The question will always be how much SSD will they put in an iPad. It has to be over 128GB for me to forgo the laptop (I have a lot of standard content that I need to include in my work, and most of my work requires disconnection from the outside world). 64GB isn't quite enough for the work I do, and I'm not sure the touch UI as primary works in my primary content creation mode. I could be wrong… but it's the old 'how to accelerate creating tables and multi-depth outlines' that I tend to love a nice 'tabbed' UI (as in, Tabbing sets the nesting level… old Pascal programmer;-)
But 13" retina… under 2 lbs, and a 24 hours battery… I'd like that, and carry a bluetooth keyboard.
2 lbs may be too much weight. The new Ipad 5 is rumore to be in the 1lb+ category. If a 13 inches Ipad can be have with 1 1/2 lbs (the current Ipad 3/Ipad 4) weight and long battery life. We may have a deal even without the retina display. There are a lot of enterprise applications that can use the bigger screen size and give up the higher display resolution. Older user may also want the bigger size for web surfing..
What are you going to do when Apple makes a hybrid?
They won’t. Because it’s sheer idiocy. Period. Everyone agrees with this, otherwise the Surface would actually be selling and the half tablet, half laptops from whoever PC makers would be selling. Touchscreen laptops are useless and lappish (not to be confused with Lappish) tablets don’t provide any benefit over either proper tablets or proper laptops.
So, what you are you saying is that adding a keyboard to an iPad is like attaching mechanical legs to a car?
Marketing and building that as a second primary usage scenario (distinct from a secondary usage scenario) equals failure. I find exceedingly few instances where the iPad’s on-screen keyboard is lacking, but for when I do and I’m not by my desktop, I do have the Keyboard Dock. When using it, I don’t expect the UI to accommodate the keyboard means of entry, and it doesn’t. Because it shouldn’t. It’s a tablet. I use the Keyboard Dock for HEAVY word processing, by which I mean “when there’s a character I need that the iPad’s on-screen keyboard doesn’t let me type,” which isn’t often.
Making a laptop and saying, “Oh, look, it’s a tablet!” or a tablet and saying, “Oh, look, it’s a laptop!” works as well as making a phone and calling it a tablet.
So basically Microsoft was right - hybrids are the future!
Possibly. The question is whether or not MS can compete with Apple's design tempo. Personally I'd be interested in an 11" iPad notebook concept with wireless USB (or some such). An iOS-optimized MS Office 365 suite would be icing on the cake.
Reitzes left off the paragraph about 13" and larger iPads coming with detachable sets of casters so users can roll them around. You heard it here first, because I have an inside pipeline to Jony.
Sigh, if you see "64 bit is just needed to address more than 4GB of RAM" you know you're the person saying it is an idiot.
The A7 probably doesn't even have a 64 bit address bus... the bits of the processor are about its internals, not its address bus. (and the address bus is what determines how much RAM you can address.)
We're already seeing the A7 roughly at parity with BayTrail, so this seems a smart move on Apples' part. Who would have believed a few years ago that Apple would be rivaling Intel in SOC design? If the whole phone/tablet thing doesn't work out for Apple in the future, I think they've got a shot at being the next Intel
Bay Trail is Intel's new Atom-based tablet chip, so I would say that Intel caught up to Apple in the mobile SoC space, not that Apple caught up to Intel in the mobile SoC chip space. The A-seires competes with Atom, not the i3-i5-i7 chips we find in our Mac laptops/desktops.
Could Ax compete in laptops - perhaps, but then they would have the same power constraints when you crank up the performance (power-performance is not linear).
I would argue that Apple is an industry leader in mobile SoC design and that others try to catch-up from an SoC design standpoint. Then again, Apple SoCs only have to work for one customer's products - Apple!
I just don't see a convertible tablet / notebook coming out of Apple. I can't imagine how they'd execute that idea in a high quality way. If I have a built in physical keyboard all the time, wouldn't I just want OS X? Could ios be modded so that it were more OS X like, like had a cursor and multiple windows? To me the coolest way to physically do it would be a Smart Cover that looks and feels just like it does now, but that had a keyboard that was soft to the touch, but on software... No clue.
No, it's not a tease... it's an over the bow shot at Intel.
Or a wake up call for Intel. I don't think there is any other company in the world that has driven Intels shift to low power chips than Apple. They demanded power improvements in Intels chips and got part of what they wanted. Thy didn't tease they showed Intel exactly where the market was going.
Intel is driving power demands down as quickly as Apple is driving AxX speeds up. my guess is that Intel will maintain a slight lead with the x86 line for a while. Any posturing will only be for price and functionality concessions (ie, optimizing parts of the chip to better handle OSX unique and high use instruction pipelining).
It is hard to say what technology Apples new A7 implements as Apple isn't to forthright in that respect. The thing is Apple only runs the chip at 1.3 GHz to manage power in the iPhone. We really don't know what the ultimate clock rate is on the chip. However many competitors are running much higher clock rates, so it is reasonable to assume A7 has a much higher clock rate potential. They would come close to trumping every SoC Intel has with a 50% clock rate increase.
It will be 4-5 years before Apple can evolve the A series into a significant desktop compute platform, but in 4-5 years will there be a desktop?
It could be sooner than that. If they can get to 14nm next year all bets are off, even something in the 20 nm range would be a step forward. Of course you may have to adjust a bit as to what is acceptable. On the other hand a little OpenCL here and some dedicated hardware there and you can make up for a lot of CPU shortcomings.
I think it's more impressive the 'other stuff' apple integrates into their platforms. When the Laptops start getting LTE integrated in, and M7 chips, or gyros or touchID, then you'll start looking at the 'family' of apple, not iOS and OSX.
The last thing I want to see is the convergence of the two OS's. In fact I'd rather see Apple focus more on power users with respect to Mac OS.
A corporation that commits to touchID as it's auth standard (or someone like the DoD), and apple is able to be the laptop and the iPad, and the phone, and the iPod, and the Thumb Drive manufacturer for them.... that's leverage of the apple difference... the CPU... that's just an implementation detail
Having spent way to much of my life at a large corporation I have to say corporate standards suck!
Since we are wishing for our Dream Machine, I wish for a 13" Mac that has a touch screen and is capable of running OS X, iOS and a virtual machine.
This is an interesting idea and frankly I have to agree with the idea of Mac OS running iOS apps as a task. Then would give us all the capability of a real OS along easy to use iOS apps that are identical to our programs on iOS. I think this will be very doable on Apples ARM chips in short order, more cores and a higher clock rate would do wonders when it comes to performance. Cores here could be GPU or CPU or both.
A Mac that has the ability to switch between processors or virtual iOS & Windows capability. I just don't think iOS is very close to being what we want in a Mac,
Exactly, I use both machines extensively (iPad and a MBP.) and the two just aren't interchangeable. Given that I'd love to see an ARM based Mac OS machine that gives us Unix in an extremely low power platform.
but I sure would like to occasionally run some iOS apps on my Mac, either as some type of switched processor task or virtual type of machine.
An ARM based machine does away with the absolute need for a virtual machine though Apple could isolate out the iOS apps via a VM. It might be easier to imbue Mac OS with the idea of personalities for each App, so one variant is a standard Mac Window and another a iOS window.
Just wishing to have a Mac that can run A7 iOS tasks and OS X.
Yeah even I might have a Nerdgasm over such a machine. Even if Apple didn't go that far I'd still be hot for an ARM based laptop with Mac OS.
Bay Trail is Intel's new Atom-based tablet chip, so I would say that Intel caught up to Apple in the mobile SoC space, not that Apple caught up to Intel in the mobile SoC chip space. The A-seires competes with Atom, not the i3-i5-i7 chips we find in our Mac laptops/desktops.
You could say that but at this point Intel hardware isn't as integrated as Apples, so it is hard to say the caught up.
Could Ax compete in laptops - perhaps, but then they would have the same power constraints when you crank up the performance (power-performance is not linear).
The thing here is that Apples solution is apparently very power efficient. They literally have a 64 bit solution in a cell phone. Not some half assed solution that is 64 bit only in name, this processor delivers. The truth of the matter here is that we don't have a spec sheet with the high end clock rate defined. Let's say though that A7 can scale by 500 Hz that would beat all current Atoms.
I would argue that Apple is an industry leader in mobile SoC design and that others try to catch-up from an SoC design standpoint. Then again, Apple SoCs only have to work for one customer's products - Apple!
I've posted before that the next Rosetta will be between OS X and iOS, thus allowing Apple to have the Ax chip in the MBA and then beyond which would increase margins as well as keep the competition at bay. You can easily and quickly copy software, you can't do the same with hardware. Apple could have a preprocessor core that quickly translates x86 to ARM.
Not a chance. Rosetta was a marvelous piece of software, but Rosetta apps were still far slower than native apps. You lose something like 3/4 of your performance in the translation. Since the A7 is still far slower than even the slowest i3, that would be unacceptable. Slower chip further dragged down by emulation. That makes it even LESS likely that you'd see an A-series MBA any time soon.
'And Apple will never make a smaller iPad. 10" is perfect and a smaller one would be sheer idiocy. And Apple will never make a phone larger than 3.5" '
Marketing and building that as a second primary usage scenario (distinct from a secondary usage scenario) equals failure.
No it's not a failure - marketing is about selling to your target audience. In the case of hybrids, it's about marketing a productivity tablet as opposed to a consumption tablet. Like you said, heavy typing sessions are a good example. In this case, a hybrid tablet like the Surface is exactly that - designed from the outset as a productivity tablet where the protective case doubles up as a keyboard, which BTW is completely optional - you don't need the physical keyboard on the Surface just like you don't need it on the iPad.
Your car / truck analogy is inaccurate - it's actually more like the hybrid device being a performance SUV instead of a single-seat sports car.
BTW, the on-screen keyboard on the Surface is much better than the one on the iPad.
Since we are wishing for our Dream Machine, I wish for a 13" Mac that has a touch screen and is capable of running OS X, iOS and a virtual machine. A Mac that has the ability to switch between processors or virtual iOS & Windows capability. I just don't think iOS is very close to being what we want in a Mac, but I sure would like to occasionally run some iOS apps on my Mac, either as some type of switched processor task or virtual type of machine.
Just wishing to have a Mac that can run A7 iOS tasks and OS X.
So basically, you want Apple to make a 13" equivalent of the Microsoft Surface Pro or a Lenovo Helix, or an Apple equivalent of a 13" touch-screen Ultrabook running Windows 8.
So basically, you want Apple to make a 13" equivalent of the Microsoft Surface Pro or a Lenovo Helix, or an Apple equivalent of a 13" touch-screen Ultrabook running Windows 8.
No. I want Apple to make a product that doesn't suck.
Reitzes left off the paragraph about 13" and larger iPads coming with detachable sets of casters so users can roll them around. You heard it here first, because I have an inside pipeline to Jony.
If Apple came out with a 13" iPad, instead of the 9.7" models I've been buying, I would buy that for the house, and a Retina mini to take with me.
How’s it working out for Apple? I see the large iPad selling more. Thanks for going on record saying a hybrid device would be anywhere near the concept of “good”, by the way.
Really wish that the iPad could take advantage of more keyboard shortcuts such as:
Ctrl C & Copy X: Copy and paste, Ctrl B: Bold etc for Emails
Arrow keys for scrolling up and down in Safari
Arrow keys for selecting emails in inbox, Enter key to select
Hold Escape for 1 second: Close current app
Hold Shift+Ctrl plus Left Arrow left: Previous app (multi-task switch)
Hold Shift+Ctrl plus Right Arrow left: Next app (multi-task switch)
As it stands right now, the keyboard is really only useful for typing when it could be used for so much more to make the iPad a more productive device.
Really wish that the iPad could take advantage of more keyboard shortcuts such as:
Ctrl C & Copy X: Copy and paste, <span style="line-height:1.4em;">Ctrl B: Bold etc for Emails</span>
Arrow keys for scrolling up and down in Safari Arrow keys for selecting emails in inbox, Enter key to select Hold Escape for 1 second: Close current app
Hold Shift+Ctrl plus Left Arrow left: Previous app (multi-task switch) Hold Shift+Ctrl plus Right Arrow left: Next app (multi-task switch)
As it stands right now, the keyboard is really only useful for typing when it could be used for so much more to make the iPad a more productive device.
Well, I agree with some of that, but the idea is to use your finger, after all. Scrolling is just dandy by finger.
But unless I'm missing something, I would like a way to move forwards and backwards character by character with a couple of keys. Originally, I thought the two arrow keys on the top left of the keyboard, above the keys would do that, but, of course, they don't. It's really awkward selecting a point in text when the text is small, as it is here when writing posts. So making corrections is more difficult than necessary. It would be much better to just tap near the character, and then use a key to get it where you want, just like on a regular keyboard.
I've always felt that it wasn't required to have a double width numbers key at the left bottom. I don't really understand that. It could have an additional key to the left of it. It would be great if it were a key that we could assign. In fact, I don't know why the space above the keys that's there now, with those two marginally useful arrow keys can't have the rest of it used for user assignable keys. I dislike needing to constantly hit the numbers keys to use something that I need often, like the $ sign, or the &, or most of all the @ key.
Comments
almost almost almost agree.
The question will always be how much SSD will they put in an iPad. It has to be over 128GB for me to forgo the laptop (I have a lot of standard content that I need to include in my work, and most of my work requires disconnection from the outside world). 64GB isn't quite enough for the work I do, and I'm not sure the touch UI as primary works in my primary content creation mode. I could be wrong… but it's the old 'how to accelerate creating tables and multi-depth outlines' that I tend to love a nice 'tabbed' UI (as in, Tabbing sets the nesting level… old Pascal programmer;-)
But 13" retina… under 2 lbs, and a 24 hours battery… I'd like that, and carry a bluetooth keyboard.
2 lbs may be too much weight. The new Ipad 5 is rumore to be in the 1lb+ category. If a 13 inches Ipad can be have with 1 1/2 lbs (the current Ipad 3/Ipad 4) weight and long battery life. We may have a deal even without the retina display. There are a lot of enterprise applications that can use the bigger screen size and give up the higher display resolution. Older user may also want the bigger size for web surfing..
They won’t. Because it’s sheer idiocy. Period. Everyone agrees with this, otherwise the Surface would actually be selling and the half tablet, half laptops from whoever PC makers would be selling. Touchscreen laptops are useless and lappish (not to be confused with Lappish) tablets don’t provide any benefit over either proper tablets or proper laptops.
Marketing and building that as a second primary usage scenario (distinct from a secondary usage scenario) equals failure. I find exceedingly few instances where the iPad’s on-screen keyboard is lacking, but for when I do and I’m not by my desktop, I do have the Keyboard Dock. When using it, I don’t expect the UI to accommodate the keyboard means of entry, and it doesn’t. Because it shouldn’t. It’s a tablet. I use the Keyboard Dock for HEAVY word processing, by which I mean “when there’s a character I need that the iPad’s on-screen keyboard doesn’t let me type,” which isn’t often.
Making a laptop and saying, “Oh, look, it’s a tablet!” or a tablet and saying, “Oh, look, it’s a laptop!” works as well as making a phone and calling it a tablet.
Oh! Or a car and calling it a truck.
You think being the best Semiconductor Manufacturer in the world is cheap?
They think they're getting one over on The Man.
So basically Microsoft was right - hybrids are the future!
Possibly. The question is whether or not MS can compete with Apple's design tempo. Personally I'd be interested in an 11" iPad notebook concept with wireless USB (or some such). An iOS-optimized MS Office 365 suite would be icing on the cake.
Called it.
Not until it actually exists outside of Ben Reitzes' tech porn fantasies.
The A7 probably doesn't even have a 64 bit address bus... the bits of the processor are about its internals, not its address bus. (and the address bus is what determines how much RAM you can address.)
We're already seeing the A7 roughly at parity with BayTrail, so this seems a smart move on Apples' part. Who would have believed a few years ago that Apple would be rivaling Intel in SOC design? If the whole phone/tablet thing doesn't work out for Apple in the future, I think they've got a shot at being the next Intel
Bay Trail is Intel's new Atom-based tablet chip, so I would say that Intel caught up to Apple in the mobile SoC space, not that Apple caught up to Intel in the mobile SoC chip space. The A-seires competes with Atom, not the i3-i5-i7 chips we find in our Mac laptops/desktops.
Could Ax compete in laptops - perhaps, but then they would have the same power constraints when you crank up the performance (power-performance is not linear).
I would argue that Apple is an industry leader in mobile SoC design and that others try to catch-up from an SoC design standpoint. Then again, Apple SoCs only have to work for one customer's products - Apple!
Having spent way to much of my life at a large corporation I have to say corporate standards suck!
Yeah even I might have a Nerdgasm over such a machine. Even if Apple didn't go that far I'd still be hot for an ARM based laptop with Mac OS.
Tripp
Not a chance. Rosetta was a marvelous piece of software, but Rosetta apps were still far slower than native apps. You lose something like 3/4 of your performance in the translation. Since the A7 is still far slower than even the slowest i3, that would be unacceptable. Slower chip further dragged down by emulation. That makes it even LESS likely that you'd see an A-series MBA any time soon.
'And Apple will never make a smaller iPad. 10" is perfect and a smaller one would be sheer idiocy. And Apple will never make a phone larger than 3.5" '
How's that working out for you?
No it's not a failure - marketing is about selling to your target audience. In the case of hybrids, it's about marketing a productivity tablet as opposed to a consumption tablet. Like you said, heavy typing sessions are a good example. In this case, a hybrid tablet like the Surface is exactly that - designed from the outset as a productivity tablet where the protective case doubles up as a keyboard, which BTW is completely optional - you don't need the physical keyboard on the Surface just like you don't need it on the iPad.
Your car / truck analogy is inaccurate - it's actually more like the hybrid device being a performance SUV instead of a single-seat sports car.
BTW, the on-screen keyboard on the Surface is much better than the one on the iPad.
So basically, you want Apple to make a 13" equivalent of the Microsoft Surface Pro or a Lenovo Helix, or an Apple equivalent of a 13" touch-screen Ultrabook running Windows 8.
No. I want Apple to make a product that doesn't suck.
If Apple came out with a 13" iPad, instead of the 9.7" models I've been buying, I would buy that for the house, and a Retina mini to take with me.
How’s it working out for Apple? I see the large iPad selling more. Thanks for going on record saying a hybrid device would be anywhere near the concept of “good”, by the way.
Really wish that the iPad could take advantage of more keyboard shortcuts such as:
Ctrl C & Copy X: Copy and paste, Ctrl B: Bold etc for Emails
Arrow keys for scrolling up and down in Safari
Arrow keys for selecting emails in inbox, Enter key to select
Hold Escape for 1 second: Close current app
Hold Shift+Ctrl plus Left Arrow left: Previous app (multi-task switch)
Hold Shift+Ctrl plus Right Arrow left: Next app (multi-task switch)
As it stands right now, the keyboard is really only useful for typing when it could be used for so much more to make the iPad a more productive device.
Well, I agree with some of that, but the idea is to use your finger, after all. Scrolling is just dandy by finger.
But unless I'm missing something, I would like a way to move forwards and backwards character by character with a couple of keys. Originally, I thought the two arrow keys on the top left of the keyboard, above the keys would do that, but, of course, they don't. It's really awkward selecting a point in text when the text is small, as it is here when writing posts. So making corrections is more difficult than necessary. It would be much better to just tap near the character, and then use a key to get it where you want, just like on a regular keyboard.
I've always felt that it wasn't required to have a double width numbers key at the left bottom. I don't really understand that. It could have an additional key to the left of it. It would be great if it were a key that we could assign. In fact, I don't know why the space above the keys that's there now, with those two marginally useful arrow keys can't have the rest of it used for user assignable keys. I dislike needing to constantly hit the numbers keys to use something that I need often, like the $ sign, or the &, or most of all the @ key.