When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works

Home / News / Apple Watch’s S1 processor is surprisingly powerful

Apple Watch’s S1 processor is surprisingly powerful

The ARM-based chip is roughly equivalent to the iPhone 4S’ A5, according to a developer

Just how powerful is the Apple Watch’s S1 system-on-chip?

Well, according to iOS developer Steve Troughton-Smith, it’s roughly equivalent to the A5 chip found in the iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPad 2, fifth-generation iPod touch and first-generation iPad mini – at least where graphics processing is concerned.

Troughton-Smith tweeted that the S1 is running “most of iOS 8.2”, albeit with a custom UI called Carousel rather than the Springboard UI usually found there. The graphics driver is a PowerVR SGX543, the same as that found in the iPhone 4S, 5 and 5C and the iPad 2. Apple has since upgraded its video GPUs to A7 and A8 models.

2. Spy_Watch (£1.49/US$1.99)

Core processing power remains something of a mystery, but it’s likely to be clocked at a slower speed than the A5. Of course, being a watch it doesn’t require the processing grunt of a high-end tablet or smartphone – after all, in order to get anything approaching the best out of it you’ll need it paired to one of those too.

Now that developers are starting to get their hands on the Apple Watch, we’re likely to see more and more snippets of information about its inner workings appearing online. We’ll keep our eyes peeled for more.

[Source: Twitter via Cult of Mac]

Profile image of Sam Kieldsen Sam Kieldsen Contributor

About

Tech journalism's answer to The Littlest Hobo, I've written for a host of titles and lived in three different countries in my 15 years-plus as a freelancer. But I've always come back home to Stuff eventually, where I specialise in writing about cameras, streaming services and being tragically addicted to Destiny.

Areas of expertise

Cameras, drones, video games, film and TV

Enable referrer and click cookie to search for eefc48a8bf715c1b 20231024b972d108 [] 2.7.22