iPad CPU expected to trickle down to next iPhone

The iPhone 3GS isn't struggling in terms of brain power as yet, but the newly announced iPad has it beat in both processor clock speed and battery life.

Apple is putting much of this down to its 1GHz A4 chip, which seems to be a proprietary ARM-based system-on-a-chip design that could easily be implemented in the next version of the iPhone.

These power-saving ARM-based processors are promising a new generation of smartphones, with complete silicon designs coming from companies such as Qualcomm and Nvidia, so it's only reasonable to think Apple won't be left behind. And having such a chip already in production could give the fourth generation iPhone some serious thinking juice.

Whether it'll be the same device or a subtle variant we can't say, but the iPad does prove that Apple is armed and ready to go long when it comes to the impending pocket micro-computing battle.