Embedded applications (for example, Arduino, BeagleBone, and Raspberry Pi) make heavy use of GPIO for reading from various environmental sensors (IR, video, temperature, 3-axis orientation, and acceleration), and for writing output to DC motors (via PWM), audio, LCD displays, or LEDs for status.
It also introduced the A7 dual-core processor, the first 64-bit processor to be used on a smartphone, accompanied by the M7 "motion co-processor", a dedicated processor for processing motion data from its accelerometer and gyroscopes without requiring the attention of the main processor.