I think the most logical conclusion is along those lines.
No exactly. The problem is the hardware is a small part of a massive effort to get a brand new product like iPad into consumers hands. The logic boards and so forth need to be nailed down well before launch day.
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I look at the iPad and iPhone 4?s logic board and see very different design signatures. I think Apple may have designed the bulk of the iPad before the iPhone 4 was off the drawing board.
Well for one thing it was designed by a separate team. In Apples paranoid way the teams don't interact with something top secret like this. Beyond that the electrical design needs to be locked down early enough that QC, assembly verification and even factory verification can be done.
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I think a viable IPS display was probably one of the last components to be ?developed? and an essential part to giving users a good user experience.
It is possible but I don't see the screen as a major issue. I don't even see the rumored 2X screen as being a major manufacturing issue. Rather the issue is driving those screens in a power efficient manner.
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In other words, The SoC for the iPad?s A4 may have been designed with 256MB back when the iPhone 3G running iPhone 2.0 only had 128MB RAM and the iPhone 3GS was being designed pre-A4 with 256MB RAM.
I'm certain it was as the engineering team would need to focused on a lot more pressing things in the run up to debut.
There are games for the iPhone that are 500MB-1GB. Riven is 1GB. The games can easily be that size as downloads. Sony could switch to a Bu-Ray tech though, which would give them over 7GB to use.
Still, they are competing with themselves on this front too because of the PSP phone / PSP Go that are online-only.
PSP Go has swappable flash cards (one of Memory Stick flavours, I'd presume) and still is selling only 1/3 of PSP sales... so moving from proper media to memory (even if it is swappable media-memory) didn't help PSP Go much.
Still... considering no swappable storage on iDevices at present, including SD card reader (and letting users offload games on media cards rather than juggling with big data transfers from/to desktop) on new iPad/iPhone would be a step in right direction; also option to purchase big games on SD cards from retailers or on line. Could that happen, and how much would such games cost?
Hmm... you knee-cap competition by offering more attractive product for comparable price. Basically, you try to lead within the league.
If your product is that much better and that much more expensive (which just would have to follow such specs), you are moving into a different league... thus not directly competing with other players from the same league any more.
While it would be cool if Apple could offer such super-tablet for reasonable price premium (say, below 50% on top of closest competing product?) but I honestly don't think it is possible, even if technology (screens etc.) exist. And coming out with tablet that is breaking into premium laptop price range is against the whole logic of tablets, being (reasonably) affordable media consuming/light computing devices.
If Apple can offer a device at a $100 premium, that would knee-cap the competition. Apple would surely take a hit on margins although an extra $100 would might come close to covering the cost a a hi-res display.
There are a lot of "ifs" involved but I believe that it all comes down to a business (rather than a technical) decision. If Apple could offer this product at a $100 premium to today's prices they would buy themselves a least a year on the competition. If their prepaid deals offer them any level of exclusivity on the panel, the lead could be even longer.
Apple is saying 9x the graphics performance of the A4 in the iPad 2...So what the heck are they using as the graphics chip, if the article here says 4x? Or is it just Apple using sketchy measurements?
Comments
I think the most logical conclusion is along those lines.
No exactly. The problem is the hardware is a small part of a massive effort to get a brand new product like iPad into consumers hands. The logic boards and so forth need to be nailed down well before launch day.
I look at the iPad and iPhone 4?s logic board and see very different design signatures. I think Apple may have designed the bulk of the iPad before the iPhone 4 was off the drawing board.
Well for one thing it was designed by a separate team. In Apples paranoid way the teams don't interact with something top secret like this. Beyond that the electrical design needs to be locked down early enough that QC, assembly verification and even factory verification can be done.
I think a viable IPS display was probably one of the last components to be ?developed? and an essential part to giving users a good user experience.
It is possible but I don't see the screen as a major issue. I don't even see the rumored 2X screen as being a major manufacturing issue. Rather the issue is driving those screens in a power efficient manner.
In other words, The SoC for the iPad?s A4 may have been designed with 256MB back when the iPhone 3G running iPhone 2.0 only had 128MB RAM and the iPhone 3GS was being designed pre-A4 with 256MB RAM.
I'm certain it was as the engineering team would need to focused on a lot more pressing things in the run up to debut.
There are games for the iPhone that are 500MB-1GB. Riven is 1GB. The games can easily be that size as downloads. Sony could switch to a Bu-Ray tech though, which would give them over 7GB to use.
Still, they are competing with themselves on this front too because of the PSP phone / PSP Go that are online-only.
PSP Go has swappable flash cards (one of Memory Stick flavours, I'd presume) and still is selling only 1/3 of PSP sales... so moving from proper media to memory (even if it is swappable media-memory) didn't help PSP Go much.
Still... considering no swappable storage on iDevices at present, including SD card reader (and letting users offload games on media cards rather than juggling with big data transfers from/to desktop) on new iPad/iPhone would be a step in right direction; also option to purchase big games on SD cards from retailers or on line. Could that happen, and how much would such games cost?
Hmm... you knee-cap competition by offering more attractive product for comparable price. Basically, you try to lead within the league.
If your product is that much better and that much more expensive (which just would have to follow such specs), you are moving into a different league... thus not directly competing with other players from the same league any more.
While it would be cool if Apple could offer such super-tablet for reasonable price premium (say, below 50% on top of closest competing product?) but I honestly don't think it is possible, even if technology (screens etc.) exist. And coming out with tablet that is breaking into premium laptop price range is against the whole logic of tablets, being (reasonably) affordable media consuming/light computing devices.
If Apple can offer a device at a $100 premium, that would knee-cap the competition. Apple would surely take a hit on margins although an extra $100 would might come close to covering the cost a a hi-res display.
There are a lot of "ifs" involved but I believe that it all comes down to a business (rather than a technical) decision. If Apple could offer this product at a $100 premium to today's prices they would buy themselves a least a year on the competition. If their prepaid deals offer them any level of exclusivity on the panel, the lead could be even longer.
Are you drunk or what?
Not at all. I have over a couple of hundred apps on my iPhone and iPad - many of them are games and they all perform well.
Certainly nothing justifying the level of hysteria your implying