The news out of Taiwan this morning is that Apple will adopt AMD's new Fusion APUs for the next generation of Apple TV. This blockbuster news, if true, could open the door to other Apple-AMD based products later in 2011. This morning's news also adds some other interesting products due to arrive in early 2011 - such as a new ARM Cortex-A9 based processor for the iPad and a second smaller 7 inch iPad. The news also hits a nerve with the revelation that Apple will redesign their iPhone with a forged metal back plate with integrated antenna to remedy any concerns over the iPhone's antenna reception.
Apple to Adopt AMD's Fusion for Apple TV
The news this morning is that the next generation of Apple TV will adopt AMD's Fusion APUs and won't include a hard drive. This likely opens the door for Apple TV to move to a cloud based solution; a solution that Apple began to hint at in a published patent last October.
AMD's Fusion introduces us to the APU - which is a next generation CPU + GPU processing unit which stands for "Accelerated Processing Unit." It's the first architecture to adopt and integrate Apple's OpenCL. The news out of Taiwan this morning also predicts that Apple TV will adopt iOS, have an iPhone-like interface and support social networking websites. You'll also be able to access Apple's App Store. In theory, it could open the door for Apple TV to run higher-end video games such as Assassins Creed. Lord knows we're all praying for that day to arrive.
The advantage to AMD Fusion is that it holds tremendous potential for the future of Apple TV. According to AMD literature on Fusion, future features could include the following: Recognizing gestures without a remote, responding to voice commands, supporting bi-directional hi-definition video chat - or in Apple's lingo, "FaceTime"; add stereoscopic 3D realism to 2D content and finally support 3D gaming. AMD's original presentation for Fusion demonstrated a high-end 3D game playing off the integrated graphics built-into Fusion. So the technology is there to make it happen.
(patentlyapple.com)
