Qualcomm has long dominated the smartphone chipset market, but was caught a bit by surprise when Apple went first to market with its A7 chip, a 64-bit version of the ARMv8 architecture AP with the iPhone 6. It remains the only 64-bit ARMv8 chip on the market as Samsung’s Galaxy Note 4 has a 32-bit version, and was a bit of a rude awakening for Qualcomm. It has now made up for that surprise by releasing a developer smartphone with its latest high-end chipset, the Snapdragon 810.

What makes this somewhat surprising is that Qualcomm has already released a 64-bit capable design for the low-end market—Snapdragon 410. Qualcomm has traditionally dominated the high-end market, and while it is arguably the market leader on the low end as well, it is surprising that it was beaten to the punch in its most dominant market category.

The Snapdragon 810 will be Qualcomm’s most capable chip when it arrives in the market, but that won’t happen until Spring 2015. The chipset is expected to power Samsung’s Galaxy S6 and perhaps HTC’s M9 as well. Normally, developer smartphone reference designs come out a few months later, but Qualcomm appears to want to make sure that it is in developers’ hands early so that apps and software will be optimized by launch.