Except, you conveniently overlook the fact that Apple builds the CPU, RAM, etc. on a single custom chip and removes unnecessary baggage -- then designs the iOS software to exploit the hardware.
That's why, a slower, optimized, software/hardware combination often can (and does) outperform faster software optimized for faster hardware.
.
You conveniently overlook the fact that the A4 uses all stock components. It was really a cost related move (to take out a few hardware items that Apple doesn't need). Nothing to do with the performance of the machine.
You conveniently overlook the fact that the A4 uses all stock components. It was really a cost related move (to take out a few hardware items that Apple doesn't need). Nothing to do with the performance of the machine.
You 'Sir' have no God damned idea of what you speak.
Yeah right, it was Apple's idea to get a product to the consumer that's as cheap as possible.
Nothing else - just cheap.
Like the iPod and iPhone - no thought whatsoever for UI or functionality.
You conveniently overlook the fact that the A4 uses all stock components. It was really a cost related move (to take out a few hardware items that Apple doesn't need). Nothing to do with the performance of the machine.
Yeah, except you are wrong.
Quote:
The Cortex-A8 core used in the A4 is thought to use performance enhancements developed by chip designer Intrinsity (which was subsequently acquired by Apple)[10] in collaboration with Samsung.[11] The resulting core, dubbed "Hummingbird", is able to run at far higher clock rates than other implementations while remaining fully compatible with the Cortex-A8 design provided by ARM.[12] Other performance improvements include additional L2 cache. The same Cortex-A8 CPU core used in the A4 is also used in Samsung's S5PC110A01 SoC.[13][14]
The A4 processor package does not contain RAM, but supports PoP installation. The top package of the A4 used in the iPad & iPod touch[15] 4th gen contains two low-power 128 MB DDR SDRAM chips for a total of 256MB RAM. For the iPhone 4 there are two chips of 256 MB for a total of 512 MB.[16][17][18] RAM is connected to the processor using ARM's 64-bit-wide AMBA 3 AXI bus. This is twice the width of the RAM data bus used in previous ARM 11 and ARM 9 based Apple devices, to support the greater need for graphics bandwidth in the iPad.[19]
RIM CEO was already talking about the possibility of doing quad-cores yesterday at web 2.0 --- simply because QNX can. And we are talking about iOS that can't do real multi-tasking yet.
What exactly is "real" multitasking? The ability to kill your battery by running a background app that doesn't add any value when running in the background?
RIM has yet to demonstrate the benefits of their "real" or "true" multitasking. So far it just looks like a really great way for sloppy developers to eat your battery.
What exactly is "real" multitasking? The ability to kill your battery by running a background app that doesn't add any value when running in the background?
RIM has yet to demonstrate the benefits of their "real" or "true" multitasking. So far it just looks like a really great way for sloppy developers to eat your battery.
Don't need to demonstrate the benefits at all. It is just a great way to illustrate that their OS has a firm foundation to build on.
Battery life and heat dissipation is going to follow the desktop CPU path --- cell phones will go quad-core and RIM can do that with their current QNX kernel.
Don't need to demonstrate the benefits at all. It is just a great way to illustrate that their OS has a firm foundation to build on.
Battery life and heat dissipation is going to follow the desktop CPU path --- cell phones will go quad-core and RIM can do that with their current QNX kernel.
"true" multitasking is a feature. Consumers buy benefits. Indeed, if RIM wants to differentiate based on multitasking then they need demonstrate the benefits. Otherwise consumers will simply be swayed by the sexiness of Apple products and Jobs' reality distortion field.
What do consumers need from multitasking? Background music, streaming, VOIP, no need to reload an app upon resume, etc. These will already be offered by iPad within a week. What is RIM bringing to the table besides a buzz word and marketing jibber jabber?
True multitasking? Super! Now I can play a video of fish in the background while I do email. I can't see the video, but isn't it great knowing that its playing in the background due to true multitasking? Amazing!
"true" multitasking is a feature. Consumers buy benefits. Indeed, if RIM wants to differentiate based on multitasking then they need demonstrate the benefits. Otherwise consumers will simply be swayed by the sexiness of Apple products and Jobs' reality distortion field.
As I said, software has been lagging hardware for the last 30 years.
The true benefit is going to be faster to market. Does Apple need to do drastic changes to the iOS for dual-core cpu's or quad-cores? Remember the old co-operating multitasking in system 6/7 --- the whole OS development slowed down because the basics weren't done.
Don't need to demonstrate the benefits at all. It is just a great way to illustrate that their OS has a firm foundation to build on.
Battery life and heat dissipation is going to follow the desktop CPU path --- cell phones will go quad-core and RIM can do that with their current QNX kernel.
You say this like iOS (and even UNIX) cannot do this. I don't understand why you think rebuilding a kernel would be such a big deal and why a solid component has such a downturn to a split-component system.
QNX is fast. It can run a GUI. However, it has not been put to the task of running a complex mobile device so you can't make any just predictions. Everything you mentioned can be done with QNX's kernel, however, everything would have to be adjusted to do it correctly and efficiently. You can't just stick a new block in there and suppose it will operate right, that's when you get Windows.
You say this like iOS (and even UNIX) cannot do this. I don't understand why you think rebuilding a kernel would be such a big deal and why a solid component has such a downturn to a split-component system.
QNX is fast. It can run a GUI. However, it has not been put to the task of running a complex mobile device so you can't make any just predictions. Everything you mentioned can be done with QNX's kernel, however, everything would have to be adjusted to do it correctly and efficiently. You can't just stick a new block in there and suppose it will operate right, that's when you get Windows.
I didn't say that. I said --- does Apple need to do a lot of work if they go dual core or quad core. It is about time to market. We know that RIM can do it without requiring a single change in the QNX kernel. Even if they require some changes, the amount of change required for QNX would be smaller than the amount required for iOS or webOS --- simply because QNX was designed to work on embedded stuff (that is even smaller than the smartphones/tablets) from day 1.
There is nothing really complex about a mobile device. You think it's complex, but the QNX people handle these things regularly.
There is nothing really complex about a mobile device. You think it's complex, but the QNX people handle these things regularly.
The complexity is not the device, its the ecosystem. If you tasked me with building a standalone tablet device that had an OS with a specific feature set I could do it in a snap. Ask me to build a device that is part of an ecosystem and well thats another story.
There is nothing really complex about a mobile device. You think it's complex, but the QNX people handle these things regularly.
What does this even mean? Of course "mobile devices" are complex, if we're talking about modern general purpose computing devices. And what "things" are the QNX people handling?
You act as if hardware compatibility and a small footprint were the entire story. If that were the case, where has QNX been in the general purpose mobile computer market? Why didn't they beat Android to the punch and become the mass market OS of choice?
I think it's fine that QNX is multi-core ready. I think it's insane to think that, because of that, a QNX powered RIM tablet is poised to surpass the iPad. A QNX based RIM tablet can surpass the iPad if it offers some combination of a better experience, more ease of use, better and more plentiful applications, superior design, better battery life, etc., etc.
You'll notice none of those have anything to do with number of cores, a gear-head spec that consumers could care less about. RIM could bring a multicore tablet to market tomorrow, and unless it does a bunch of things substantially better than the iPad (and the only possible improvement that multi-core brings is speed-- do you hear people companying about how sluggish the iPad is?) than it doesn't matter. At all.
It was Bandai. That's actually the manufactures name. The product was Pippin, sold for $ 599 or something. It did ship. And yes, it was a complete failure. Most of Apple's failed products were during the dark days. Some were actually under Jobs' watch...
Some failures I even like. Like the cube. Friend of mine has the original one from Next. Still think it's a cool design.
"true" multitasking is a feature. Consumers buy benefits. Indeed, if RIM wants to differentiate based on multitasking then they need demonstrate the benefits. Otherwise consumers will simply be swayed by the sexiness of Apple products and Jobs' reality distortion field.
What do consumers need from multitasking? Background music, streaming, VOIP, no need to reload an app upon resume, etc. These will already be offered by iPad within a week. What is RIM bringing to the table besides a buzz word and marketing jibber jabber?
True multitasking? Super! Now I can play a video of fish in the background while I do email. I can't see the video, but isn't it great knowing that its playing in the background due to true multitasking? Amazing!
and eating your battery so that by the time your email is finished and about to send it you would either scram for a recharge or basically loose the mail. Thats called true multitasking from both (device & human)
I didn't say that. I said --- does Apple need to do a lot of work if they go dual core or quad core. It is about time to market. We know that RIM can do it without requiring a single change in the QNX kernel. Even if they require some changes, the amount of change required for QNX would be smaller than the amount required for iOS or webOS --- simply because QNX was designed to work on embedded stuff (that is even smaller than the smartphones/tablets) from day 1.
There is nothing really complex about a mobile device. You think it's complex, but the QNX people handle these things regularly.
According to your logic neither Linux / Android or iOS/darwin can run on SMP. And have you heard of GCD (grand central dispatch).
I didn't say that. I said --- does Apple need to do a lot of work if they go dual core or quad core. It is about time to market. We know that RIM can do it without requiring a single change in the QNX kernel. Even if they require some changes, the amount of change required for QNX would be smaller than the amount required for iOS or webOS --- simply because QNX was designed to work on embedded stuff (that is even smaller than the smartphones/tablets) from day 1.
There is nothing really complex about a mobile device. You think it's complex, but the QNX people handle these things regularly.
QNX is (nowadays) targeted towards embedded systems such as CPUs, not an entire muktifunctional OS. Apple does not need to do that much more work to implement multiple cores, just as others have stated, OS X has been able to take advantage of them since the creation of GCD. The kernel would need work to take advantage of it (I assume, I don't know how the kernel handles multiple cores by default, especially in iOS), but QNX would have the same drawback. It is not significantly less work, in both cases it requires work. Don't forget that QNX operates as separate systems (hense the microkernel); to take full advantage you would need to make a new block and modify other systems to take advantage of the new one. Things are not not automatic in the kernel level, QNX or iOS, and you can't lay things on top to core hardware like you could with a baseband.
A mobile device is very complex. Unlike embedded systems, there are a lot more things that need to be managed. This is why i dislike microkernels in complicated designs. The fact that everything is split and many of the components are stuck at the "user space" level causes fragmentation of the core. In some cases this is good, in others it is not. QNX isn't a bad move, but that doesnt mean that it is completely godsent.
QNX is (nowadays) targeted towards embedded systems such as CPUs, not an entire muktifunctional OS. Apple does not need to do that much more work to implement multiple cores, just as others have stated, OS X has been able to take advantage of them since the creation of GCD. The kernel would need work to take advantage of it (I assume, I don't know how the kernel handles multiple cores by default, especially in iOS), but QNX would have the same drawback. It is not significantly less work, in both cases it requires work. Don't forget that QNX operates as separate systems (hense the microkernel); to take full advantage you would need to make a new block and modify other systems to take advantage of the new one. Things are not not automatic in the kernel level, QNX or iOS, and you can't lay things on top to core hardware like you could with a baseband.
A mobile device is very complex. Unlike embedded systems, there are a lot more things that need to be managed. This is why i dislike microkernels in complicated designs. The fact that everything is split and many of the components are stuck at the "user space" level causes fragmentation of the core. In some cases this is good, in others it is not. QNX isn't a bad move, but that doesnt mean that it is completely godsent.
QNX has always been self-hosted and run as a desktop pc machine. I used this in high-school in the late 80's.
BILLIONS of feature cell phones have been manufactured to use microkernels.
The whole iOS is basically sitting in user space --- as a guest OS on top of a RTOS/hypervisor which runs the baseband. That's a lot more complicated to have 2 different OS'es.
Comments
Buying device != implied satisfaction with all aspects of said device.
OK, Got it... it's 2 vs say, 99,999,998 (assuming that you 2 whiners have bought an iOS device).
.
Except, you conveniently overlook the fact that Apple builds the CPU, RAM, etc. on a single custom chip and removes unnecessary baggage -- then designs the iOS software to exploit the hardware.
That's why, a slower, optimized, software/hardware combination often can (and does) outperform faster software optimized for faster hardware.
.
You conveniently overlook the fact that the A4 uses all stock components. It was really a cost related move (to take out a few hardware items that Apple doesn't need). Nothing to do with the performance of the machine.
OK, Got it... it's 2 vs say, 99,999,998 (assuming that you 2 whiners have bought an iOS device).
.
Touchy much?
You conveniently overlook the fact that the A4 uses all stock components. It was really a cost related move (to take out a few hardware items that Apple doesn't need). Nothing to do with the performance of the machine.
You 'Sir' have no God damned idea of what you speak.
Yeah right, it was Apple's idea to get a product to the consumer that's as cheap as possible.
Nothing else - just cheap.
Like the iPod and iPhone - no thought whatsoever for UI or functionality.
Yep, your spot-on there mate.
Oh, BTW - you're an ill-informed idiot.
Other than that, have a nice day
You conveniently overlook the fact that the A4 uses all stock components. It was really a cost related move (to take out a few hardware items that Apple doesn't need). Nothing to do with the performance of the machine.
Yeah, except you are wrong.
The Cortex-A8 core used in the A4 is thought to use performance enhancements developed by chip designer Intrinsity (which was subsequently acquired by Apple)[10] in collaboration with Samsung.[11] The resulting core, dubbed "Hummingbird", is able to run at far higher clock rates than other implementations while remaining fully compatible with the Cortex-A8 design provided by ARM.[12] Other performance improvements include additional L2 cache. The same Cortex-A8 CPU core used in the A4 is also used in Samsung's S5PC110A01 SoC.[13][14]
The A4 processor package does not contain RAM, but supports PoP installation. The top package of the A4 used in the iPad & iPod touch[15] 4th gen contains two low-power 128 MB DDR SDRAM chips for a total of 256MB RAM. For the iPhone 4 there are two chips of 256 MB for a total of 512 MB.[16][17][18] RAM is connected to the processor using ARM's 64-bit-wide AMBA 3 AXI bus. This is twice the width of the RAM data bus used in previous ARM 11 and ARM 9 based Apple devices, to support the greater need for graphics bandwidth in the iPad.[19]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_A4
http://www.patentlyapple.com/patentl...-surfaces.html
What you got?
.
Yeah, except you are wrong.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_A4
http://www.patentlyapple.com/patentl...-surfaces.html
What you got?
.
EARLY EARLY reports that were disproved by actual A4 chip teardowns (when they dissolved the top layer with acid and x-rayed the chip).
http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-n...nd-tantalizing
The conclusion --- the A4 has pretty much zero difference than a Samsung chip (which also licensed the same Hummingbird design).
RIM CEO was already talking about the possibility of doing quad-cores yesterday at web 2.0 --- simply because QNX can. And we are talking about iOS that can't do real multi-tasking yet.
What exactly is "real" multitasking? The ability to kill your battery by running a background app that doesn't add any value when running in the background?
RIM has yet to demonstrate the benefits of their "real" or "true" multitasking. So far it just looks like a really great way for sloppy developers to eat your battery.
What exactly is "real" multitasking? The ability to kill your battery by running a background app that doesn't add any value when running in the background?
RIM has yet to demonstrate the benefits of their "real" or "true" multitasking. So far it just looks like a really great way for sloppy developers to eat your battery.
Don't need to demonstrate the benefits at all. It is just a great way to illustrate that their OS has a firm foundation to build on.
Battery life and heat dissipation is going to follow the desktop CPU path --- cell phones will go quad-core and RIM can do that with their current QNX kernel.
Don't need to demonstrate the benefits at all. It is just a great way to illustrate that their OS has a firm foundation to build on.
Battery life and heat dissipation is going to follow the desktop CPU path --- cell phones will go quad-core and RIM can do that with their current QNX kernel.
"true" multitasking is a feature. Consumers buy benefits. Indeed, if RIM wants to differentiate based on multitasking then they need demonstrate the benefits. Otherwise consumers will simply be swayed by the sexiness of Apple products and Jobs' reality distortion field.
What do consumers need from multitasking? Background music, streaming, VOIP, no need to reload an app upon resume, etc. These will already be offered by iPad within a week. What is RIM bringing to the table besides a buzz word and marketing jibber jabber?
True multitasking? Super! Now I can play a video of fish in the background while I do email. I can't see the video, but isn't it great knowing that its playing in the background due to true multitasking? Amazing!
"true" multitasking is a feature. Consumers buy benefits. Indeed, if RIM wants to differentiate based on multitasking then they need demonstrate the benefits. Otherwise consumers will simply be swayed by the sexiness of Apple products and Jobs' reality distortion field.
As I said, software has been lagging hardware for the last 30 years.
The true benefit is going to be faster to market. Does Apple need to do drastic changes to the iOS for dual-core cpu's or quad-cores? Remember the old co-operating multitasking in system 6/7 --- the whole OS development slowed down because the basics weren't done.
Don't need to demonstrate the benefits at all. It is just a great way to illustrate that their OS has a firm foundation to build on.
Battery life and heat dissipation is going to follow the desktop CPU path --- cell phones will go quad-core and RIM can do that with their current QNX kernel.
You say this like iOS (and even UNIX) cannot do this. I don't understand why you think rebuilding a kernel would be such a big deal and why a solid component has such a downturn to a split-component system.
QNX is fast. It can run a GUI. However, it has not been put to the task of running a complex mobile device so you can't make any just predictions. Everything you mentioned can be done with QNX's kernel, however, everything would have to be adjusted to do it correctly and efficiently. You can't just stick a new block in there and suppose it will operate right, that's when you get Windows.
You say this like iOS (and even UNIX) cannot do this. I don't understand why you think rebuilding a kernel would be such a big deal and why a solid component has such a downturn to a split-component system.
QNX is fast. It can run a GUI. However, it has not been put to the task of running a complex mobile device so you can't make any just predictions. Everything you mentioned can be done with QNX's kernel, however, everything would have to be adjusted to do it correctly and efficiently. You can't just stick a new block in there and suppose it will operate right, that's when you get Windows.
I didn't say that. I said --- does Apple need to do a lot of work if they go dual core or quad core. It is about time to market. We know that RIM can do it without requiring a single change in the QNX kernel. Even if they require some changes, the amount of change required for QNX would be smaller than the amount required for iOS or webOS --- simply because QNX was designed to work on embedded stuff (that is even smaller than the smartphones/tablets) from day 1.
There is nothing really complex about a mobile device. You think it's complex, but the QNX people handle these things regularly.
There is nothing really complex about a mobile device. You think it's complex, but the QNX people handle these things regularly.
The complexity is not the device, its the ecosystem. If you tasked me with building a standalone tablet device that had an OS with a specific feature set I could do it in a snap. Ask me to build a device that is part of an ecosystem and well thats another story.
There is nothing really complex about a mobile device. You think it's complex, but the QNX people handle these things regularly.
What does this even mean? Of course "mobile devices" are complex, if we're talking about modern general purpose computing devices. And what "things" are the QNX people handling?
You act as if hardware compatibility and a small footprint were the entire story. If that were the case, where has QNX been in the general purpose mobile computer market? Why didn't they beat Android to the punch and become the mass market OS of choice?
I think it's fine that QNX is multi-core ready. I think it's insane to think that, because of that, a QNX powered RIM tablet is poised to surpass the iPad. A QNX based RIM tablet can surpass the iPad if it offers some combination of a better experience, more ease of use, better and more plentiful applications, superior design, better battery life, etc., etc.
You'll notice none of those have anything to do with number of cores, a gear-head spec that consumers could care less about. RIM could bring a multicore tablet to market tomorrow, and unless it does a bunch of things substantially better than the iPad (and the only possible improvement that multi-core brings is speed-- do you hear people companying about how sluggish the iPad is?) than it doesn't matter. At all.
Bondai? (sp?)
It was Bandai. That's actually the manufactures name. The product was Pippin, sold for $ 599 or something. It did ship. And yes, it was a complete failure. Most of Apple's failed products were during the dark days. Some were actually under Jobs' watch...
Some failures I even like. Like the cube. Friend of mine has the original one from Next. Still think it's a cool design.
"true" multitasking is a feature. Consumers buy benefits. Indeed, if RIM wants to differentiate based on multitasking then they need demonstrate the benefits. Otherwise consumers will simply be swayed by the sexiness of Apple products and Jobs' reality distortion field.
What do consumers need from multitasking? Background music, streaming, VOIP, no need to reload an app upon resume, etc. These will already be offered by iPad within a week. What is RIM bringing to the table besides a buzz word and marketing jibber jabber?
True multitasking? Super! Now I can play a video of fish in the background while I do email. I can't see the video, but isn't it great knowing that its playing in the background due to true multitasking? Amazing!
and eating your battery so that by the time your email is finished and about to send it you would either scram for a recharge or basically loose the mail. Thats called true multitasking from both (device & human)
I didn't say that. I said --- does Apple need to do a lot of work if they go dual core or quad core. It is about time to market. We know that RIM can do it without requiring a single change in the QNX kernel. Even if they require some changes, the amount of change required for QNX would be smaller than the amount required for iOS or webOS --- simply because QNX was designed to work on embedded stuff (that is even smaller than the smartphones/tablets) from day 1.
There is nothing really complex about a mobile device. You think it's complex, but the QNX people handle these things regularly.
According to your logic neither Linux / Android or iOS/darwin can run on SMP. And have you heard of GCD (grand central dispatch).
MacOSX is 64-bit & SMP designed not SMP safe
I didn't say that. I said --- does Apple need to do a lot of work if they go dual core or quad core. It is about time to market. We know that RIM can do it without requiring a single change in the QNX kernel. Even if they require some changes, the amount of change required for QNX would be smaller than the amount required for iOS or webOS --- simply because QNX was designed to work on embedded stuff (that is even smaller than the smartphones/tablets) from day 1.
There is nothing really complex about a mobile device. You think it's complex, but the QNX people handle these things regularly.
QNX is (nowadays) targeted towards embedded systems such as CPUs, not an entire muktifunctional OS. Apple does not need to do that much more work to implement multiple cores, just as others have stated, OS X has been able to take advantage of them since the creation of GCD. The kernel would need work to take advantage of it (I assume, I don't know how the kernel handles multiple cores by default, especially in iOS), but QNX would have the same drawback. It is not significantly less work, in both cases it requires work. Don't forget that QNX operates as separate systems (hense the microkernel); to take full advantage you would need to make a new block and modify other systems to take advantage of the new one. Things are not not automatic in the kernel level, QNX or iOS, and you can't lay things on top to core hardware like you could with a baseband.
A mobile device is very complex. Unlike embedded systems, there are a lot more things that need to be managed. This is why i dislike microkernels in complicated designs. The fact that everything is split and many of the components are stuck at the "user space" level causes fragmentation of the core. In some cases this is good, in others it is not. QNX isn't a bad move, but that doesnt mean that it is completely godsent.
QNX is (nowadays) targeted towards embedded systems such as CPUs, not an entire muktifunctional OS. Apple does not need to do that much more work to implement multiple cores, just as others have stated, OS X has been able to take advantage of them since the creation of GCD. The kernel would need work to take advantage of it (I assume, I don't know how the kernel handles multiple cores by default, especially in iOS), but QNX would have the same drawback. It is not significantly less work, in both cases it requires work. Don't forget that QNX operates as separate systems (hense the microkernel); to take full advantage you would need to make a new block and modify other systems to take advantage of the new one. Things are not not automatic in the kernel level, QNX or iOS, and you can't lay things on top to core hardware like you could with a baseband.
A mobile device is very complex. Unlike embedded systems, there are a lot more things that need to be managed. This is why i dislike microkernels in complicated designs. The fact that everything is split and many of the components are stuck at the "user space" level causes fragmentation of the core. In some cases this is good, in others it is not. QNX isn't a bad move, but that doesnt mean that it is completely godsent.
QNX has always been self-hosted and run as a desktop pc machine. I used this in high-school in the late 80's.
http://www.old-computers.com/museum/...asp?c=971&st=1
BILLIONS of feature cell phones have been manufactured to use microkernels.
The whole iOS is basically sitting in user space --- as a guest OS on top of a RTOS/hypervisor which runs the baseband. That's a lot more complicated to have 2 different OS'es.