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.
People aren't stupid. Even with a great user experience, they'll know that the Apple device will run some applications not as fast as competitors. Not everything is smooth animation. There will be applications that take computational power. iMovie, games, audio, a whole host of stuff.
This is kind of funny. I'm not even saying that Apple must have higher specs, only parity. Ie, use what's available to competitors or have performance comparable to competitors. It's not as that's what they have been doing for basically 5 years now (post Intel switch) for all of the product lines.
I'd love to see Apple's next-gen iDevices get a chip with dual-core Cortex A9 and SGX543 engines, but I'll believe it when I see it. Apple has a history of writing great software that performs well on a given set of hardware - that hardware however, is typically 1 generation behind everyone else, and ironically, especially when it comes to graphics performance. Don't get me wrong, I own several iDevices cause I like what they do. I've just come to accept they're not on the cutting edge of performance.
Since when has Apple's iDevices (iPod touch, iPhone, iPad) been a behind in hardware? I can't think of a time.
1 generation is not 3 months, or 6 months. It's really 12 to 18 months. Hardware makers can't move faster than 12 to 18 months. One could split hairs and say a half node (ie, 45nm to 40 nm instead of 45nm to 32nm) move or maybe a good voltage bin is a generation, but not in my book. You'll pay a penalty for that.
The whole point of ARM licensing is that it give the licensee the right to "cut and paste" various "modules" onto the production chip which provides a much quicker product development cycle at an advantageous cost. It avoids needlessly reinventing the wheel. It is what you do with the wheel that matters.
Although a company can put whatever custom "modules" they want into the design, the point is to use as much off-the-shelf tech as possible, at least as a beginning point. One might even call it Dim Sum chip design.
Hey boys, how about a simple owner replaceable battery... My iPad Gen 1 is starting to not hold a charge as long. Just in time for the iPad 2.
So glad my Sammy Galaxy S can find a new battery at any starbase.
1) Apple has never had a battery bay door on an iDevice and moved away from it from their notebooks. There are just too many benefits.
2) If a device with a 1000 charge rating isn’t holding its charge after a maximum of 9 months then get it replaced. You can even do this out of warranty, yet you are still under warranty and think the answer is Apple scraping their long-standing designs to suit your faulty device? WTH!
Since when has Apple's iDevices (iPod touch, iPhone, iPad) been a behind in hardware? I can't think of a time.
1 generation is not 3 months, or 6 months. It's really 12 to 18 months. Hardware makers can't move faster than 12 to 18 months. One could split hairs and say a half node (ie, 45nm to 40 nm instead of 45nm to 32nm) move or maybe a good voltage bin is a generation, but not in my book. You'll pay a penalty for that.
A product generation is different than a generation of chip production and always will be. There will be different components that are incorporated into the product as they become available. There is also the matter of new products, such as the iPad, using "old stuff" to get something out the door when product introduction timing is more important than waiting for the supposed current generation of something to become available in quantity. There is also the learning curve of the design team which may want to work with components that are "mature", if not out of date, because of their familiarity with them and thus they can get it out the door sooner while they work on incorporating the newer things into the design and production process.
The iPad 2 (or whatever it will be called) should reflect what would have been expected of the first generation product, but was not done because of time constraints.
The shift of process node to a smaller one also has an impact on pricing of the product or margins. At some point the chip manufacturer is "selling silicon" and smaller is cheaper.
I don?t understand this request. I?ve 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.<snip>
1) Apple has never had a battery bay door on an iDevice and moved away from it from their notebooks. There are just too many benefits.
2) If a device with a 1000 charge rating isn?t holding its charge after a maximum of 9 months then get it replaced. You can even do this out of warranty, yet you are still under warranty and think the answer is Apple scraping their long-standing designs to suit your faulty device? WTH!
You think people have the time and convenience of spending all those extra wait times to replace a battery? We are living in 2011, the era of instant gratification. Waiting a day is preposterous. We want thnigs NOW.
You think people have the time and convenience of spending all those extra wait times to replace a battery? We are living in 2011, the era of instant gratification. Waiting a day is preposterous. We want thnigs NOW.
Only a small segment of the population would even think of buying a replacement battery...
Given the choice, would I prefer a removable battery? Yes, most certainly, if the removable battery did not the impact size, weight, rigidity, and/or battery life of the device...
A product generation is different than a generation of chip production and always will be.
Sure. But those products aren't going to be that different because it's all trim without the generational improvement in performance.
Quote:
There will be different components that are incorporated into the product as they become available.
Like what?
Quote:
There is also the matter of new products, such as the iPad, using "old stuff" to get something out the door when product introduction timing is more important than waiting for the supposed current generation of something to become available in quantity.
The A4 in the iPad was the most modern SoC when it shipped in April 2010. 45 nm Cortex-A8 with a SGX535 GPU. And the IPS screen is the best kind of LCD screen available.
Quote:
The iPad 2 (or whatever it will be called) should reflect what would have been expected of the first generation product, but was not done because of time constraints.
If the iPad 2 is a dual-core A9 with an SGX543MP, it could not have been shipped in 2010 in any kind of performance, cost benefit trade. It was not achievable. However, on mature 45 nm fabs with a good voltage bin or a half node improvement at 40nm, it's achievable.
Why Apple chose not to ship the iPad 1 with 512 MB RAM, I don't know. It could be as simple as they wanted to make their margin at $499, even though it would have been a $5 to $10 difference in component costs. Maybe it was planned obsolescence.
Quote:
The shift of process node to a smaller one also has an impact on pricing of the product or margins. At some point the chip manufacturer is "selling silicon" and smaller is cheaper.
Well, yes, but it also makes higher performance chips possible: double the transistors, lower voltages, higher frequencies. It's a Highlander-ish competition really.
1) dual core Cortex A9 + dual code SGX543 pushes me even more into thinking the A9s will be 32nm.
2) 1920x1280 seems a more reasonable resolution than 2048x1536.
Not sure why you would expect Apple to change direction and go with a widescreen iPad. The 4:3 aspect ratio wasn't a whim, it's what Apple concluded had the best utility for the most applications.
Insofar that was true for Apple's design goals when the iPad was released it would still be true now. While 1920x1280 might be "reasonable" according to stock monitor resolutions, it clearly doesn't fit Apple's intention for the platform-- whereas 2048x1536 does.
Not sure if this iLounge piece has already been linked to, but it does bring some much needed perspective (and reiterates some of the things Solipsism has been saying):
Quote:
In other words, a 2048 by 1536 second-generation iPad screen would not only be roughly on par with what’s in Apple’s most expensive computers and monitors, but it would also have to fit all those pixels into a roughly 10” diagonal display—a display that most likely doesn’t exist. A quick check of LCD screen maker Samsung’s website suggests that its 9.7” displays tap out at 1024x768, the iPad’s current resolution, and other reported iPad screen suppliers LG and Chimei Innolux don’t appear to sell sub-10” screens with anywhere near the pixels discussed above; the iPad’s screen is closer to the high end than the middle or bottom of its product class. Apple would need screens that it could reliably source in the tens of millions (reportedly 65-million) per year, so unless it has had secret factories working on QXGA iPad displays for a couple of years, finding such parts would be unlikely. Additionally, even if Apple did in fact include a supercharged video processor to power a super screen, the iPad’s notebook-besting battery life could be impacted considerably when apps demand four times the pixel changes of the prior iPad. It’s far more likely that a display similar to the current iPad’s would be given the optional ability to display better 3-D and 2-D graphics than an outright mandate to do so.
As one of the commenters on that article remarks, "rumors that Apple is going to be first to adopt a new technology tend to far outnumber actual instances of it doing so."
Zero point and completely undermines the point of AirPlay and purchasing an Apple TV. Not happening.
Really? 'Cus almost every external display I would want to use has HDMI these days and exactly none support airplay. Are there any business projectors, portable or conference room models, that support airplay? Just about all recent models have HDMI. Same for the TV's in the homes of any friends or familly memebers I might visit. None have an Apple TV or a TV that supports airplay, all have HDMI.
I guess if you have no friends and never leave your house for work or play, and you have an Apple TV, you are right, "Zero point." For the other 99.999% of potential customers, HDMI has a pretty big point.
Same with SD card readers and USB ports. Most people use these things on their PC's, laptops and netbooks, and if the iPad is going to eat into more of the PC market it needs to expand its functionality and its ability to interface with a broader range of 3rd party devices.
Really? 'Cus almost every external display I would want to use has HDMI these days and exactly none support airplay.
Try plugging an Apple TV into one. Oh, look! It works now!
Quote:
I guess if you have no friends and never leave your house for work or play, and you have an Apple TV, you are right, "Zero point." For the other 99.999% of potential customers, HDMI has a pretty big point.
So they'll buy Apple TVs or they won't use the feature.
If I were doing presentations with an iPad and expected to encounter projectors with HDMI in, I'd definitely invest in an aTV. $99 is about the same price as for a few cables and adapters.
Whereas before I'd have to run an cable from my iPad to the projector or provided patch point, now I plug the aTV instead and can do untethered video. Much nicer to be able to walk around while I speak.
Same as pretty much anywhere. Plugging in an aTV is no more trouble than plugging in an iPad or iPhone or Mac, at which point you're not limited to the cable's length as to where you sit. Bringing my aTV with me is scarcely more hassle than bringing an adapter and cable.
Comments
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.
People aren't stupid. Even with a great user experience, they'll know that the Apple device will run some applications not as fast as competitors. Not everything is smooth animation. There will be applications that take computational power. iMovie, games, audio, a whole host of stuff.
This is kind of funny. I'm not even saying that Apple must have higher specs, only parity. Ie, use what's available to competitors or have performance comparable to competitors. It's not as that's what they have been doing for basically 5 years now (post Intel switch) for all of the product lines.
I'd love to see Apple's next-gen iDevices get a chip with dual-core Cortex A9 and SGX543 engines, but I'll believe it when I see it. Apple has a history of writing great software that performs well on a given set of hardware - that hardware however, is typically 1 generation behind everyone else, and ironically, especially when it comes to graphics performance. Don't get me wrong, I own several iDevices cause I like what they do. I've just come to accept they're not on the cutting edge of performance.
Since when has Apple's iDevices (iPod touch, iPhone, iPad) been a behind in hardware? I can't think of a time.
1 generation is not 3 months, or 6 months. It's really 12 to 18 months. Hardware makers can't move faster than 12 to 18 months. One could split hairs and say a half node (ie, 45nm to 40 nm instead of 45nm to 32nm) move or maybe a good voltage bin is a generation, but not in my book. You'll pay a penalty for that.
So glad my Sammy Galaxy S can find a new battery at any starbase.
Although a company can put whatever custom "modules" they want into the design, the point is to use as much off-the-shelf tech as possible, at least as a beginning point. One might even call it Dim Sum chip design.
Hey boys, how about a simple owner replaceable battery... My iPad Gen 1 is starting to not hold a charge as long. Just in time for the iPad 2.
So glad my Sammy Galaxy S can find a new battery at any starbase.
1) Apple has never had a battery bay door on an iDevice and moved away from it from their notebooks. There are just too many benefits.
2) If a device with a 1000 charge rating isn’t holding its charge after a maximum of 9 months then get it replaced. You can even do this out of warranty, yet you are still under warranty and think the answer is Apple scraping their long-standing designs to suit your faulty device? WTH!
Since when has Apple's iDevices (iPod touch, iPhone, iPad) been a behind in hardware? I can't think of a time.
1 generation is not 3 months, or 6 months. It's really 12 to 18 months. Hardware makers can't move faster than 12 to 18 months. One could split hairs and say a half node (ie, 45nm to 40 nm instead of 45nm to 32nm) move or maybe a good voltage bin is a generation, but not in my book. You'll pay a penalty for that.
A product generation is different than a generation of chip production and always will be. There will be different components that are incorporated into the product as they become available. There is also the matter of new products, such as the iPad, using "old stuff" to get something out the door when product introduction timing is more important than waiting for the supposed current generation of something to become available in quantity. There is also the learning curve of the design team which may want to work with components that are "mature", if not out of date, because of their familiarity with them and thus they can get it out the door sooner while they work on incorporating the newer things into the design and production process.
The iPad 2 (or whatever it will be called) should reflect what would have been expected of the first generation product, but was not done because of time constraints.
The shift of process node to a smaller one also has an impact on pricing of the product or margins. At some point the chip manufacturer is "selling silicon" and smaller is cheaper.
I don?t understand this request. I?ve 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.<snip>
More storage...micro-SD card slot.
1) Apple has never had a battery bay door on an iDevice and moved away from it from their notebooks. There are just too many benefits.
2) If a device with a 1000 charge rating isn?t holding its charge after a maximum of 9 months then get it replaced. You can even do this out of warranty, yet you are still under warranty and think the answer is Apple scraping their long-standing designs to suit your faulty device? WTH!
You think people have the time and convenience of spending all those extra wait times to replace a battery? We are living in 2011, the era of instant gratification. Waiting a day is preposterous. We want thnigs NOW.
You think people have the time and convenience of spending all those extra wait times to replace a battery? We are living in 2011, the era of instant gratification. Waiting a day is preposterous. We want thnigs NOW.
Only a small segment of the population would even think of buying a replacement battery...
Given the choice, would I prefer a removable battery? Yes, most certainly, if the removable battery did not the impact size, weight, rigidity, and/or battery life of the device...
A product generation is different than a generation of chip production and always will be.
Sure. But those products aren't going to be that different because it's all trim without the generational improvement in performance.
There will be different components that are incorporated into the product as they become available.
Like what?
There is also the matter of new products, such as the iPad, using "old stuff" to get something out the door when product introduction timing is more important than waiting for the supposed current generation of something to become available in quantity.
The A4 in the iPad was the most modern SoC when it shipped in April 2010. 45 nm Cortex-A8 with a SGX535 GPU. And the IPS screen is the best kind of LCD screen available.
The iPad 2 (or whatever it will be called) should reflect what would have been expected of the first generation product, but was not done because of time constraints.
If the iPad 2 is a dual-core A9 with an SGX543MP, it could not have been shipped in 2010 in any kind of performance, cost benefit trade. It was not achievable. However, on mature 45 nm fabs with a good voltage bin or a half node improvement at 40nm, it's achievable.
Why Apple chose not to ship the iPad 1 with 512 MB RAM, I don't know. It could be as simple as they wanted to make their margin at $499, even though it would have been a $5 to $10 difference in component costs. Maybe it was planned obsolescence.
The shift of process node to a smaller one also has an impact on pricing of the product or margins. At some point the chip manufacturer is "selling silicon" and smaller is cheaper.
Well, yes, but it also makes higher performance chips possible: double the transistors, lower voltages, higher frequencies. It's a Highlander-ish competition really.
ten extra minutes to proof-read your "professionally" written article ... that's all it would take.
1) dual core Cortex A9 + dual code SGX543 pushes me even more into thinking the A9s will be 32nm.
2) 1920x1280 seems a more reasonable resolution than 2048x1536.
For all the things the iPad does there is no reason why Apple needs to follow video resolution standards.
2) 1920x1280 seems a more reasonable resolution than 2048x1536.
Two observations:
1) dual core Cortex A9 + dual code SGX543 pushes me even more into thinking the A9s will be 32nm.
2) 1920x1280 seems a more reasonable resolution than 2048x1536.
Not sure why you would expect Apple to change direction and go with a widescreen iPad. The 4:3 aspect ratio wasn't a whim, it's what Apple concluded had the best utility for the most applications.
Insofar that was true for Apple's design goals when the iPad was released it would still be true now. While 1920x1280 might be "reasonable" according to stock monitor resolutions, it clearly doesn't fit Apple's intention for the platform-- whereas 2048x1536 does.
In other words, a 2048 by 1536 second-generation iPad screen would not only be roughly on par with what’s in Apple’s most expensive computers and monitors, but it would also have to fit all those pixels into a roughly 10” diagonal display—a display that most likely doesn’t exist. A quick check of LCD screen maker Samsung’s website suggests that its 9.7” displays tap out at 1024x768, the iPad’s current resolution, and other reported iPad screen suppliers LG and Chimei Innolux don’t appear to sell sub-10” screens with anywhere near the pixels discussed above; the iPad’s screen is closer to the high end than the middle or bottom of its product class. Apple would need screens that it could reliably source in the tens of millions (reportedly 65-million) per year, so unless it has had secret factories working on QXGA iPad displays for a couple of years, finding such parts would be unlikely. Additionally, even if Apple did in fact include a supercharged video processor to power a super screen, the iPad’s notebook-besting battery life could be impacted considerably when apps demand four times the pixel changes of the prior iPad. It’s far more likely that a display similar to the current iPad’s would be given the optional ability to display better 3-D and 2-D graphics than an outright mandate to do so.
As one of the commenters on that article remarks, "rumors that Apple is going to be first to adopt a new technology tend to far outnumber actual instances of it doing so."
Zero point and completely undermines the point of AirPlay and purchasing an Apple TV. Not happening.
Really? 'Cus almost every external display I would want to use has HDMI these days and exactly none support airplay. Are there any business projectors, portable or conference room models, that support airplay? Just about all recent models have HDMI. Same for the TV's in the homes of any friends or familly memebers I might visit. None have an Apple TV or a TV that supports airplay, all have HDMI.
I guess if you have no friends and never leave your house for work or play, and you have an Apple TV, you are right, "Zero point." For the other 99.999% of potential customers, HDMI has a pretty big point.
Same with SD card readers and USB ports. Most people use these things on their PC's, laptops and netbooks, and if the iPad is going to eat into more of the PC market it needs to expand its functionality and its ability to interface with a broader range of 3rd party devices.
Really? 'Cus almost every external display I would want to use has HDMI these days and exactly none support airplay.
Try plugging an Apple TV into one. Oh, look! It works now!
I guess if you have no friends and never leave your house for work or play, and you have an Apple TV, you are right, "Zero point." For the other 99.999% of potential customers, HDMI has a pretty big point.
So they'll buy Apple TVs or they won't use the feature.
Whereas before I'd have to run an cable from my iPad to the projector or provided patch point, now I plug the aTV instead and can do untethered video. Much nicer to be able to walk around while I speak.
Same as pretty much anywhere. Plugging in an aTV is no more trouble than plugging in an iPad or iPhone or Mac, at which point you're not limited to the cable's length as to where you sit. Bringing my aTV with me is scarcely more hassle than bringing an adapter and cable.