"Can't innovate, my a**."

I hadn’t read Dan Lyons — formerly Fake Steve Jobs — in ages, but that headline caught my eye. Here’s more:

In public, Apple’s rivals in the smartphone market have tried to downplay the technological advances Apple introduced in the iPhone 5s. But it turns out that one breakthrough — Apple’s speedy, 64-bit A7 microprocessor — has set off a panic inside its competitors. At chipmaker Qualcomm, which provides microprocessors for many of the Android phones that compete against the iPhone, executives have been trying to put on a brave face to the world, but internally people are freaking out, according to an insider at the company.

“The 64-bit Apple chip hit us in the gut,” says the Qualcomm employee. “Not just us, but everyone, really. We were slack-jawed, and stunned, and unprepared. It’s not that big a performance difference right now, since most current software won’t benefit. But in Spinal Tap terms it’s like, 32 more, and now everyone wants it.”

One Qualcomm flack, since reassigned to other work, tried to claim in September that the A7 was a mere “marketing gimmick.” I can tell you from hands-on experience that the iPhone 5S is simply one of the snappiest, most responsive, and most useful computers I’ve ever owned. Samsung keeps throwing more battery-sucking cores and gigahertz into bigger devices to hold bigger batteries, but they aren’t even close to the performance of this thing.

Although in one sense the A7 is a helluva marketing gimmick. My semi-antiquated third-gen iPad doesn’t make me want the new iPad Air. But knowing the Air shares that same A7 CPU does. Until you’ve used one you have no idea.