Apple expected to pack ultrafast, dual core SGX543 graphics into iPad 2, iPhone 5 - Page 2

Very exiting news, but seems too fast. A4 was just introduced, and replacing it this fast with a dual core, dual GPU chip on both iPad and iPhone does not seem cost affective or even possible to develop and produce this many of the chips in such a short period of time. I will be very surprised if the chip makes it to both the phone and the Pad.

The dual-core Cortex-A9 and dual-core PowerVR 543 are the most believable of the rumours so far. Add to that the PowerVR 543 listed in iOS for iPad v4.3b1 and you have at least some element of truth.

Dual core A9, dual core graphics, double resolution screen, possible extra port (SD, usb, hdmi, etc...) and WOW, the ipad just went from totally underwhelming to overwhelming. I will be lining up to get one of these if these rumours are true.

I'd like to see the base size bumped up to 32 gigs like with the ipod touch, but with those specs above I guess I could live with 16 gigs as the base size.

The chips and the screen will surely drive the price up. Perhaps we will see a strategy similar to iPod touch 3G, where the low end model is unchanged from the gen before, but the higher end (perhaps 3G models) will see a price bump.

Past performance is not an indicator of future performance. Yes, Tegra 2 devices have had issues coming out, but Nvidia appears to have solved them, and they appear to be coming out now. The aforementioned phone in addition to a Froyo tablet. I think from Viewsonic.

On top of that, dual-core SoCs are coming out from Qualcomm, Samsung and Texas Instruments. And they'll go into phones. It's well within the realm of possibility.

Whether Apple wants to do it or not, who knows. We all know that they should. Opposing that is that we shouldn't hope for so much and be skeptical. But I don't know why so. It should be expected that they come out with SoC containing 2x CPU performance, 2x the GPU performance and 2x the RAM. If they don't do that, they'll cede the premium end of the market. They have to maintain performance parity. Then their integration and elegance can get them the premium price and margin they usually get.

I know I won't be surprised if the new Apple SoC is a dual-core A9 with a GPU delivering twice the performance as an SGC 535. I would be surprised if they don't do that. Actually, I would be genuinely pleasantly surprised if they came out with a uni-core 1.6 GHz A9 SoC. If they could solve the power and thermals with that, that'll be the way to go over a dual-core 1 GHz.

Alot of rumors flying around. Yet the substantiation is NOT there and Apple is NOT going to tip there hand on this just yet.

Are you sure? They are next gen chips where they tend to get faster while staying at the same price point, if not cheaper with growth-effected economy of scale. This display rumour is the one that would seem to be a huge step up and therefore a huge price jump.

Perhaps you are right, keeping A4 for another year would not keep iPad competitive, so perhaps this will be an investment into future type of thing.

If history is an indication, Apple will add its own mods and packaging to off-the-shelf and custom hardware -- giving it an advantage over the competition.

if the graphics enhancements are true, Apple is in an unique position to exploit them.

It's a no-brainer that iMovie will come to the iPad -- possibly GarageBand too, and something closer to iPhoto on the Mac.

There are APIs in current iOS that permit powerful enhanced graphics and animation constructs. For example Mac iMovie has image stabilization, Mac Pages has masks and Bezier curve support. I suspect that these capabilities could be easily migrated to the iPad.

It is not too much a stretch to expect capabilities from Mac Prosumer and Pro apps -- things such as tracking, 3D object and camera manipulation, Tiitles, compositing, telestrating, etc.

Apple has these apps running on OS X -- if applicable it can port them to iOS. No one else even has the apps.

AutoDesk, Adobe and others have apps available for the iPad that could be enhanced to exploit more robust hardware.

Lots of medical apps... Education apps... Multiplayer game apps...

If they wish, Apple could port Quartz Composer to the iPad -- opening massive opportunities for 3rd-party apps for AV presentations.

Then there is KeyNote, AirPlay, AppleTV and FaceTime think of the possibilities for presos, collaboration, communication...

The best part is that Apple can announce these apps/uses serially when they are most advantageous to the iPad platform.

I had intended to say the 32Gb Wifi+3G model but I can't find a source anyway, so I might have imagined it.

There is no way to say if this reflects the entire market, but I can say with certainty that the order of iPad bestsellers has fallen like this every time Ive checked since last April. I even stated on a thread a few weeks ago that this uncommon high-end interest could lead to an even higher end model. At least, thats what Id do if I found an excessive number of my buyers are going for the option that costs 65% more.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers...ef=pd_tr_e_mte

This is an important point. Apple spends substantial amounts to develop these iOS APIs. I believe they do so with some purpose in mind.

Bull shit.

Apple writes the best portable OS, hands down.

Android already has the hardware advantage and it still cannot compete with iOS.

Riiight. That's why a MacBook Air with a 1.4Ghz Core 2 Duo is flying off the store shelves.

If not get an iPhone 4. Otherwise wait

Realize that there is a possibility that the processor being discussed here might not end up in the iPhone anyways. It's possible that Apple has another solution for the iPhone. It really depends upon the new processors power usage.

Why because a process shrink might result in a smaller chip. Plus it is likely Apple will integrate even more hardware onto the SoC.

The display is an entirely different matter but no body really knows what Apple pays for those screens. Further considering they practically pay for the screen production line I suspect very good prices to Apple.

I would see mini display port first...

iPad 2 and iPhone 5 - two devices with different resolution screens having same dual core GPU? I'm not buying this.

Huh? I neither want nor desire 3G in an iPad. Making me pay for something I don't need would be "ripping me off"

Um, did I not say iOS was smooth and the best?

And since when does Android have better hardware than iOS? It always been performance parity. The iPhone 4 has comparable hardware to Android hardware. They may lag or lead by 3 to 4 months, but over the span of each iOS device rev, Apple has maintained performance parity in the hardware.

However, if Apple doesn't go dual-core this year for their next gen ARM SoC, they will not be at performance parity anymore. That's why we should fully expect it to be dual core CPU with 2x on the performance the GPU.

I dont understand this request. Ive heard people wish for more storage capacity, but never wish for the option for a lower capacity to exist. Are you saying you want 32GB model to be at the $499 price point? If so, that is a very different thing to state, IMO.



Why not? Apple can make one SoC that will sell in over 100 million units. Besides the R&D being lower for HW, there are drivers and OS coding that are easier and cheaper, not to mention this being a great way to capitalize on economy of scale.

They also dont have to run at the same frequency. Apple advertised the A4 in the iPad being 1GHz but then only noted the iPhone 4 uses an A4. They both also use the same GPU according to the OS info. I think its a guarantee the CPU is underclocked in the iPhone 4 and a possibility the GPU is using less power than the iPads A4. The only known difference is the amount of RAM but as Im sure you know with PCs altering the quantity of RAM or disk storage doesnt mean new drivers.

Its also possible that theyll use more cores in the iPads A4than in the iPhone/Touchs A4, with A4 being a general term for any of Apples ARM-based SoCs. If it does get 4x the resolution then I think 1GB RAM will be necessary, but this may not be needed on the iPhone/Touch this year.

Since when is a MBA not at performance parity? Especially the current one. There are very few if any 2 to 3 lb ultra portable, ultra thin laptops that offer the performance balance that the MBA does.

What I said earlier is a totally non controversial statement. It's aa if you guys don't think a dual-core SoC with a GPU capable of 70m tri/s isn't possible at current CMOS nodes. That's crazy talk. It certainly is possible. It's as if you guys don't think Samsung, TI, and Qualcomm won't be able to do it or something, even though they've already said as much. There are going to be a lot of dual core devices coming out throughout this year.

I wouldn't be surprised. Apple has shown they are more than willing to obsolete a product with a new one before others would have considered it.

It's what gives their competitors such fits...

And with battery life that's a joke unless micromanaged...

Uh, why? The iPhone 4 and iPad have the same processor and different resolutions.

Why not? Well you just unswered that. It's more likely that iPad 2 will have quad core GPU (if we believe resolution will be 2xcurrent). I think at some point in time iPad and iPhone must go separate ways hardware wise. It's easy to put same stuff in both and underclock one of them, but come on these are two different devices for different apps and different screens.

And what CPU has to do with resolution?

Um, what? Are you intimating that the iPhone, iPod touch will have a lessor GPU than the iPad?

Apple's been shipping the PowerVR SGX 535 GPU for 2.5 years inside the iPod touch 3/4 gen, iPhone 3GS/4, iPad, and AppleTV. That's like 4 different resolutions. They'll do it. It's the best way to amortize the cost of developing their SoC and to get great discounts because they'll be ordering millions upon millions of them. In 2011, it could be well over 50 million of them.

Android systems can go dual-core and Apple can remain on a single-core chip and Apple will still provide a hugely superior OVERALL experience compared to the sloppiness of Android.

The only folks nowadays that care about what's under the hood are nerds and tech-heads that still to this day seem to think that it's the size and/or speed of the CPU that matters. At this point given the speeds of CPU's, it's irrelevant.

A tightly-written and optimized system like iOS will always provide a better experience on "slower" hardware than what Android can provide and bleeding-edge software. I've used Android enough to know that it's a joke in terms of user-experience, even though the Android hardware is technically "superior" to what Apple offers, and you very well know that.

You do realize that generations of faster chip are really just essentially improved "photography" resolution in churning out "prints" of increasingly sophisticated photos in silicon that happen to function in predictable ways.

So no, it isn't an expensive leap to use the best processor available at an affordable price. Apple actually can't afford not to, as everyone else will be. We've heard all about the PlayBook and the new Android stuff, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that the number one mobile PC device vendor is also using the state of the art available.

The PC industry had gone interesting again. This time, it's also affordable. It's like the early PC days except everything has gotten 10x cheaper, so you can actually buy the stuff and it can sell to millions of people every year. That's driving the pace of development even faster.

The iPad A4 has half the RAM of the iPhone A4.

Remember when Intel took '486 chips where the math coprocessors failed and repurposed them as the 486sx? Maximizes production yield and profit. Who's to say Apple won't do the same with the next generation as I suspect they have already done with the A4. A little less RAM here, a fewer cores or execution units there....

That makes absolutely no sense at all.

I'm assuming iPad 2 will have noticeably higher screen resolution and we already now that GPU in current iPad is too weak for it at even 1024 by 768. 480 by 320 is not the problem for 535 though. What i'm saying is that at some point hardware should be actually differentiated. Quad core for the iPad and dual for the iPhone makes more sense. These are two different devces with differenr screens and purposes, you can't just put same stuff into them year after year.

On what grounds?

Since the display, touch panel, casing and many other aspects of the iPad are very different from the iPhone you must be talking about the A4 SoC. What grounds do you think they wont be using ARM or Imagination Tech GPUs? Thats really the only thing you could be referring to, hence it making no sense at all.


PS: I dont get how you have assumed the iPad 2 will have a quad-core GPU just because the resolution is doubled. Note that the presumed GPU considerably more powerful than the current GPU. We also dont know how much of the GPU is being utilized to push the graphics. So why not a dual-core PowerVR SVG543?

I'm saying that you can't put same dual core 543 in both. You need to actually differentiate them. I understand it's good for the production costs and all, but ... I have an iPad and GPU is too slow imho, on the iPhone 4 it's ok though.

So why not quad core? Just look at what games a starting to roll out.

Elementary logic. It makes absolutely no sense for Apple to split hardware platforms. Economies of scale and all that.

There is a very smart reason that Apple produces basically one iPhone model each year, and why they have leveraged the A4 in every iOS device. It's a direct contributor to them kicking the crap out of all their competitors.

It started with them dramatically cutting down the number of products after Jobs returned. Again, if you can't understand the reasons, benefits and direct contributors to Apple's success that such a strategy has brought... then I doubt there is much I or anyone else in a forum like this could do to help you understand.

I'm curious as to what you are doing where you can tell that it's the GPU that is too slow.

Why cant they? What is preventing them from put a dual-core GPU in the iPhone 4 and Touch? What rationale do you have to say that its not possible?



No one said they cant use quad-core. You said they have to use quad-core. I stated that is false reasoning.