

from an Apple engineer: 2nd-gen iPod Touch's CPU has 2x the L2 cache

Is playing chess with a gold chess set much slower than with a plastic one, because the pieces are heavier?

Sorry, couldn't help myself. Is all this a big deal? Did anyone expect something a year old to be the same? Even with the same generic parts, the architecture will yield different results over time as engineers strive for greater hardware efficiency with greater functionality - you know, GPS and battery life, file system access (they got the same flash? anyone looked?) ...it's not all software.

It's up to developers to test products properly and clearly label compatibility differences - that's the responsibility you carry if you intend to ask for money.

As far can be seen, some do and some don't. Handheld have done, probably more as a PR move to boast about ingenuity I think, since we have far greater complexity in our apps from what I can see in the tennis game (no offense) that are just running vanilla opengl, no tricks. The result is this type of headless confusion...it's even spread to MacRumors lol. What's next? A class action lawsuit?

:p

@mike it's not speculation apple's shark optimization tools report the speed difference in the 2nd gen ipod touch and others.

Given that the app only costs 4.99 I don't see why anyone would expect developers to put that much effort into it (testing it across platforms). At least ones who still can make money off of it. With gamers complaining loudly the moment anything costs more than 99 cents it's absurd to expect quality to be maintained past this initial push.

Can I have processor of Intel Core 2 Duo 2.8GHz?

Even if an app is 4.99 - there is no reason a iPhone publisher shouldn't optimize their app across all platforms.

mike is probably correct.

The "older" iPhones and iTouch appear to use some variant of the Samsung S3C6400 processor which is a 90nm die. However the newer Samsung S3C6410 that he linked to is a 65nm die shrink "low power" SOC that can render 4M triangles/second at presumably the default 533 Mhz operating frequency.

More fuel to add to the fire.

Someone at an iPod site in Europe ran a 3D rendering benchmark app that is available on the appstore on all 4 of the ipods

The results (higher core is better):

iPod touch 1G soft 2.2 – 99,039
iPhone soft 2.2 – 99,422
iPhone 3G soft 2.2 – 104,23
iPod touch 2G soft 2.2 – 145,20

Wow...in that benchmark the 2G iPod touch is 45% faster almost all of the previous models

Source (Polish):

http://www.ipod.info.pl/index.php/test-szybkosci-urzadzen-z-systemem-iphone-os/

Ac

Hey guys,
I really don't know as much about this stuff as you do, but I am curious about something. While browsing the internet, I came upon ifixit.com. I went to the guides and found an article where they took apart an iPod Touch 2g. The said they found some sort of Bluetooth chip in there...what could that mean??
Thanks.

well, from wat iv seen with my second gen and my friends first gen, the load times on mine are much faster. Evan when playing cube runner on his, it stops for a half of a second and renders the blocks for the level, now my second gen runs smoothly without any inturuptions in gameplay. i also have x-plane 9 on mine, wich looks, and runs great, and if you think about it, the prosser has to renser the map, the plane, read the data from the gyro's, and run the physics engine for the flight, thats alot of work for such a small prosser. no think about it, all the tests and stuff on these subjects proves what i am saying. and to evry one that thinks its a software update or "unlock" ur most likely wrong. with samsung, every new release of HARDWARE is faster and has newer, faster, internal components. look at other computer companys like say, dell. every year the xps system gets faster, quieter, and builds up heat slower. why? newer components. every computer company does it and i have seen this first hand because my dad and i build, and fix computers, so we have seen the upgrades in hardware.

I was wrong, Samsung does not list the S3C6410 as being able to render 4M triangles/second ... they list it as being able to render 9M triangles/second!

http://www.samsung.com/global/system/business/semiconductor/product/2008/10/1/994730ptb_s3c6410_rev40.pdf

None of the SoCs that Samsung supplies for Apple devices are related to the S3C6400 nor the S3C6410.

The SC36410 is Samsung's own next generation application processor with OpenGL ES 2.0 graphics from possibly ARM's Mali graphics IP or Samsung's own in-house IP.

The iPhone and iPod touch use a custom Samsung chip, the S5L8900, while Apple will actually design their own chips for their next generation devices using PowerVR SGX OpenGL ES 2.0 graphics and VXD video decode IP. Samsung will still handle manufacturing of the new Apple SoCs, though.

Honestly couldn`t care less. If developers spent less time focusing on polygons per second and more on gameplay, it`d be a lot better. The ipod touch 2g still isn`t capable of producing anywhere near high end graphics, so they should stick to making games that are playable and suit the format.
The tennis game is an example of style of substance. I`d honestly rather play pong than this game, regardless of the framerate.

"Sorry, couldn’t help myself. Is all this a big deal? Did anyone expect something a year old to be the same?"

It would've behooved Apple to lock the devices that they are now marketing as "game systems" (iPod touch). Having vastly different performance echoes PC game development, and there's a reason formerly PC only devs have moved over to console development in droves - it's far better to deal with development for a system that has system specs that don't vary much (in terms of CPU,GPU,RAM, etc.) than one that does. Apple has chosen the latter. Now it's up to the devs themselves not to go all power happy and be smart and develop with the lower base specs in mind rather than the higher specs.

It's a silly move on Apple's part to have done this, business-wise. Performance should not vary as much as it is. At least not this soon. There's a reason consoles and portables (like DS and PSP) have an average 5 year life cycle with very little hardware variation, and what little hardware variation there is doesn't have such a gap in performance.

D.Blane,
the bluetooth chip in the touch 2g is for use with the Nike+ dongle that can be placed in ones shoe. the bluetooth is locked for this purpose only so you won't be able to use the bluetooth for anything else... at least not until someone finds a way to hack it.

Seems like Apple will find it easier to sell more hardware (latest devices to existing customers) by not locking down the performance.

And if the game developers choose to target the fastest hardware, I think Apple will laugh all the way to the bank while customers blame the "bad developers" for making them spend more money.

Pure genius.

I love my iphone 3g. It is lightyears ahead of anything else out there.

My brother has a 1g, i have a 2g... We both played GalaxyOnFire side by side and there is a HUGE difference. My 2g runs it perfect while his tends to lag a lot. It is at the point where he can barely play the game. : /

I have an ipod touch 2g and my brother has an ipod touch 1g. We both played GalaxyOnFire (great game) side by side and his 1g lags A LOT. My 2g runs the game perfectly while he can barely even play it. Hope this clears some things up. : )

I am thinking of buying an iPod touch 2G but not sure whether to go 16 or 32 gig. Can I play most games on 16 gig.?

I've no idea why you posted in this thread - but, anyway - you can play ALL the games on an any size 2G touch. There's no difference between the devices apart from the amount of storage - and apps are tiny (even the extremely huge ones - like Myst are less than 1GB).

But, if you can wait - there may be a new Touch released in September.

HaHa!!!!
So that's just proved that the more expensive iPhone with ridiculous contract and PAYG costs, is sooooo not worth it.

You may as well get a normal phone, with normal costs and then spend less on an iPod Touch 2G, like I did XD

Seriously, the iPhone always will be a complete ripoff.

may be true and may be false

No one buy the 2nd generation touch. There will be a 3rd generation in the first week of september. It won't be a huge update, but it will get much faster (like the iphone 3GS) and will be about $200 for 16gb. trust me on this one and wait a couple months, it will be worth it.

this article is irrelevant now since the ipod 3gs is even faster now, double the speed than the original 3g and faster than the 2nd gen ipod touch

guys.... any of u have issue with RF using i-phone 3G??

wher the phone tends to move to 2G (GSM or EDGE) more freq compared to camping to 3G cell..

do advice... cheers homes

instalous

ive got the iphone but how do i get this game, i tried going online wiht my phone and could nto find it, i even searched for it, is this state restricted or something? looks amazing

Hey guys,
when u were tlking about how the debs could do a software update to boost the speeds of the CPU:

this may be a marketing scheme
although the battery life and heating issues could come up I think we should be able to choose our own speeds... They could just have a pop up warning us of the potential danger of doing it, but like me I have an iPod 1g and am willing to overclock it to have a more enjoyable time...besides if mine dies I would then be more easily convinced to buy the 3g....having a little more money now....

GREAT forum btw I read every word u guys had and agree with the outcome so far...one more comment

just so if u guys have been living a hole since writing these,

the Bluetooth is enabled on the 2g after updating it to os 3(atleast I think it's 3...maybe 3.1 or 3.2 now) but it can now do much more than the nike+ thingy

-play head to head against other iPods *without wifi*
-headphones
-speakers
-and I'm sure others tht I can't think of atm

Oops debs=devs autocorrect is jank

Hello, I have been following your blog for some time now and read most or your posts. Is there any way that I can subscribe so I get updates sent to my email? Cheers

YES``I do

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can you great apps for 2g

great sharing thanks it is awesome news

Article is very informative. I get so interested on your post. Good Job.

Iphone 4g might ease up some of the errors in such applications. On a second note, I think that with the more advancements inthe phone softwares the overall operation become all the more complicated.

I've found my 2nd gen ipod touch to run the games WAY smoother. I would love to get one of the even newer ones.

The most clear difference is that fact that the iPod Touch's processor was quietly boosted to 532MHz (up from 412MHz) with the 2nd generation model introduced in September. Meanwhile, the iPhone 3G, Original iPhone and 1st Generation iPod Touch continue to run at the original 412MHz. Though not the intended purpose, this video from Handheld Games Corp shows that the app load time of the 2nd Generation iPod Touch is notably faster than the 1st Generation model.