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A5X chip in Apple's new iPad doubles RAM to 1GB - report - Page 2

post #41 of 114
3/8/12 at 7:02am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Neo42 View Post

Same goes for Android, the kernel is definitely running natively in Java and not on a *nix platform.

First off, Android is most definitely Linux based. Google just decided to make it's own Java implementation to run most of Android applications. I think they are probably regretting that. First, it does have performance issues. Especially when you cram it on some of the cheap devices that run Android. Also, since Android went mainstream (maybe even because of Android), Oracle acquired Sun and has aggressively perused anyone with so called "unlicensed" Java implementations. Android Java was actually based on Apache's Java implementation which was already in dispute, so it was a poor, poor decision for Google for that reason alone.

That said, you can write Android software in C++ or even Objective C. In fact, it is encouraged for games.

That is truth. That is fact.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Neo42 View Post

One thing we all know for sure is that Android sucks!!!

I guess I am an idiot for liking my iPad and having an Android phone I actually like. There are things my phone does that my wife could never do with her iPhone, and my phone is not rooted. The extras I have matter to me and keep me from buying an iPhone. They are things that matter on my phone, but do not matter on my tablet.

Believe it or not, there are legitimate reasons to choose Android over iOS. I do not believe Apple is an evil empire that destroys your freedom. I am perfectly fine with Apple controlling the experience on their devices. Some times though, it boils down to function over form.

I hate to say this because I know people will attack me without knowing what they are talking about. This is the reality though. I have over a year with both iOS and Android:

Apple has a major edge over Android on style and ease of use. No doubt.

Android has a major edge over Apple on capability and customization. No doubt.

Android also has malware, background process that can cripple your device, and ad ware. It isn't for everyone. But if you want freedom to customize, your choices are Android or a jailbroken iPhone.

THAT'S the reality. Decide what matters to you and make your choice.

Personally, I don't find it to be as easy as most people. I supposed that makes me a moron for not being brainwashed that actually thinking rationally. I need to upgrade my phone soon and I am still leaning towards Android since I now have a Macbook and an iPad. Of course, I need to learn more about jailbreaking. A jailbroken iPhone might be the best of both worlds.
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post #42 of 114
3/8/12 at 7:24am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Suddenly Newton View Post

From Wikipedia:
"Android's kernel is based on the Linux kernel...."

If factual errors could kill, you'd be a serial killer

I don't know why i'm defending the somewhat childish, petulant post he/she made, but to play devil's advocate, Linux is technically not Unix and so not a "*nix" at all.

Linux is a copy of Unix done in the spirit of Unix, but it isn't actually Unix or even really in the "family."
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post #43 of 114
3/8/12 at 7:30am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Prof. Peabody View Post

I don't know why i'm defending the somewhat childish, petulant post he/she made, but to play devil's advocate, Linux is technically not Unix and so not a "*nix" at all.

Linux is a copy of Unix done in the spirit of Unix, but it isn't actually Unix or even really in the "family."

A copy of Unix (or Unix-like, if you prefer) is exactly what is meant by "*nix", and what Linux is. So, Linux is not Unix, but definitely is *nix.

Further reading.
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post #44 of 114
3/8/12 at 7:41am
Quote:
Originally Posted by melgross View Post

They are correct though. Anyone says that doubling RAM doesn't add to power draw doesn't know what they're talking about.

Obviously RAM consumes some power, but the Microsoft quote is always taken out of context. RAM does impact battery life, but compared to the screen and CPU / GPU the power consumed by RAM is basically zero.

However, when the computer / tablet is in stand-by mode, the CPU is basically asleep and the display is off while the RAM still consumes the same power whether it is on or off.

So ... more memory does impact stand-by time (i.e. the amount of time the unit can be powered off before the battery runs completely dry).

Apple doesn't report stand-by time for the iPad, so who knows how much of an impact it has. Apple did double the RAM from the original iPad to the iPad2, so I didn't hear anyone complain. I doubt they will this time either.
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post #45 of 114
3/8/12 at 7:50am
Quote:
Originally Posted by AdyB View Post

Is it just me or does this paragraph seem to imply that the A5X is effectively the same as the A5 apart from more onboard RAM. [/quote}

It does seem to imply that.

[quote} Is there some distinction between the CPU and the system-on-a-chip side of things that I am missing?

My understanding is that that 'style' takes into consideration the processor, RAM and GPU as a single unit.

So in the iPad 2 it was an A5 system on a chip featuring the A5 main processor, a dual core GPU and 512MB of Ram

the iPad 3 is an A5X system on a chip featuring the same main processor, a quad core GPU (makes sense cause the graphics are very often the biggest processor load) and 1GB of RAM. that GPU and RAM are the X of the system.
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post #46 of 114
3/8/12 at 7:53am
Linux Is Not UniX
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post #47 of 114
3/8/12 at 7:55am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Apple ][ View Post

iOS is a much more professionally coded OS and it is far more lean than Android, which is a sloppy and poorly written OS, made by amateurs for amateurs.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that its an amateur OS. The issue, to me, seems to be more one of too many cooks. Every carrier or hardware manufacturer can tweak the code in Android which makes it really hard to code for every possibility. iOS has one team of cooks, which is what leads to things like that 'leanness' you speak of. You code something for iOS and you are done. You don't have to do Nokia iOS, ATT iOS etc.

I have often felt that Google made a huge mistake in allowing others to do those tweaks. I get wanting to often choices but they should have coded them and made it more of a pick your parts system that they have vetted as sound code and they are constantly revamping to get better and better results. Basically that is what they should be 'stealing' from Apple.
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post #48 of 114
3/8/12 at 7:59am
Quote:
Originally Posted by maciekskontakt View Post

"Microsoft explained that RAM is constantly consuming power"


LOL Hardware experts.

I had to laugh a little and ask myself if that is true (to the level they imply) or is it that ineffective coding for memory and perhaps battery use is the real consumer. One of the first things I remember reading about when I started coding iOS was releasing memory effectively. Apparently this was a huge issue in early apps (wasn't done well if at all) and still a big problem at times.
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post #49 of 114
3/8/12 at 8:01am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Apple ][ View Post

If I have a pain in my tooth, I'm not going to make an appointment with my barber.

There was a time in history when you might have.


Quote:
Originally Posted by dasanman69 View Post

You didn't go to a barber for your toothache but you went to a computer company for your phone.

But is a smart phone a phone with computer features, or a computer with phone ones.

Your answer to my question informs the 'rightness' of your comment.

personally I see a smart phone as the latter so hell yeah I'm going to a computer company that I can trust to get the key part of the device right.
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post #50 of 114
3/8/12 at 8:04am
How much of the extra ram and gpu speed increase will go to running the increase in screen resolution?

Will an ipad2 be just as fast as an ipad3 due to the screen reoslution being higher on the 3?
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post #51 of 114
3/8/12 at 8:12am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ronbo View Post

...It's true in everything except static RAM, which can lose power and keep its contents.

Static RAM (SRAM) needs to have a continuous power supply or it will lose its contents, just like Dynamic RAM (DRAM).

The major distinction between the two is that DRAM has a further requirement, that each and every individual cell in a DRAM needs to be read and re-written on a regular periodic basis or else its value will decay over time -- even if the DRAM module itself maintains a steady power supply.

You're thinking of Non-Volatile RAM (NVRAM), which can maintain its contents (for a reasonably long period of time) after the power supply is cut off. There are many different kinds of NVRAM, based on many very different underlying technologies. They are related to each other only in as much as they all fit the general definition of RAM, and their contents are non-volatile.

Anyway, we should be very careful about using the terminology "RAM". Despite the fact that its colloquial meaning is very well understood, and nobody at all would ever be genuinely confused about the meaning of the word "RAM" in this context, there will be pedants out there who will make the (technologically correct, although often colloquially confusing) assertion that the iPad contains at least two (probably more) different types of memory, all of which could be successfully argued to fit the strictest definition of the term "RAM", and that, taken as a whole, the increase from 512 MB to 1GB of SDRAM doesn't constitute anything close to doubling the iPad's total "RAM".

Let's just say that the new A5X SoC doubles the iPad's "Primary Storage" (a technically correct term for the role the A5X's SDRAM plays within the iPad, but much less likely to be recognized colloquially for its true meaning).
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post #52 of 114
3/8/12 at 8:13am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Neo42 View Post

No one knows for sure what makes Android eat so much more memory than iOS. Maybe it's the superior multitasking capabilities, or maybe it is the dynamic and extended implementation of UI graphics unlike the rigid UI and multiprocessing framework found in iOS.

Yes we do.

It is how Java works and Dalvik is just a way to run Java code. The deep kernel of Android is a Linux flavor, but the part that does everything that makes Android Android is plain old Java.

Java happens to be a really poor choice for coding an efficient operating system because of the way it handles object memory. That has been known by technically competent programmers for ages. Java 7 is wonderfully better than Java 1.4 and earlier, because it got rid of lots of unnecessary extra inefficiencies, but the architecture of the language is still consistent and a bad choice for an OS.

Its actually surprising Android has done as well as it has with the starting efficiency handicaps it has. Google really polished the turd so to speak. But the cost has been a lot more engineering effort necessary and the need to throw significantly more expensive hardware at overcoming the issues.
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post #53 of 114
3/8/12 at 8:18am
Quote:
Originally Posted by cmvsm View Post

This is good stuff. I'll take an updated GPU and RAM over a processor upgrade any day of the week.

Yep me to, I was actually really upset to hear that my iPad 2 only had 512 MB. It turned out to really not matter as iOS like WP7 doesn't really matter as most apps don't run in the background, the apps are frozen until brought to the front. So the 1 GB must be for the new iPhoto and other apps that need it for graphic manipulation.

Actually a little tid bit, only Symbian, WebOS and Meego are true multitasking OSs in the sense that all apps are still running in the background regardless of what is in view. Android is very simple to make it full multitasking however, it's actually only a few lines of code that need changing but you have to do it yourself or download a custom rom from XDA. I understand why iOS isn't though, battery, makes perfect sense.
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post #54 of 114
3/8/12 at 8:20am
Quote:
Originally Posted by auxio View Post

While I'm not a huge fan of the way iOS multitasks, the multiprocessing technology offered to developers for a single application in iOS is top notch. I'll take blocks and/or operation queues over threads and/or multiple processes any day of the week. Far less synchronization headache.

iOS multitasks great. What you don't like is that Apple didn't make multitasking available to every app without restriction no matter what. Big difference at the technical level, and a significant difference at the battery level. There probably are some corner cases where Apple makes it hard to write a background app that would actually be nice and useful to do, but I haven't heard one yet in listening and reading three years of multitasking arguments (and no, Pandora running in the background while you are talking on the phone just doesn't make sense from a power budget standpoint).
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post #55 of 114
3/8/12 at 8:23am
Quote:
Originally Posted by DrDoppio View Post

A copy of Unix (or Unix-like, if you prefer) is exactly what is meant by "*nix", and what Linux is. So, Linux is not Unix, but definitely is *nix ...

Nah. To be rightly called a *nix or part of the Unix family (or even "unix-like"), it should actually have some Unix lineage.

Linux is originally a clean room copy of Unix that has lifted little bits of Unix over the years but it's definitely a parallel evolution kind of thing. It has no real relation to Unix at all it's just something that's been made to resemble it from the outside.
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post #56 of 114
3/8/12 at 8:25am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Prof. Peabody View Post

I don't know why i'm defending the somewhat childish, petulant post he/she made, but to play devil's advocate, Linux is technically not Unix and so not a "*nix" at all.

Linux is a copy of Unix done in the spirit of Unix, but it isn't actually Unix or even really in the "family."

Quote:
Originally Posted by DrDoppio View Post

A copy of Unix (or Unix-like, if you prefer) is exactly what is meant by "*nix", and what Linux is. So, Linux is not Unix, but definitely is *nix.

Further reading.

Well to get really technical, Linux does adhere to all the Unix™ API interface standards, and the only modern requirement to be called a Unix is that and a few hundred thousand $$ for the permission to use the Unix™ trademark. The only part Linux is missing is the paying for the trademark part, close enough for me.

Quote:
Originally Posted by sessamoid View Post

Linux Is Not UniX

Only because if GNU didn't say that they might have to pay the trademark licensing fee. Functionally it is equivalent to a Unix.
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post #57 of 114
3/8/12 at 8:27am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hiro View Post

iOS multitasks great. What you don't like is that Apple didn't make multitasking available to every app without restriction no matter what. Big difference at the technical level, and a significant difference at the battery level. There probably are some corner cases where Apple makes it hard to write a background app that would actually be nice and useful to do, but I haven't heard one yet in listening and reading three years of multitasking arguments (and no, Pandora running in the background while you are talking on the phone just doesn't make sense from a power budget standpoint).

Would be nice if there was a developer option to turn on true multitasking though. Sometimes I'm running a web application that gets all screwed up just because I switch over for a sec to change the music.
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post #58 of 114
3/8/12 at 8:39am
Quote:
Originally Posted by rednival View Post

First off, Android is most definitely Linux based. Google just decided to make it's own Java implementation to run most of Android applications. I think they are probably regretting that. First, it does have performance issues. Especially when you cram it on some of the cheap devices that run Android. Also, since Android went mainstream (maybe even because of Android), Oracle acquired Sun and has aggressively perused anyone with so called "unlicensed" Java implementations. Android Java was actually based on Apache's Java implementation which was already in dispute, so it was a poor, poor decision for Google for that reason alone.

That said, you can write Android software in C++ or even Objective C. In fact, it is encouraged for games.

That is truth. That is fact.



I guess I am an idiot for liking my iPad and having an Android phone I actually like. There are things my phone does that my wife could never do with her iPhone, and my phone is not rooted. The extras I have matter to me and keep me from buying an iPhone. They are things that matter on my phone, but do not matter on my tablet.

Believe it or not, there are legitimate reasons to choose Android over iOS. I do not believe Apple is an evil empire that destroys your freedom. I am perfectly fine with Apple controlling the experience on their devices. Some times though, it boils down to function over form.

I hate to say this because I know people will attack me without knowing what they are talking about. This is the reality though. I have over a year with both iOS and Android:

Apple has a major edge over Android on style and ease of use. No doubt.

Android has a major edge over Apple on capability and customization. No doubt.

Android also has malware, background process that can cripple your device, and ad ware. It isn't for everyone. But if you want freedom to customize, your choices are Android or a jailbroken iPhone.

THAT'S the reality. Decide what matters to you and make your choice.

Personally, I don't find it to be as easy as most people. I supposed that makes me a moron for not being brainwashed that actually thinking rationally. I need to upgrade my phone soon and I am still leaning towards Android since I now have a Macbook and an iPad. Of course, I need to learn more about jailbreaking. A jailbroken iPhone might be the best of both worlds.

I'm just like you, I live in both worlds. I have a Android tablet and a iPad, I also just replaced my iPhone with a Samsung Note. I like both devices and use them for two different things. Oh and I write apps using C++ for Android. it's very easy to do and the apps run incredibly fast. So do the normal ones, never had much of a problem. Android is running on a 100 percent Linux kernel, I compile one every week for my Asus Slider. I love to tweak!

As far as a new phone is concerned, you have got to check out the Asus Padphone, just incredible. You get a phone that you can insert into a 10 inch tablet dock, a tablet that you can insert into a keyboard dock. Get this the tablet and the keyboard both have batteries so when combined you get an estimated 24 hours. Awesome I'm totaly in, going to skip the new iPad for the time being and get this. I'll pick up the iPad towards the end of the year when there are apps that will fully utilize that great screen.
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post #59 of 114
3/8/12 at 9:01am
Quote:
Originally Posted by John.B View Post

Yeah, I don't know about "amateurs", but design and performance aren't exactly hallmarks of the Google experience.

Maybe not all of their services, however, their core business, Search, is pretty impressive. How they can find 50 million relavant web pages in less than a second is quite good performance I would say. Another service that I find very advanced is Analytics. Sketch Up is also a first class application as is Google Maps, Google Earth and Google Sky. I have not used Android but it seems to work pretty well for many people. Gmail seems a bit clunky to me but is works well enough. Apple Mail is not really any better IMO. I could go on with other great Google apps like Translate and News but that would start to make me look like a Google apologist which I'm not. But I'm not a Google hater either.

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post #60 of 114
3/8/12 at 9:07am
Quote:
Originally Posted by DrDoppio View Post

That's not the point, nVidia doesn't make the OS but the chip.

Also, according to Anandtech, the iPad 2 is about 1.4x faster than Tegra 3, not 2x as Apple claimed yesterday...

It does matter, because otherwise the Tegra 3 is just a paper beast.

Also, the Tegra 3 is only just catching up to the *year-old* iPad 2 and its A5?
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post #61 of 114
3/8/12 at 9:16am
Quote:
Originally Posted by chris v View Post

God, I hope so. That's the most frustrating thing about the iPad. Quite a few times, I'll enter some text, say in a window at a site like this, switch to another tab to grab a link, & when I switch back, the page refreshes & my text is gone. If I want to write anything at all involved on a message board, I do it in notes, then copy and paste the thing. It's a pain.

Also, I hope iOS 5.1 does something about Safari's bad crashiness. It's nice that it auto-recovers the links that were open when it crashed, but I have to re-launch it 4 or 5 times a day, it seems like.

Second both these points, Lots of crashing on iPad 1 with 5.0, and always losing input text.
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post #62 of 114
3/8/12 at 9:37am
Quote:
Originally Posted by jnjnjn View Post

Not so. The Apple A5 processor is twice as fast as the Nvidia Tegra 3 and the Apples A5X processor is four times as fast.


<...> because in absolute numbers its quite impressive (29 GFLOPS).

J.

Impressive, indeed especially if we go back to history :

In 1975, the 80 MHz Cray-1 was announced. Excitement was so high that a bidding war for the first machine broke out between Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Los Alamos National Laboratory, the latter eventually winning and receiving serial number 001 in 1976 for a six-month trial. The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) was Cray Research's first official customer in 1977, paying US$8.86 million ($7.9 million plus $1 million for the disks) for serial number 3. <...>

The 80 MFLOPS Cray-1 was succeeded in 1982 by the 800 MFLOPS Cray X-MP, the first Cray multi-processing computer. In 1985, the very advanced Cray-2, capable of 1.9 GFLOPS peak performance, succeeded the two first models <...>
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post #63 of 114
3/8/12 at 9:39am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pendergast View Post

It does matter, because otherwise the Tegra 3 is just a paper beast.

Also, the Tegra 3 is only just catching up to the *year-old* iPad 2 and its A5?

I'm a developer with relationships to both Apple and Nvidia. So I'm pretty layered up with various tablets- obviously the iPad 1 and 2, I also have Tegra 2 and 3 developer tablets.

The above numbers sound about right actually. My Nvidia contact, who is also an evangelist for his company, fully admits to me that the Tegra 3 only catches them up to the iPad 2 in terms of performance and in some ways is slower. That's his best spin on the subject. For them it takes a quad core cpu and double the ram just to be "a little bit behind". I personally find this to be pathetic. This is the best competition Apple has and they're losing badly.

The iPad 2 has the SGX543MP2 GPU which can do about 68 million triangles/second. The SGX543MP4 (not the same model as in the Vita, but similar) in the iPad 3 can do about 130 million triangles/second, almost doubling GPU performance like they advertise. The iPad 3 has literally about 9-10x the GPU performance of the iPad 1 or iPhone 4. I don't know what it will take for Android/Nvidia to catch up to this. I think realistically, in the most unbiased way I can state, Android tablets are about 1.5-2 years behind Apple's curve in terms of overall performance.

You guys know that being behind by 2 years in the tablet world is an eternity. They may as well not even be players, which they are arguably not. It's not just raw performance of the chipsets either, if you ever spent time with a Tegra 3 that has 4 cores and 1GB ram, you'd start to wonder if the iPad 1 with 1 core and 256MB ram feels smoother. It certainly does for most everday tasks.
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post #64 of 114
3/8/12 at 10:02am
Quote:
Originally Posted by REC View Post

I'm a developer with relationships to both Apple and Nvidia. So I'm pretty layered up with various tablets- obviously the iPad 1 and 2, I also have Tegra 2 and 3 developer tablets.

The above numbers sound about right actually. My Nvidia contact, who is also an evangelist for his company, fully admits to me that the Tegra 3 only catches them up to the iPad 2 in terms of performance and in some ways is slower. That's his best spin on the subject. For them it takes a quad core cpu and double the ram just to be "a little bit behind". I personally find this to be pathetic. This is the best competition Apple has and they're losing badly.

The iPad 2 has the SGX543MP2 GPU which can do about 68 million triangles/second. The SGX543MP4 (not the same model as in the Vita, but similar) in the iPad 3 can do about 130 million triangles/second, almost doubling GPU performance like they advertise. The iPad 3 has literally about 9-10x the GPU performance of the iPad 1 or iPhone 4. I don't know what it will take for Android/Nvidia to catch up to this. I think realistically, in the most unbiased way I can state, Android tablets are about 1.5-2 years behind Apple's curve in terms of overall performance.

You guys know that being behind by 2 years in the tablet world is an eternity. They may as well not even be players, which they are arguably not. It's not just raw performance of the chipsets either, if you ever spent time with a Tegra 3 that has 4 cores and 1GB ram, you'd start to wonder if the iPad 1 with 1 core and 256MB ram feels smoother. It certainly does for most everday tasks.

Aaah I don't think so. Qualcomm and Samsung both have chips that are being released that wipe the floor with the Nvidia Tegra 3. The S4 Pro is a pretty incredible chip, I was in Spain for the MWC and got to play with it. They'll all catch up before Q3 maybe even Q2 and then surpass by December but then Apple will be releasing the A6 in 2013 so your right it will be an ever ending catch up game. Year and half though is just silly.

Who cares though, my Asus Slider is incredible fast and I have no complaints and it's not even a Tegra 3. I run Ubuntu in a dual boot and even Ubuntu is quick enough.
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post #65 of 114
3/8/12 at 10:46am
Quote:
Originally Posted by AdyB View Post

Is it just me or does this paragraph seem to imply that the A5X is effectively the same as the A5 apart from more onboard RAM. Is there some distinction between the CPU and the system-on-a-chip side of things that I am missing?

The Apple A5X uses the same duel-core CPU as the Apple A5 and a new quad-core GPU which is the reasoning for the 'X' suffix.

Quote:
Phil Schiller speaking about the Apple A5X at the Apple Special Event on 7 March 2012 at 28:15:
Well, you know the iPad 2 used the A5 chipApple designed chipwhich is the best chip in a mobile device, to drive a great display. But we needed even more horsepower for this new iPad and it's Retina display. So we've created the Apple A5X chip, and what's the 'X' for? Quad-core graphics. Quad-core graphics designed specifically for the Retina display to drive four times the number of pixels.

Well, how does that compare to what others are using? Well, others are using chips like this NVIDIA Tegra 3, if you normalise its graphics performance at 1, the Apple A5 was already twice as fast and the new A5X brings four times the performance, it is a graphics powerhouse.

Quote:
Steve Jobs speaking about the Apple A5 at the Apple Special Event on 2 March 2012 at 16:17:
We have a new chip, we call A5, our chip wizards have come up with this and it's great. It's duel-core processors, right, two processors inside and so we get up to twice as fast on CPU performance. But we've really gone all out on the graphics performance. Up to nine times faster graphics. The graphics in this thing are wonderful. Same low power as A4. We don't wanna give up any of that legendary battery life. And, even though others are starting to ship, I think this is going to be the fist duel-core tablet to ship in volume.

So A5 is really quite an achievement and is gonna give us something that's up to twice as fast on CPU performance, up to nine times faster graphics and the first iPad was no slouch. So, a lot faster with A5.

Although Apple doesn't specify the amount of RAM in iOS devices, president of Epic Games Mike Capps said during yesterdays presentation at 53:55 that 'this new device actually has more memory and higher screen resolution than an Xbox 360 or a PlayStation 3'. Knowing that the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3 have 512 MB of RAM, Capps comment implies that the iPad has 1 GB of RAM.
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post #66 of 114
3/8/12 at 10:54am
Quote:
Originally Posted by cmvsm View Post

This is good stuff. I'll take an updated GPU and RAM over a processor upgrade any day of the week.

Depending upon the specifIcs of the improvements to that GPU the actual on screen performance could very well be a wash. We will have to wait and see. Otherwise you are right RAM is very important here as is the GPU.
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post #67 of 114
3/8/12 at 10:57am
Quote:
Originally Posted by rednival View Post

First off, Android is most definitely Linux based. Google just decided to make it's own Java implementation to run most of Android applications. I think they are probably regretting that. First, it does have performance issues. Especially when you cram it on some of the cheap devices that run Android. Also, since Android went mainstream (maybe even because of Android), Oracle acquired Sun and has aggressively perused anyone with so called "unlicensed" Java implementations. Android Java was actually based on Apache's Java implementation which was already in dispute, so it was a poor, poor decision for Google for that reason alone.

That said, you can write Android software in C++ or even Objective C. In fact, it is encouraged for games.

That is truth. That is fact.



I guess I am an idiot for liking my iPad and having an Android phone I actually like. There are things my phone does that my wife could never do with her iPhone, and my phone is not rooted. The extras I have matter to me and keep me from buying an iPhone. They are things that matter on my phone, but do not matter on my tablet.

Believe it or not, there are legitimate reasons to choose Android over iOS. I do not believe Apple is an evil empire that destroys your freedom. I am perfectly fine with Apple controlling the experience on their devices. Some times though, it boils down to function over form.

I hate to say this because I know people will attack me without knowing what they are talking about. This is the reality though. I have over a year with both iOS and Android:

Apple has a major edge over Android on style and ease of use. No doubt.

Android has a major edge over Apple on capability and customization. No doubt.

Android also has malware, background process that can cripple your device, and ad ware. It isn't for everyone. But if you want freedom to customize, your choices are Android or a jailbroken iPhone.

THAT'S the reality. Decide what matters to you and make your choice.

Personally, I don't find it to be as easy as most people. I supposed that makes me a moron for not being brainwashed that actually thinking rationally. I need to upgrade my phone soon and I am still leaning towards Android since I now have a Macbook and an iPad. Of course, I need to learn more about jailbreaking. A jailbroken iPhone might be the best of both worlds.

put it this way - there is NO PERFECT SMART PHONE ALONE - its ONLY PERFECT TO THE USER that decided to own IT!
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post #68 of 114
3/8/12 at 11:05am
Note that is on my iPad one. Right now I have iOS 5.1 installed on my iPhone 4 and have a bit of use under the belt. It does look to be very stable, faster and with far less glitches. Hopefully this is a good sign.

As to memory, it will help Safari a lot but Safari has many a bug that leads to all sorts of performance issues. Especially troublesome are the ones that force page reloads. If they have corrected these issues I could see my data usage going down.

Quote:
Originally Posted by chris v View Post

God, I hope so. That's the most frustrating thing about the iPad. Quite a few times, I'll enter some text, say in a window at a site like this, switch to another tab to grab a link, & when I switch back, the page refreshes & my text is gone. If I want to write anything at all involved on a message board, I do it in notes, then copy and paste the thing. It's a pain.

Also, I hope iOS 5.1 does something about Safari's bad crashiness. It's nice that it auto-recovers the links that were open when it crashed, but I have to re-launch it 4 or 5 times a day, it seems like.
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post #69 of 114
3/8/12 at 11:29am
This is where Apple really sucks, they could easily just tell us how much RAM and how fast the cores are. Instead they play games.

Oh and before anybody says anything it does make a difference, iPad has been RAM starved for far to long.
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post #70 of 114
3/8/12 at 11:30am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Apple ][ View Post

I don't know all of the technical details, but I do have two perfectly good functioning eyes, and I know when something looks choppy and not smooth, and I also know crap from good. As for Java, it seems that is what apps are written with on Android. Is that why they suck so much?

It`s obvious you don`t have a clue about Android or even computers in general. Java is the most used language for apps in the world because you can write an app in Java, and run it on ANY hardware. Now this comes with a performance penalty, because Java apps don`t run natively, they run in a virtual machine (ie. emulator).

Android also runs native apps, written in C++ (mostly games). C++ runs faster than Java, but apps have to be tailored for the hardware they run on, which means more work for the developer.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Apple ][ View Post

As for multitasking, a person should learn to walk before they run, and Android doesn't even have the basics down.

And you're comparing the Android UI to the super smooth and silky iOS UI? When was the last time that you went to an optometrist, because a person doesn't even have to be knowledgeable about tech to see that one is way smoother than the other.

iOS is smoother mainly because all iOS apps run natively, and because it suspends apps that aren`t in focus. Android will actually continue running most apps in the background, for instance you can be loading multiple webpages, playing games, have torrents downloading in the background, and playing music all at the same time. Like a full desktop computer. If your device isn`t fast enough, it will lag. So it`s up to the user to manage their system`s processes, much like on your desktop, how you shouldn`t run too many things at once.

If you keep your multitasking to a minimum, Android is silky smooth, especially if you have a high end device.

By the way, I used to have an iPhone 3G with iOS 4.3. That thing lagged so much I`d press an app button, then just put the phone down because I had to wait 5-10 seconds for anything to happen. It was borderline unusable. The iOS 4 upgrade should have never been allowed for the iPhone 3G. But funny how Apple fans (not users, just the maniacal fans) forgot about this huge blunder, and pretend that iPhones prior to the 3GS didn`t exist, because they were complete trash.

These problems aren`t iOS or Android issues, it`s how computers work. Plain and simple. And no matter how dumbed down and glossed over smartphones are, they`re still just small computers.
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post #71 of 114
3/8/12 at 11:43am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mikeb85 View Post

It`s obvious you don`t have a clue about Android or even computers in general. Java is the most used language for apps in the world because you can write an app in Java, and run it on ANY hardware. Now this comes with a performance penalty, because Java apps don`t run natively, they run in a virtual machine (ie. emulator).

Android also runs native apps, written in C++ (mostly games). C++ runs faster than Java, but apps have to be tailored for the hardware they run on, which means more work for the developer.



iOS is smoother mainly because all iOS apps run natively, and because it suspends apps that aren`t in focus. Android will actually continue running most apps in the background, for instance you can be loading multiple webpages, playing games, have torrents downloading in the background, and playing music all at the same time. Like a full desktop computer. If your device isn`t fast enough, it will lag. So it`s up to the user to manage their system`s processes, much like on your desktop, how you shouldn`t run too many things at once.

If you keep your multitasking to a minimum, Android is silky smooth, especially if you have a high end device.

By the way, I used to have an iPhone 3G with iOS 4.3. That thing lagged so much I`d press an app button, then just put the phone down because I had to wait 5-10 seconds for anything to happen. It was borderline unusable. The iOS 4 upgrade should have never been allowed for the iPhone 3G. But funny how Apple fans (not users, just the maniacal fans) forgot about this huge blunder, and pretend that iPhones prior to the 3GS didn`t exist, because they were complete trash.

These problems aren`t iOS or Android issues, it`s how computers work. Plain and simple. And no matter how dumbed down and glossed over smartphones are, they`re still just small computers.

Uh oh your in trouble now, you said a Apple product sucked. These people are going to eat you alive. Now that is said I got my new Samsung Galaxy 7.7 in the mail this morning. Love it, that screen, oh man, it's awesome. I didn't know this but you can make phone calls on it to. The performance is also incredibly fast but sshhhh that's just between you and me we are in dangerous waters talking about something other then Apple.
When I looked up "Ninjas" in Thesaurus.com, it said "Ninja's can't be found" Well played Ninjas, well played.
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When I looked up "Ninjas" in Thesaurus.com, it said "Ninja's can't be found" Well played Ninjas, well played.
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post #72 of 114
3/8/12 at 11:44am
Quote:
Originally Posted by rednival View Post

First off, Android is most definitely Linux based. Google just decided to make it's own Java implementation to run most of Android applications. I think they are probably regretting that. First, it does have performance issues. Especially when you cram it on some of the cheap devices that run Android. Also, since Android went mainstream (maybe even because of Android), Oracle acquired Sun and has aggressively perused anyone with so called "unlicensed" Java implementations. Android Java was actually based on Apache's Java implementation which was already in dispute, so it was a poor, poor decision for Google for that reason alone.

That said, you can write Android software in C++ or even Objective C. In fact, it is encouraged for games.

That is truth. That is fact.

Natively running apps for Android are also getting more and more popular, which is nice. Java has it`s uses, but is limited.

Quote:
Originally Posted by rednival View Post

I guess I am an idiot for liking my iPad and having an Android phone I actually like. There are things my phone does that my wife could never do with her iPhone, and my phone is not rooted. The extras I have matter to me and keep me from buying an iPhone. They are things that matter on my phone, but do not matter on my tablet.

Believe it or not, there are legitimate reasons to choose Android over iOS. I do not believe Apple is an evil empire that destroys your freedom. I am perfectly fine with Apple controlling the experience on their devices. Some times though, it boils down to function over form.

Absolutely. If my girlfriend or mom wants a phone recommendation, I`ll tell them iPhone for ease of use and features. If a tech inclined friend wants to know, I`ll tell them Android with some caveats...

Quote:
Originally Posted by rednival View Post

I hate to say this because I know people will attack me without knowing what they are talking about. This is the reality though. I have over a year with both iOS and Android:

Apple has a major edge over Android on style and ease of use. No doubt.

Style depends on manufacturer. Ease of use though, absolutely.

Quote:
Originally Posted by rednival View Post

Android also has malware, background process that can cripple your device, and ad ware. It isn't for everyone. But if you want freedom to customize, your choices are Android or a jailbroken iPhone.

One disclaimer about Adware and Malware, Android is very secure and doesn`t just download malware from a malicious site or something. It has to be downloaded by the user, consciously. An informed Android user does not have to worry about these things, just has to be responsible. The uninformed just need to be cautious, and inform themselves. Android experience is very much dependent on the user being responsible for their own device.

Quote:
Originally Posted by rednival View Post

Personally, I don't find it to be as easy as most people. I supposed that makes me a moron for not being brainwashed that actually thinking rationally. I need to upgrade my phone soon and I am still leaning towards Android since I now have a Macbook and an iPad. Of course, I need to learn more about jailbreaking. A jailbroken iPhone might be the best of both worlds.

Jailbreaking unfortunately introduces a gray element into the picture, not all jailbreakers are law abiding, and there is the possibility of downloading malicious apps onto a jailbroken device. iOS is no more secure than Android at the OS level, it`s the AppStore and Apple`s ecosystem that prevents malware.
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post #73 of 114
3/8/12 at 11:47am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mikeb85 View Post

It`s obvious you don`t have a clue about Android or even computers in general. Java is the most used language for apps in the world because you can write an app in Java, and run it on ANY hardware. Now this comes with a performance penalty, because Java apps don`t run natively, they run in a virtual machine (ie. emulator).

Android also runs native apps, written in C++ (mostly games). C++ runs faster than Java, but apps have to be tailored for the hardware they run on, which means more work for the developer.



iOS is smoother mainly because all iOS apps run natively, and because it suspends apps that aren`t in focus. Android will actually continue running most apps in the background, for instance you can be loading multiple webpages, playing games, have torrents downloading in the background, and playing music all at the same time. Like a full desktop computer. If your device isn`t fast enough, it will lag. So it`s up to the user to manage their system`s processes, much like on your desktop, how you shouldn`t run too many things at once.

If you keep your multitasking to a minimum, Android is silky smooth, especially if you have a high end device.

By the way, I used to have an iPhone 3G with iOS 4.3. That thing lagged so much I`d press an app button, then just put the phone down because I had to wait 5-10 seconds for anything to happen. It was borderline unusable. The iOS 4 upgrade should have never been allowed for the iPhone 3G. But funny how Apple fans (not users, just the maniacal fans) forgot about this huge blunder, and pretend that iPhones prior to the 3GS didn`t exist, because they were complete trash.

These problems aren`t iOS or Android issues, it`s how computers work. Plain and simple. And no matter how dumbed down and glossed over smartphones are, they`re still just small computers.

Uh oh your in trouble now, you said a Apple product sucked. These people are going to eat you alive. Now that is said I got my new Samsung Galaxy 7.7 this morning. Yaaaay, love it to death, that screen, oh man, it's awesome. I didn't know this but you can make phone calls on it too. The performance is also incredibly fast but sshhhh that's just between you and me we are in dangerous water here talking about something other then Apple. Hey I waited, I heard a rumor Apple would introduce a 7 inch, nope, so on to the next best thing. Right choice, defiantly the right choice, best tablet I have ever owned.
When I looked up "Ninjas" in Thesaurus.com, it said "Ninja's can't be found" Well played Ninjas, well played.
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When I looked up "Ninjas" in Thesaurus.com, it said "Ninja's can't be found" Well played Ninjas, well played.
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post #74 of 114
3/8/12 at 11:48am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Relic View Post

Uh oh your in trouble now, you said a Apple product sucked. These people are going to eat you alive. Now that is said I got my new Samsung Galaxy 7.7 in the mail this morning. Love it, that screen, oh man, it's awesome. I didn't know this but you can make phone calls on it to. The performance is also incredibly fast but sshhhh that's just between you and me we are in dangerous waters talking about something other then Apple.

The iPhone 3G did suck. That`s the truth. The 4 was a gamechanger, the 4S I even considered, but the 3G was terrible. In fact, my 3G was so bad, that now my girlfriend is completely terrified of updating the OS on her 3GS, even though most Apps are no longer able to run on her phone (she still has iOS 3.something).
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post #75 of 114
3/8/12 at 12:00pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Relic View Post

Uh oh your in trouble now, you said a Apple product sucked. These people are going to eat you alive. Now that is said I got my new Samsung Galaxy 7.7 this morning. Yaaaay, love it to death, that screen, oh man, it's awesome. I didn't know this but you can make phone calls on it too. The performance is also incredibly fast but sshhhh that's just between you and me we are in dangerous water here talking about something other then Apple. Hey I waited, I heard a rumor Apple would introduce a 7 inch, nope, so on to the next best thing. Right choice, defiantly the right choice, best tablet I have ever owned.

Oh and tomorrow comes my white N9, I just got a sms from the post that I can come and pick it up. So excited. New tablet and new phone, although the N9 is just a toy that I've been waiting for to lower in price I will still charish it none the less. Now Meego, there is a full multitasking OS none of that pausing crap that iOS and Android does, ha ha. I can't wait to install a LAMP server on that thing, what am I talking about, it's a Debian Linux box with a fancy Xwindows. I can install any Linux program I want on it, not just LAMP. Hmmmm, let's see Gimp, FireFox, Android SDK, Eclipse maybe. Oh I can't wait.
When I looked up "Ninjas" in Thesaurus.com, it said "Ninja's can't be found" Well played Ninjas, well played.
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When I looked up "Ninjas" in Thesaurus.com, it said "Ninja's can't be found" Well played Ninjas, well played.
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post #76 of 114
3/8/12 at 12:05pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mikeb85 View Post

The iPhone 3G did suck. That`s the truth. The 4 was a gamechanger, the 4S I even considered, but the 3G was terrible. In fact, my 3G was so bad, that now my girlfriend is completely terrified of updating the OS on her 3GS, even though most Apps are no longer able to run on her phone (she still has iOS 3.something).

Never owned one myself, actually the iPhone 4 was my first Apple phone. I was a Blackberry user before that and before that a Nokia Communicator user. Wasn't to impressed with the iPhone, liked that hardware no doubt, just replaced it with a Nokia Lumia 800 for private and a Samsung Note for work.
When I looked up "Ninjas" in Thesaurus.com, it said "Ninja's can't be found" Well played Ninjas, well played.
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When I looked up "Ninjas" in Thesaurus.com, it said "Ninja's can't be found" Well played Ninjas, well played.
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post #77 of 114
3/8/12 at 12:13pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by REC View Post

I'm a developer with relationships to both Apple and Nvidia. So I'm pretty layered up with various tablets- obviously the iPad 1 and 2, I also have Tegra 2 and 3 developer tablets.

The above numbers sound about right actually. My Nvidia contact, who is also an evangelist for his company, fully admits to me that the Tegra 3 only catches them up to the iPad 2 in terms of performance and in some ways is slower. That's his best spin on the subject. For them it takes a quad core cpu and double the ram just to be "a little bit behind". I personally find this to be pathetic. This is the best competition Apple has and they're losing badly.

The iPad 2 has the SGX543MP2 GPU which can do about 68 million triangles/second. The SGX543MP4 (not the same model as in the Vita, but similar) in the iPad 3 can do about 130 million triangles/second, almost doubling GPU performance like they advertise. The iPad 3 has literally about 9-10x the GPU performance of the iPad 1 or iPhone 4. I don't know what it will take for Android/Nvidia to catch up to this. I think realistically, in the most unbiased way I can state, Android tablets are about 1.5-2 years behind Apple's curve in terms of overall performance.

You guys know that being behind by 2 years in the tablet world is an eternity. They may as well not even be players, which they are arguably not. It's not just raw performance of the chipsets either, if you ever spent time with a Tegra 3 that has 4 cores and 1GB ram, you'd start to wonder if the iPad 1 with 1 core and 256MB ram feels smoother. It certainly does for most everday tasks.

Apple supposedly has 1,000 engineers working on chips.

I wonder how that compares to NVidia or others?

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-20...s-report-says/
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post #78 of 114
3/8/12 at 12:16pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mikeb85 View Post

It`s obvious you don`t have a clue about Android or even computers in general. Java is the most used language for apps in the world because you can write an app in Java, and run it on ANY hardware. Now this comes with a performance penalty, because Java apps don`t run natively, they run in a virtual machine (ie. emulator).

Android also runs native apps, written in C++ (mostly games). C++ runs faster than Java, but apps have to be tailored for the hardware they run on, which means more work for the developer.

This is the argument Android developers make when they say they hate it and build iOS versions first.

Android is a very ugly kludge, you have this ugly slow Dalvik Java-like thing that has to be interfaced with do do any visual, audio or input. Google should just have it put down if they want to catch up to iOS. Forcing developers to write 10% of their code in Java is a bloody nightmare. They likely picked Java because originally they were aiming to steal RIM's thunder, and the easiest way to do that was tell the J2ME people to hit recompile.

But Java is a super-poor choice for a mobile platform just like Flash is. Java and Flash put an additional layer of CPU stress, and poorly developed applications basically do this

Code:

while(exit!=true){
flip();
render();
playsound();
}



So when you run these things, they just grab all the CPU available. This works fine on a desktop or a server where the application can use 100% of a cpu core and the OS will take cycles away from it if it needs it. But on a mobile platform you need something more like this:
Code:


if(returnfromSuspend){restorestateofapplication();  }
while(!idle){
if(applicationInForground){draw();ProcessInput();}
ProcessBackground();
}
if(OSsaysSuspend){
savestateofapplication();exit();
}



Android is just plain fustrating to develop for, because every device is different. You see why Java might make sense, because you can just compile it one time and you are at least gauranteed that it will execute on every device. However it doesn't mean it will have good performance, and any shortcuts taken by the device manufacturer will show up.

Google should just cut their losses with the manufacturers, adopt a native-code model and throw away the existing Java-like headache. It would make more sense to just keep the code intermediately compiled, and then compile-on-the-fly for new devices and processor types with a validation test (application must compile with zero errors and zero warnings and have >100% performance on base hardware.)

I like Google and all, but some of their development directions leave me scratching my head as to why they prefer the lazy engineering technique of throw more hardware/money at the problem instead of optimizing. Just look at the Chrome browser for memory waste.
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post #79 of 114
3/8/12 at 12:26pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Michael Scrip View Post

Apple supposedly has 1,000 engineers working on chips.

Hopefully six guys in blue jeans won't show them up.
Tallest Skil & Relic
"…AI is a private forum…" "Well, in that case, it's naked time…"
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"…AI is a private forum…" "Well, in that case, it's naked time…"
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post #80 of 114
3/8/12 at 12:32pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Relic View Post

Oh and tomorrow comes my white N9, I just got a sms from the post that I can come and pick it up. So excited. New tablet and new phone, although the N9 is just a toy that I've been waiting for to lower in price I will still charish it none the less. Now Meego, there is a full multitasking OS none of that pausing crap that iOS and Android does, ha ha. I can't wait to install a LAMP server on that thing, what am I talking about, it's a Debian Linux box with a fancy Xwindows. I can install any Linux program I want on it, not just LAMP. Hmmmm, let's see Gimp, FireFox, Android SDK, Eclipse maybe. Oh I can't wait.

True, Meego was and is probably the best mobile platform, until it got orphaned. Alot of the traditional players (Intel, Microsoft, Nokia, Ericsson) just keep dropping the ball...
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