figure 1: a mockup of a device on Intel’s Moorestown chip

The Apple iPhone is currently based off the ARM processor platform, but they are reportedly considering a switch to Intel in 2009. Some sites are expanding that news as justification for no 3rd party development, but I don’t buy it. And why not? Because a web widget — the simplest form of native 3rd party development — can be written in processor-agnostic fashion. Indeed, most of them would.

The chip that they’re reportedly considering, the Moorestown MID, would give the iPhone an unprecedented amount of computing power for a mobile device in its size class as the chip is designed for use in ultramobile PCs. Moorestown can also pair with chips for 3G, wi-fi, and wimax. Speaking to Jobs’ earlier quote about horrible battery life, Moorestown can idle with 10% of the power than its predecessor chip Menlow, meaning drastically longer standby times. Of course, it could just indicate that Apple is coming out with a UMPC of their own, who can say? [picture credit]