iPad's custom Apple A4 processor includes ARM-based CPU, GPU - Page 2

You don't need *general* multitasking. How does Mac, Windows, iPhone, and now iPad work? The user interacts with one application at a time - Cocoa routes events to that application until it is swapped. On Mac applications are kept in main memory for fast swapping, but there is no need to do this - the real need is to save task state. This the iPhone does in a different way, but it does it.

The only need for MT is that messages can come from elsewhere - incoming calls and messages, and listening to music. This can be provided by daemons in the background which can post a notification to the user when an event that they want to be notified about occurs. The general user interface (Cocoa Touch part) can be terminated.

Thus I think Apple has taken a good design approach - rather than just loading the device down with general software technologies, they have asked the question "well what do we really want to do?"

As for productivity, the user must have good response time - nothing can kill this more effectively than if memory fills up and you get into a thrashing situation. Thus one user app at a time seems a good restriction and have small daemons in the background to handle notifications.

Perhaps a bigger omission - at least for developers - is lack of garbage collection. You have to put so much non-functional bookkeeping code in Objective-C to handle GC that it warps your code and is error prone. That may be another good reason to terminate an app - it ensures memory is cleaned out. Mind you I'm not advocating sloppy programming, but having just got GC in Obj-C 2.0 it's a shame to go backwards, but I can understand the tradeoffs.

As others have pointed out, the iPhone OS *does* support multitasking, albeit in a very limited way. What's even more important is that it supports multi-threading.

Each app can and probably should have multiple threads. Example: If you don't spin off a thread for network access, the user interface will lock up until it is complete, making the user wonder if it crashed.

Granted the background thread waiting for the network isn't exactly hogging the CPU, and on a single-core CPU isn't really an issue. But if you have an app with two or more computationally intensive threads, a multicore CPU can give that one app real performance gains.

Flash is being replaced by Web 2.0 - it has served its need, but there are better technologies now.

The iPhone OS is brilliant - full OS X inside and Cocoa Touch cleans up on Cocoa a lot (although I'm still bemoaning the lack of GC).

Any DVD player would such the batteries - load your movies onto iPad in other ways, via iTunes and then play them on the road for much better battery use. Not only would a drive be a drain on the battery, but also extra weight to lug around.

Remember Apple replaced 5 1/4" floppies with 3 1/2" ones and the PC people cried foul for years. Then Apple dropped floppies altogether - more outrage. Most technologies are just hold overs - the new paradigm is full time network connection over wireless. This is not a general desktop/laptop replacement - it's another device that works with your family of computers.

It's a small device - don't bog it down with heavy and battery-draining features.

I'm glad Apple are designing this with a "what is really needed" mentality, rather than the kitchen-sink approach of many of those on the news groups.

Iphone OS sucks? Are you kidding? Which mobil OS is clearly superior without a debate? Enlighten us all. Touch OS benefits greatly simply by adding more screen real estate for bigger buttons, more room for the GUI etc.

Blu-ray? OLED clamshell and a real keyboard? I think you're talking about the Macbook AIR and you should get ready to pay about $1,000 more than the tablet and still $500 more than your $900 price point. Not to mention the fact that you haven't even paid for the touch screen, magnetometer or 3G modem yet.

Get over it. I was a disappointed that the Ipad didn't have certain features, but after I saw the price and Iwork, I knew it was time to STFU, enjoy using it and look forward to buying another one when rev. 2 hits the streets.

I think we'll see multi tasking in Iphone OS 4 update shortly after the arrival of the pad at stores and announced with the newest Iphone.

BTW their 3G plan with AT&T was genius. I'll probably buy a 3G version and enable it whenever I'm on the road, turn it off when I'm not. Great price and the freedom to use it when you need it without a contract or even a visit to the AT&T store.

Multitasking in the UI is nice on a smartphone, because it lets you listen to one app while viewing another, as well as allowing background monitoring for e.g. chat messages. It's not essential for most users though, since the screen on a smartphone is only big enough to let you view one app at a time, apart from pop up alerts. I would like to see multitasking in OS4 for the iPhone, but I can live without it. The iPad is a different story, the screen is large enough to let you view multiple apps at once, so multitasking makes perfect sense. The demo of iPhone apps running at true resolution, with a big black box around them, was a little embarrassing. Consider, for contrast, if the UI allowed multiple iPhone apps to be running in their own windows, so you could have several on the screen at once. That would be kind of nice. I wouldn't be at all surprised if OS4 allowed 3rd party multi-tasking, even if only on the iPhone.

Having said that, there is absolutely no relationship between multi-tasking and the number of processor cores the device has, except that more power is better for multi-tasking set ups. You can multi-task on one core, and you can run a single multi-threaded app on multiple cores. Of course the iPhone is always multi-tasking, because in the background you've got the daemons that listen for phone calls, text messages, emails etc. As repeated over and over again, the only limitation on multi-tasking in iPhone OS is that the UI doesn't provide a mechanism for opening multiple applications simultaneously. (I would guess that the OS forces 3rd party apps to quit when the home button is pressed, whereas most of the built in apps are allowed to continue when the home button is pressed, the iPod app being the obvious example.) Hard to see how you could get an elegant interface for multi-tasking on iPhone OS, though I'm sure Apple will manage it eventually. Perhaps replace the tray at the bottom of the screen with something more akin to the MacOS dock. The Palm WebOS solution relies on the fact that WebOS apps are web pages at heart, so the card metaphor works okay. It would be a different level of complexity for native compiled apps. Android relies on the availability of a task manager app to force quit rogue applications, hardly the Apple way.

That BSN article is specious bollocks, frankly. Of course the A4 is an ARM based chip, it couldn't run iPhone apps otherwise - unless it's massively more powerful than any other chip of the same size and is able to do virtualization, which I think we can discount. Beyond that BSN have got nothing. To quote their update:

My guess is that the A4 has four ARM CPU cores, and that they'll produce an A2 with two cores for the next iPhone. However, that's pure speculation and about as badly informed as the BSN article. I would say though that the iPad is going to have somewhat higher processor demands (CPU & GPU) than the iPhone, to allow software like Pages and to drive that five times bigger display. A plain dual core Cortex A9 probably wouldn't show the kind of speed that everyone is attributing to the iPad.

The prospects of MacOSX running on an A4 type chip any time soon are slim to none. To do so, and to allow people to run their existing OSX apps - the only point in doing it - would require virtualization. Apple have done this twice before, with the move from 68K to PPC and from PPC to Intel, but it requires the new processor to be somewhat more powerful than that being emulated. Impressive as the A4 sounds, it's going to be somewhat less powerful than the Intel Core families. Running OSX on it would feel like wading through treacle I should imagine

iPad and iPhone are not old style computer, they are mobile device which have small display and limited resources especially memories. We just need long battery life and performance, not multi-task.

Try not exaggerating so much and people might take you seriously.

*One* webpage during the presentation *briefly* showed a missing plug-in icon (presumably but not certainly flash), during the keynote.

Personally, I took that as a purposeful move by Jobs. He certainly must know that there is Flash on the New York Times homepage. The first thing I thought was that he was letting everyone know that there was no Flash, without making a big deal about it.

In any case it depends on your browsing habits. I have never missed Flash on the iPhone, and never even seen the missing plug-in icon in all the time I've used the iPhone. Maybe if you go to pages with a lot of pornography, or pages with a lot of advertisements, or play Flash games, you might see it. I have literally never had a problem with Flash being gone. Ever.

from what people say (i do not know this first hand), you can multitask with its native apps (mail, photos, itunes) but wouldn't be able to do it with third party apps you've downloaded...
we'll see...my prediction is that is will sell like hotcakes, i'm definitely getting one...although in a later revision...16 gb is too little...

The screen may be larger, but the iPad uses the OS-X mobile UI where all apps run full screen by default.

Unless it's hacked, there will never be two apps on the screen at the same time on the iPad.

So while your argument makes some sense in the abstract, it's not a valid argument for multi-tasking on the iPad because there is never going to be two apps on the screen together, even if multi-tasking is added in. You will always have the full screen for each app and switch between the two. This is one of the main features of the UI design.

Reading a book and using a IM program at the same time.

Please be honest, the very fans are screaming that they don't need multitasking. But as soon as Apple will introduce multitasking in its products the same people will scream that they can't live without it.

Why multi-tasking: because I might want to. It is that simple. I could be working on a document and need to go to the web to look something up. Save the document, close it out, open safari, get my info and somehow copy it to a clip board, close safari, open iwork, open my document..... ahh, what was I doing??

.. and I might want to be listening to music, reading an ibook, and watching a movie all at the same time.

If the capability is there, activate it.

I think this is very smart move from Apple. I'm sure next iPhone will have its own chip too. This might slow down the jailbreak process though.

I think iPad is a nice start. And its $499. That's insane for an Apple Product with such screen and OS.

i think whether we like it or not, apple has reinvented the computer, like they did when they invented the laptop (sj referenced it in his keynote)
i honestly looked at laptops today, and the presence of a physical keyboard makes them look dated...i hadn't had that feeling before

My guess is you would be waiting for that message a very long time....

There are many valid reasons for a multitasking environment, especially on the ipad.

Here is how many....

>1

I wonder if we'll see an iMac or MacBook running on an ARM chip in the next 6 months.

I can't tell if you're being serious or sarcastic. You want OS X, a keyboard and an optical drive? You just described a laptop. That's like saying... this new motorcycle sucks... it would be way better if it had 4 wheels, a body, 4 doors and a trunk.

Yeah - and would you like fries with that?

Why save the document before opening safari?

So let me get this straight u can actually read and watch a movie at the same time and actually make sense of both?

In the USA paper isn't A4 it's US Letter. the A B etc. paper sizes are European and not used here, we still have inches and F° Temp and no decent Health care

What happened was that IBM exited the embedded PowerPC business in 2004/5 --- Qualcomm hired a big portion of that embedded PowerPC design team and created a 50 person CPU team. Then Qualcomm got themselves the ARM architecture license to create their clean room implementation of the ARMv7-A architecture.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-10123149-64.html

It has been RUMORED that Apple took the same route --- getting a ARM architecture license. Apple didn't have the opportunity to poach CPU designers, so they bought PA Semi (and its 150 engineer team).

http://www.eetimes.com/209900392

ARM has their reference implementations of their ARMv7-A architecture (Cortex A8 and A9 cores). Qualcomm has their clean room implementation of the ARMv7-A architecture (Snapdragon chip with Scorpion core). Apple LIKELY RUMORED to have their own clean room implementation of the ARMv7-A architecture (A4).

The difference is manpower --- Qualcomm's 50 person team needed 4 years to create Snapdragon and Apple's 150 person team needed only 2 years to create the A4.

It's not the same size as the tablet anyway.

Yes all ARM 'application' level processors have have a full MMU capable of supporting virtual memory and demand paged OSes.

Whoa! That was a rant.

First, Adobe is SCRAMBING to get on the iPhone bandwagon. But it won't be with the a mobile version of Flash Player. It will be via the upcoming Packager for iPhone, which converts ActionScript projects to *native* iPhone apps. http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/f...ppsfor_iphone/

Second, I'm surprised that you don't think the iPad is killer. Maybe it's because you haven't held one in your hands. (I haven't either.) From what I gather, once you actually use it, you become a salivating iPad zombie. I imagine that's exactly what'll happen to me.

Funny, "3 years behind the times." That's some humor right there. The iPad is probably at least two years ahead of its time. Good luck Google, MS, Dell, HP, etc. They're sure to attempt to follow up.

Lastly, as a bunch of articles have pointed out the past couple days, the iPod got off to a pretty slow start. The iPhone got off to a slow start. The fact that the iPad can hit the ground with a complete infrastructure in place (iTunes, App Store, iBookstore) puts Apple so completely ahead of the competition that it's almost funny.

Spoken like a true Burroughs salesman!

Snoop Control Unit (SCU) - "Foshizzle!" LOLOLOL

Also, Maybe Adobe will allow the creation of HTML5 content from ActionScript projects. With the upcoming Packager for iPhone, it doesn't seem like a stretch to imagine delivery of converted ActionAcript widgets embedded in Web pages or other content. If they can convert ActionScript projects to native iPhone apps, it doesn't seem far-fetched to imagine converting ActionScript projects to HTML5 widgets.

These multitasking comments seem really familiar to the origonal iPhone comments

"why would anyone need copyandpaste. i dont need it and nobody has ever given me any reason why it should be in there. apple decided what was best and adding too much stuff in will slow it down."

Multitasking is nice, but it's not essential, the same was true for copy and paste. I look forward to the time when Apple implements it (I'm still hoping for it in iPhone OS 4.0 which will likely be previewed in March and be available in June), but the lack of multitasking wont be a major factor in whether or not I decide to purchase an iPad. The same goes for the lack of a camera/webcam.

The only sure way to defeat the cloners and hackintoshes is with a hardware lock using a different processor that you make and control.

Well said, especially the first point. Expect multitasking in OS 4.0

Multitasking is necessary.

For example you cant listen to a iTunes U lecture and follow along reading your e-Textbook.

Waiting for a important email? Well you can't listen to music or watch a TV show in the meanwhile.

Want to copy a great passage from a e-book and email it to your friend? oh no can't do that.

Sometimes I think Apple has lost it's fscking mind.

Sure you can listen to iTunes and follow along in <name a native app>. I just played iTunes and went through a bunch of native apps and several non-native apps. No problem.

Should have said "follow along with the video"

Anyhow, nobody knows exactly what the iPad will do yet.


But multitasking is very essential and that was my point.

Who quote another site, who are really just speculating. I've found many sites speculating in similar style but no hard facts.

Nonetheless all this sounds plausible. Anything other than ARM would make it hard to achieve performance goals while running iPhone apps seamlessly.

Either you have a Jail Broke iPhone or you are not telling the truth.

Either way, your posting to suggest it's native Apple software is pathetic. Google Maps, Yahoo Weather are assumed to be Apple Native because they ship with all iPhone's currently.

Lack of Flash and multi tasking for 3rd party apps says that Android's analysts projections are right.

Apple in 4th place in mobile arena by 2012-2013, depending on IDC or Gartner.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUS386329550420100126

Following the path of the Mac. Jobs is more arrogant than I thought.

iPad, Epic Fail on so many levels in 2010. Steve is losing his magical touch. Must have gone with his last liver.

Dude, open your non-jailbroken iPhone (if you even own one). I have a 3GS. Start any song on your iPod app. Then go to ANY other native app. (I tried everyone of my native apps.) The music doesn't stop. Now, try going to a bunch of other non-native apps. The ones that will make your music stop are the ones that use sound in some way. Or games, for obvious reasons.

It's so simple to disprove me. Why don't you try it?

I am not your Dude.

There are about a 100 thousand sites that prove you wrong as of the maxi pad magical movement). Sorry, I meant moment.

I have original iPhone and 3G with current OS.

You are not telling the truth. Multi-Tasking only works for Apple Approved Apps. Otherwise you get a a BIG ASS notice saying you have a new email, new text message, I could go on but won't.

You don't even know the difference between a notification and true mulit-tasking.

You are trained well young Jedi Apple Zombie.

The iPhones was supposed to bomb, too. It got a slow start. Fast forward to 2009. They sold nearly 50 iPhones.

I wanted front-facing camera, so I'm disappointed about that. Otherwise, it looks sah-weet.

It's not a MacPad. It's an iPad. I bet it'll sell like hotcakes.


Ah yes, when completely of ammo, resorts to ad hominem attacks.

Multi-tasking means using two apps at once. Am I missing something? It's not rocket science.

I have a non-jailbroken 3GS. I have Rush playing right now in the background on the iPod app.

Here are some non-native apps I'm opening, and the music keeps playing:

• Night Camera
• Facebook
• AP Mobile
• Tech Fuse
• UFC
• MacNews
• CBS Sports Mobile
• CBS Sports College
• College Football
• Home Budget
• Priceline.com
• PS Mobile
• Echofon
• Loopt
• Kindle for iPhone
• Chipotle

And there you go for my non-music, non-game apps. All of the above opened just fine, I could use them, and the music kept playing on the iPod app. (Now Porcupine Tree is playing.)

Regarding apps that use sound, that's a different story. The iPod app will fade the sound when those apps are opened, or when the sound-using part of the app begins. One app that shut down the iPod sound was RedLaser. When the bar code-snapping part of the app came up, my music faded out.

There you have it.

Yes you can.

Quite easily. In fact, I do it all the time, and could do it up to 99 separate passages if I needed to with Pastebot.

It is nice when you know what you are talking about. Try it you may like it.