Apple doesn’t just made gorgeous-looking products from the outside. It’s increasingly working on proprietary chips for the insides of its iPhone and iPod products. First it bought PA Semiconductor, and now it’s nabbed shares in Imagination Technologies worth a whopping £3.2 million.
Imagination currently makes POWERVR graphics and video systems, which are already at work inside the iPhone, cranking out top-quality graphics but using extremely low power levels.
The next generation, however, will build in support for OpenGL graphics and a Universal Scalable Shader Engine. It might sound techie, but what it really means is the next iPhone and iPod will produce graphics unmatched by rivals.
So what’s Apple up to? We reckon its part of a wider roadmap for portables. We’re already hearing murmurs of a Mac tablet or netbook just around the corner. Technologies like these could be critical to making it happen.
TBC | £TBC | Apple (via Distorted Loop)
Tags: Apple, imagination technologies, netbook, Portable, tablet, ultra-portable