Just last month we saw the release of AMDs new Radeon Software Crimson Edition. This release included the brand new Radeon Settings and promised a new commitment to more frequent driver updates alongside better support for WHQL certification. To that …
Today Apple and China UnionPay announced plans to bring support for Apple Pay to China by the beginning of 2016. China UnionPay is the only bank card organization in China, and so partnering with them was essential to Apple expanding the Apple Pay service to the country. Apple Pay is Apple’s mobile payment service that utilizes NFC and either an iPhone or an Apple Watch to make mobile payments at merchants that have the necessary payment terminals to support contactless payments.
At launch, Apple Pay will be available on 15 of China’s leading banks. It’s not specified exactly which banks have signed on for the original roll out, but if the service expands in the way it has in the United States that number will end up growing fairly quickly. The launch of the service will be subject to approvals by Chinese regulators, which could cause delays to Apple’s planned roll out timeline. With China UnionPay having issued bank cards for hundreds of millions of customers, the expansion to China could potentially provide a big boost to the number of users using the service. The expansion into China also makes sense when one considers Apple’s recent attempts to gain a better foothold in the Chinese market.
As for Apple Pay in general, the launch of Apple Pay in China will mark the fifth expansion of the service. It originally launched exclusively in the United States before expanding to the United Kingdom, and it was recently introduced in Australia and Canada through a partnership with American Express.
Today Apple and China UnionPay announced plans to bring support for Apple Pay to China by the beginning of 2016. China UnionPay is the only bank card organization in China, and so partnering with them was essential to Apple expanding the Apple Pay service to the country. Apple Pay is Apple’s mobile payment service that utilizes NFC and either an iPhone or an Apple Watch to make mobile payments at merchants that have the necessary payment terminals to support contactless payments.
At launch, Apple Pay will be available on 15 of China’s leading banks. It’s not specified exactly which banks have signed on for the original roll out, but if the service expands in the way it has in the United States that number will end up growing fairly quickly. The launch of the service will be subject to approvals by Chinese regulators, which could cause delays to Apple’s planned roll out timeline. With China UnionPay having issued bank cards for hundreds of millions of customers, the expansion to China could potentially provide a big boost to the number of users using the service. The expansion into China also makes sense when one considers Apple’s recent attempts to gain a better foothold in the Chinese market.
As for Apple Pay in general, the launch of Apple Pay in China will mark the fifth expansion of the service. It originally launched exclusively in the United States before expanding to the United Kingdom, and it was recently introduced in Australia and Canada through a partnership with American Express.
| Qualcomm 2016 Mid- to High-End | |||
| SoC | Snapdragon 650 (MSM8952) |
Snapdragon 652 (MSM8976) |
Snapdragon 820 (MSM8996) |
| CPU | 4x Cortex A53 @1440MHz
2x Cortex A72 @1804MHz |
4x Cortex A53 @1440MHz
4x Cortex A72 @1804MHz |
2x Kryo @1598MHz
2x Kryo @2150MHz |
| Memory | 2x 32-bit @ 931MHz LPDDR3 14.9GB/s b/w |
2x 32-bit @ 1803MHz LPDDR4 28.8GB/s b/w |
|
| GPU | Adreno 510 @ 550MHz |
Adreno 530 @ 624MHz |
|
| Encode/ Decode |
2160p30, 1080p90 H.264 & HEVC |
2160p30 (p60 decode), 1080p60 H.264 & HEVC |
|
| Camera/ISP | Dual ISP 21MP |
Dual ISP 25MP |
|
| Integrated Modem |
“X8 LTE” Cat. 7 300Mbps DL 100Mbps UL 2x20MHz C.A. |
“X12 LTE” Cat. 12/13 600Mbps DL 150Mbps UL 3x20MHz C.A. (DL) |
|
| Mfc. Process | 28nm HPm | 14nm LPP | |
As a reminder, the Snapdragon 650 and 652 are big.LITTLE SoCs based on ARM’s Cortex A72 acting as the big cores running at 1804MHz, and along with them comes ARM’s Cortex A53 clocked at 1440MHz. While both SoCs have 4 little cores, the Snapdragon 652 sports 4 A72 cores while the smaller brother sports only 2.
As a GPU we find an Adreno 510 clocked in at 550MHz. We still don’t have much more information on how this new part will be able to perform compared to its predecessors, but we should be expecting levels along the line of the Adreno 418 in the current Snapdragon 808.
The biggest difference between the Snapdragon 650/652 and the high end flagship, the Snapdragon 820 will be in terms of manufacturing node as we’ll be seeing the former parts made on a mature 28nm HPm node while the Snapdragon 820 enjoys the more high-end 14nm LPP manufacturing process.
| Qualcomm 2016 Mid- to High-End | |||
| SoC | Snapdragon 650 (MSM8952) |
Snapdragon 652 (MSM8976) |
Snapdragon 820 (MSM8996) |
| CPU | 4x Cortex A53 @1440MHz
2x Cortex A72 @1804MHz |
4x Cortex A53 @1440MHz
4x Cortex A72 @1804MHz |
2x Kryo @1598MHz
2x Kryo @2150MHz |
| Memory | 2x 32-bit @ 931MHz LPDDR3 14.9GB/s b/w |
2x 32-bit @ 1803MHz LPDDR4 28.8GB/s b/w |
|
| GPU | Adreno 510 @ 550MHz |
Adreno 530 @ 624MHz |
|
| Encode/ Decode |
2160p30, 1080p90 H.264 & HEVC |
2160p30 (p60 decode), 1080p60 H.264 & HEVC |
|
| Camera/ISP | Dual ISP 21MP |
Dual ISP 25MP |
|
| Integrated Modem |
“X8 LTE” Cat. 7 300Mbps DL 100Mbps UL 2x20MHz C.A. |
“X12 LTE” Cat. 12/13 600Mbps DL 150Mbps UL 3x20MHz C.A. (DL) |
|
| Mfc. Process | 28nm HPm | 14nm LPP | |
As a reminder, the Snapdragon 650 and 652 are big.LITTLE SoCs based on ARM’s Cortex A72 acting as the big cores running at 1804MHz, and along with them comes ARM’s Cortex A53 clocked at 1440MHz. While both SoCs have 4 little cores, the Snapdragon 652 sports 4 A72 cores while the smaller brother sports only 2.
As a GPU we find an Adreno 510 clocked in at 550MHz. We still don’t have much more information on how this new part will be able to perform compared to its predecessors, but we should be expecting levels along the line of the Adreno 418 in the current Snapdragon 808.
The biggest difference between the Snapdragon 650/652 and the high end flagship, the Snapdragon 820 will be in terms of manufacturing node as we’ll be seeing the former parts made on a mature 28nm HPm node while the Snapdragon 820 enjoys the more high-end 14nm LPP manufacturing process.