Intel: We love you, iPhone!

Earlier this week at the Intel Developer Forum in Taipei, Intel's Shane Wall and Pankaj Kedia slammed the iPhone and the ARM processor. Now Intel is going all out to fix relations with Apple.

Here's the offending comment:

"The shortcomings of the iPhone are not because of Apple," Intel's director of ecosystems for its ultra-mobility group Pankaj Kedia said at the Intel Developer Forum in Taipei, Taiwan. "The shortcomings of the iPhone have come from ARM."

The comment followed statements from Shane Wall, Intel's VP, mobility group and director strategic planning, platform architecture and software, ultra-mobility group, on the device's lack of oomph. "Any sort of application that requires any horse power at all and the iPhone struggles," he said.

Kedia didn't just stop at the iPhone, claiming ARM was a malaise afflicting smartphones in general. "The smartphone of today is not very smart," he said. "The problem they have today is they use ARM."

The discussion came after Wall's keynote. "If you want to run full internet, you're going to have to run an Intel-based architecture," he had said, claiming that Intel processors achieved two to three times the performance of ARM equivalents.

Well, it seems that this isn't Intel's view, and that Shane and Kedia might have spoken out of turn. This is what was posted yesterday on Intel's PR Chip Shots message board:

Anand Chandrasekher issued a correction on comments made by members of his team yesterday at Intel's Developer Forum in Taiwan. As general manager of the Group responsible for Intel's ultra-mobility products, he acknowledged that Intel's low-power Atom processor does not yet match the battery life characteristics of the ARM processor in a phone form factor; and, that while Intel does have plans on the books to get us to be competitive in the ultra low power domain - we are not there as yet. Secondly, Apple's iPhone offering is an extremely innovative product that enables new and exciting market opportunities. The statements made in Taiwan were inappropriate, and Intel representatives should not have been commenting on specific customer designs.

Don't you get the feeling that Intel needs Apple more than Apple needs Intel? Maybe Apple's purchase of P.A. Semi earlier this year has made Intel a little worried.