We’ve heard before that, among other things, iPhone OS 3.0 would support quad-core processors. Of course, we haven’t seen these processors yet, but now ST-Ericsson and ARM have announced they’ll be giving a private sneak peak at one at Mobile World Congress. (Via MacRumors):

The technological breakthrough is the first of its kind and is based on the ARM(R) Cortex(TM)-A9 multicore processor, which represents a significant leap from previous generations of baseband/application processor architectures by providing unprecedented levels of performance and power efficiency.

Combined with previous rumors of OpenCL support allowing the faster, betterPowerVR graphics cores to boost general processing as well, and 802.11n mobile WiFi chips future iPhone generations could be, as Steve Jobs is so fond of putting it, real screamers.

Better hardware (especially more RAM) could, of course, encourage Apple to allow more 3rd party multi-tasking. Maybe even make the leap to iPhone HD? (In a matt black finish?!)

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Multi-Core Mobile Processors iPhone Bound?

No sooner do we mention how Apple may need to ramp up iPhone 3.0 in response to the Palm Pre, than we find this little gem via ZDNet (which MacRumors is backing up):

iPhone 3.0 will support Quad-Core Processors.

Yeah, we fell off our chairs as well. But Apple did buy chip designers PA Semi and license both ARM and PowerVR, so the chips could very well be what we get the next time Apple (hopefully Steve Jobs!) takes the stage and pulls an iPhone from his pocket.

As ZDNet rightly points out, the current iPhone already rivals dedicated gaming portables in power, imagine that gone Quad-Core (would make for a nifty iPhone HD as well, now wouldn’t it?)

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

iPhone 3.0 to Use Quad-Core Processors?