Apple iPad announced [Archive] - Page 2

Pressure

13-Feb-2010, 13:06

Well the 7D has two DIGIC 4s.

Those are H.264 streams or after you edit, it may be recompressed and transcoded if necessary to a codec supported by iPad?

The number of image processors only affects the fps for still shots and ISO performance. It has nothing to do with video. Have in mind that the full frame Canon EOS 5D Mark II is the better camera, even though it only have a single DIGIC 4 processor.

All those mentioned Canon cameras produce .mov files straight from the camera. Which, incidentally, the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad plays natively. However they may need to be resized for the smaller screen devices. Although I honestly doubt they play out of the camera and onto the devices but they play fine in Mac OS X.

Usually the workflow is to transcode all the files from the camera to a more video-editing-"friendly" codec, like Apple ProRes 422, and then after the project is done, export as H.264.

Entropy

16-Feb-2010, 12:46

flynn

16-Feb-2010, 13:49

A developer did some benchmarking and analysis between the Nexus One and the iPhone3Gs:benchmarks (http://distinctivegame.wordpress.com/2010/02/09/dd-tech-talk-1-nexus-versus-iphone-3gs/)
The moral of the story basically being that the maturity of the tools of these different platforms differ, causing substantial differences in real world performance vs. theoretical estimates.

I saw that. The Android team needs to work on the performance side if they want the platform to be competitive in the games market.

They've abandoned HTC G1-class hardware for all intents and purposes so they might focus on getting the most out of newer hardware like Snapdragon.

Ailuros

17-Feb-2010, 07:23

This is not really the place, but then again, I don't know if this qualifies as a new thread.
A developer did some benchmarking and analysis between the Nexus One and the iPhone3Gs:benchmarks (http://distinctivegame.wordpress.com/2010/02/09/dd-tech-talk-1-nexus-versus-iphone-3gs/)
The moral of the story basically being that the maturity of the tools of these different platforms differ, causing substantial differences in real world performance vs. theoretical estimates.

That's one side of the story. The other being: The conclusion is that the Nexus is primarily GPU fill-rate limited and the lack of access to the Neon float-point instructions means the CPU is only just keeping pace with the fill-rate.

Qualcolmm lists the specific GPU (if I haven't catched the wrong one) at 133M Pixels/s. I'd say that it's capable of 1 pixel/clock (it's not uncommon to see embedded graphics cores that are able of only 1 pixel/2clocks) and I'd speculate that it has only 1 TMU.

SGX535 in the iPhone3GS has 2 TMUs which I'd say is clocked around (+/-) 110MHz, which gives you ~220M Pixels/s without overdraw. With all 8 models in the scene the overdraw factor rises.

Despite that the write up doesn't touch aspects such as triangle rates. It would be interesting to see if the listed 22M Tris/s for the Qualcolmm GPU plays out in real time vs. the ~7M Tris/s IMG mentions for the SGX535 at those frequencies.

Wishmaster

17-Feb-2010, 08:21

That's one side of the story. The other being:

Qualcolmm lists the specific GPU (if I haven't catched the wrong one) at 133M Pixels/s. I'd say that it's capable of 1 pixel/clock (it's not uncommon to see embedded graphics cores that are able of only 1 pixel/2clocks) and I'd speculate that it has only 1 TMU.

SGX535 in the iPhone3GS has 2 TMUs which I'd say is clocked around (+/-) 110MHz, which gives you ~220M Pixels/s without overdraw. With all 8 models in the scene the overdraw factor rises.

Despite that the write up doesn't touch aspects such as triangle rates. It would be interesting to see if the listed 22M Tris/s for the Qualcolmm GPU plays out in real time vs. the ~7M Tris/s IMG mentions for the SGX535 at those frequencies.

According to wikipedia SGX535 specs are more like that SGX535 (28 MPolys/s, 400Mpx/s@200MHz, Max Memory Band (GB/s) 4.2GB/s) so at 110mhz it should be more like 15-16M tris/s. Bur don't know how legit those estimates are... besides we don't know how much boost does the NEON give...
But one thing is sure - sgx535 has higher performance than the z430 used in snapdragon1(at least in 65nm variant cause the 45nm version of snapdragon1 has 30% higher performance according to specs and snapdragon2 at 45nm should be 4x faster than the snapdragon1 at 65nm - all according to the official specs).

Ailuros

17-Feb-2010, 09:12

According to wikipedia SGX535 specs are more like that so at 110mhz it should be more like 15-16M tris/s. Bur don't know how legit those estimates are... besides we don't know how much boost does the NEON give...
But one thing is sure - sgx535 has higher performance than the z430 used in snapdragon1(at least in 65nm variant cause the 45nm version of snapdragon1 has 30% higher performance according to specs and snapdragon2 at 45nm should be 4x faster than the snapdragon1 at 65nm - all according to the official specs).

IMG lists itself from 7M (SGX520, 1 ALU) to 40M (SGX540, 4 ALUs) under 65LP, at 200MHz and at <50% shader load. Yes I had a brainfart and estimated way too conversative the 7M Tris/s and no I don't know how geometry performance could scale between 2 and 4 ALUs at the same frequency.

I think but am not sure anymore that the first few GMA500 samples were clocked at ~115MHz and were rated at =/>12M Tris/s (?) the majority of the Intel 65nm generation ended up at 200MHz and the 45nm Intel GMA500 generation peaks at 400MHz for the 535.

I still wonder though if and by how much triangle rates can be sustained in most of the cases. With IMG's rates it's hard to not believe they reach them in real time since they state typically less than half the peak theoretical triangle rate. That's why I would want to see an independent from all of those IHVs synthetic geometry benchmark to see where each of them lies.

JohnH

17-Feb-2010, 18:32

Wishmaster

23-Feb-2010, 14:36

According to NYT (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/22/technology/22chip.html) development of apple a4 SoC could have cost them almost 1billion dollar. It is even more than qualcomms 500 millions they invested in snapdragon :razz:
If its true, do you think it was worth it? Considering how many SoC's are available today - tegra,snapdragon,samsung hummingbird, omap, freescale, ST-Ericsson, Zii...

rpg.314

23-Feb-2010, 14:46

If the PA semi design team is any good, then it worth every penny. Controlling both hw and software is a very powerful differentiating factor. No wonder Nokia is trying along that trajectory as well, even if just to keep up.

Florin

23-Feb-2010, 14:48

Intel speaking about their move into the ARM-dominated mobile space with Atom:

Intel also has deep pockets. As of December, the company had more than $9 billion in cash and short-term investments.
..
“I don’t know whether it will make it harder for these guys to invest in the future, but you certainly would think so,” Mr. Crooke said.

Deeply ironic.

wco81

23-Feb-2010, 15:07

Apple has like $40 billion in cash.

Some people are assuming that iPhones going forward would use in-house designs for SOC. So they can amortize that cost across a very profitable product line.

I don't think they paid anywhere near $1 billion for PA Semi. So are SOC development costs that high? Since ARM core SOCs are numerous now, what could cost that much, unless they put up their own fab or something.

tangey

23-Feb-2010, 15:28

Thats a total pie in the sky figure IMO. Excluding the cost of Buying PA-semi, and the license cost to ARM and IMG and whoever else, I'd be surprised if the chip cost anything close to a 1/10th of that from thought to silicon.

The ARM and IMG licenses are multi-product and multi-use, only a very small percentage of their costs can be attributed to the A4 chip. Similarly the purchase of PA will result in many many Socs being developed, the A4 is just their very first attempt.

Using their own chip probably saves them maybe $10 in costs, at 1billion they'd need to sell 100m products to just breakeven. Thats a hell of a lot of product just to be no better off than not having done it at all (discounting the benefit of having complete control over hardware and the extra sales generated by having a unqiue platform).

rpg.314

23-Feb-2010, 15:36

AFAIR, PA semi cost $280M to buy.

Pressure

23-Feb-2010, 21:46

AFAIR, PA semi cost $280M to buy.

Indeed, Apple bought P.A. Semi for $278 million in cash.

tangey

23-Feb-2010, 22:23

Although it doesn't come as any surprise whatsoever to me, Apple have very kindly confirmed in their Beta3 SDK for the ipad, that the graphics are PowerVr SGX.

http://www.macrumors.com/2010/02/23/apple-confirms-ipad-uses-powervr-sgx-graphics-hardware/

"Using OpenGL ES on iPad is identical to using OpenGL ES on other iPhone OS devices. An iPad is a PowerVR SGX device and supports the same basic capabilities as other SGX devices. However, because the processor, memory architecture, and screen dimensions are different for iPad, you should always test your code on an iPad device before shipping to ensure performance meets your requirements."

silent_guy

24-Feb-2010, 03:29

Although it doesn't come as any surprise whatsoever to me, Apple have very kindly confirmed in their Beta3 SDK for the ipad, that the graphics are PowerVr SGX.
The lovely thing about Theo Valich is that he's so predictable in being wrong all the time.

rpg.314

24-Feb-2010, 04:19

And when he's wrong, he's super hilarious too. Way better than S|A in his good times.

Lazy8s

24-Feb-2010, 10:00

With Apple choosing the 535 and clocking it at 150 MHz in the 3G S, don't expect any current generation Tegra or Snapdragon device to compete with it for real-world performance.

While the other GPU makers will claim performance well above the 3G S's 10.5+M tris/sec, that won't be any different than any other generation where they fall far shorter of their theoretical limits than the TBDR. For example, I think the first GoForce 3D core was rated at 5M tris/sec at a clock similar to what MBX used for claiming 2M tris/sec. Extremely high theoretical peaks just seem indicative of an imbalanced design to me.

rpg.314

01-Mar-2010, 04:02

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2010/02/meet-the-a4-the-ipads-brain-not-quite-ready.ars

darkblu

01-Mar-2010, 16:13

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2010/02/meet-the-a4-the-ipads-brain-not-quite-ready.ars

Another common SoC set of blocks that the A4 probably does without are related to still and video camera support. Apple's iPad may well be the only Cortex A8-device to come to market without any type of camera built in, so Apple has probably ditched some dedicated image processing blocks.

Camera support is said to be in the SDK. In light of this, the chances that the chip does not feature the required silicon are pretty slim - apple will not be re-designing the chip for the next camer-enabled product refresh. It's much more likely that the camera blocks will just site unused in this first ipad iteration.

Mike11

01-Mar-2010, 17:48

Camera support is said to be in the SDK. In light of this, the chances that the chip does not feature the required silicon are pretty slim - apple will not be re-designing the chip for the next camer-enabled product refresh. It's much more likely that the camera blocks will just site unused in this first ipad iteration.
I know it's way too early to speculate about this, but Cortex-A8 until 2012 in Pad (and subsequently in the iPhone)? I mean in Q4 of 2011 we could already get 28nm dual-core Cortex-A9. Tegra2 will be everywhere in H2/2010 (well, maybe except smartphones) and joined by OMAP4 (both dual-core Cortex-A9) at the end of this year. Plus PA Semi doesn't seem to have been involved so far, so at least a single-core Cortex-A9 would make sense for the iPad in 2011.

Lazy8s

02-Mar-2010, 09:08

I guessed Cortex-A8 because of the development timeframe involved in a new form factor device, but an A9 or maybe even a custom ARMv7 shouldn't be too far behind.

By 2011, a new processor set will definitely be in place for Apple's iPhone OS devices. Whether 2010 will bring a change is the issue.

Ailuros

02-Mar-2010, 09:11

I know it's way too early to speculate about this, but Cortex-A8 until 2012 in Pad (and subsequently in the iPhone)? I mean in Q4 of 2011 we could already get 28nm dual-core Cortex-A9. Tegra2 will be everywhere in H2/2010 (well, maybe except smartphones) and joined by OMAP4 (both dual-core Cortex-A9) at the end of this year. Plus PA Semi doesn't seem to have been involved so far, so at least a single-core Cortex-A9 would make sense for the iPad in 2011.

Sterile number crunching if you're missing vital details leads more than often to a dead end. The Cortex A8 in the iPhone3GS has a 256kb L2 cache; the ARM11 CPU in the iPhone3G didn't have any L2 cache at all and the frequency difference between those two is barely at 182MHz.

Now I'm not saying anything because I don't know any details yet but afaik the maximum possible L2 cache for a Cortex A8 is at 1MB and if the iPad contains a Cortex A8 after all even if it has just a 512kb L2 cache it'll already make a difference to the 3GS CPU on top of the frequency difference.

Take an iPad after its availability in your hand and evaluate its responsiveness to any task you might want to use it for. If the end result is on a satisfactory level then ok; in any other case you might want to wait for an alternative tablet down the road which won't necessarily be as cheap as the iPad at that time either.

What the followup to the 1st generation iPad will be only Apple knows and the stars ;)

rpg.314

16-Mar-2010, 14:53

FUDZILLA, but not fudo:

It would be nice to think that the great unwashed have realised that the US tech press have sacrificed their credibility to hawk the iPad for Jobs' Mob and are going to ignore the over priced netbook without a keyboard in droves.

http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/18098/38/

Any thoughts :)

Ailuros

16-Mar-2010, 15:36

FUDZILLA, but not fudo:

http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/18098/38/

Any thoughts :)

I wouldn't pre-order any product either myself until I've seen a fair amount of detail about it.

rpg.314

16-Mar-2010, 15:50

I wouldn't pre-order any product either myself until I've seen a fair amount of detail about it.

Alrighty, I was, however, wondering at the allegation of US press sacrificing their credibility to hawk SJ's stuff. Just replace US press with Fudzilla and SJ with JHH and you get the picture. :smile:

wco81

16-Mar-2010, 15:57

I think this product is going to have to make its sale on the basis of hands-on experience, not online reviews.

Tablet is an unproven market and people who own smart phones and laptops are going to have to be convinced that they need another gadget.

As for that post, a bit ironic that a site called fudzilla takes a condescending tone about the "great unwashed" and the US press compromising its credibility.

roninja

16-Mar-2010, 19:35

120k+ pre orders already so by default this already makes the ipad the most succesful tablet pc to date. I may get on but will wait until I try one in the apple store here in the UK.

Entropy

16-Mar-2010, 21:06

FUDZILLA, but not fudo:

http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/18098/38/

Any thoughts :)

It's written by Nick Farrell. He's a hater. Whereas most of the people that writes tech in the tradition of Mike Magee add a sprinkling of irreverence to their information- and rumourmongering, Nick simply hates. Maybe it brings in traffic, I don't know. But he's ignorant.

Better data is available here: link (http://brainstormtech.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2010/03/15/apple-ipad-orders-drop-sharply/)

Actually, I'm surprised the preorders reach those levels in terms of absolute numbers. But noone in their right mind would use meager preorder data to draw any conclusions at this stage about the ultimate success of the iPads. Even Apple themselves are in the dark.

Ailuros

17-Mar-2010, 05:58

Alrighty, I was, however, wondering at the allegation of US press sacrificing their credibility to hawk SJ's stuff. Just replace US press with Fudzilla and SJ with JHH and you get the picture. :smile:

I knew what you were wondering but my point still stands. Let Jensen know that I won't pre-order a GTX480 either until I see it reviewed and analyzed by reliable 3rd parties :razz:

N00b

17-Mar-2010, 08:16

120k+ pre orders already so by default this already makes the ipad the most succesful tablet pc to date.Source?

Ailuros

17-Mar-2010, 08:21

Source?

There are multiple links; Entropy just provided one in two posts above yours: http://brainstormtech.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2010/03/15/apple-ipad-orders-drop-sharply/

N00b

17-Mar-2010, 10:01

There are multiple links; Entropy just provided one in two posts above yours: http://brainstormtech.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2010/03/15/apple-ipad-orders-drop-sharply/That's not what I meant. I can believe that there are over 120.000 pre-orders. I wonder if there's really no other tablet (or tablet series) that has sold as much.

wco81

17-Mar-2010, 14:01

Probably the biggest launch for a tablet but some vendors have been selling tablets for years so cumulatively, they must have sold more than 120k units by now.

But the category is getting reset with the touch screen and the lower starting price. Other vendors are lining up to put out comparable products.

So the tally probably begins with iPad and others like the HP tablet and a few others.

patsu

17-Mar-2010, 18:16

I pre-ordered 2. One for myself and one for a friend in Asia. He requested for the pre-order.

Silent_Buddha

19-Mar-2010, 18:40

That's not what I meant. I can believe that there are over 120.000 pre-orders. I wonder if there's really no other tablet (or tablet series) that has sold as much.

He has no source since it isn't true.

Lenovo updates their tablet series yearly. Not something you'd do if it sells less than 100k a year. Fujitsu also has a yearly update of their tablet series. HP continues to provide configurable tablets as does Dell.

Likewise there are multiple companies whose only product are Tablet PCs (slate design like the iPad and not the covertible type like the Lenovo). Motion Computing for example (http://www.motioncomputing.com/ ) which started making slate style Tablet PCs ever since Windows XP Tablet Edition launched. They have since grown quite a bit as well as expanding their lineup of Tablet PCs.

Regards,
SB

patsu

19-Mar-2010, 18:50

I'm thinking iPad will evolve differently from Tablet PCs. That's why I piggybacked on my friend's preorder. It is not trying to be a PC. It may be a strategic mistake to think iPad is a PC, or to shoehorn it to mimic a PC.

My #1 app is to get piano scores inside, so that I can play piano without fumbling with paper. It's lightweight (software and hardware), cheap and "big" enough to explore unfulfilled needs -- especially in enterprises.

My guess is Gen 2 iPad will soar. It needs more input (e.g., camera and mic).

pcchen

19-Mar-2010, 20:41

Yes. I think iPad will evolve into some sort of iPhone/iPod Touch computer, i.e. a device with clear designed objects, rather than something which is able to do everything, but not really good at them.

Of course, I like the fact that I can upgrade my PC by myself, with parts selected by me. I also like the fact that I can install anything on my PC, or write softwares for my PC, or tinkering with its settings. However, this is just not for everyone. For most people, they don't want something to play or to tinker with. They want something that just works.

There were some attempts to address this problem before. But almost every attempts suffered from the same biggest problem: lack of sufficient software base. However, Apple managed to (somehow) solve this problem with iPod Touch and iPhone, and now they are going to extend this to iPad.

Of course, the success of iPad will depend on whether people think iPad is worth developing for, and that would depend on the sales. Right now I think it's still unclear.

wco81

19-Mar-2010, 21:23

I saw an interview with a very successful iPhone app. developer. Sold like 4 million downloads at $2-4 and is getting VC money.

He said the incremental cost to support the iPad over the iPhone app. would be about 3-4%.

But to port to Android would be 2-3 times as much, because of different hardware and OS versions out in the field.

Gameloft said, right around the time the Droid was released IIRC, that their iPhone games outsold the Android versions by 40 to 1.

I think from the initial hype alone, they're going to get some high-profile but not exclusive content apps. like from big magazine and newspaper publishers. I'm skeptical that people will pay for that content. Maybe some people converting hard-copy sales and subscriptions to electronic versions but not too much new customers paying for content.

Remains to be seen what the killer app. might be. Apple is said to be trying to secure content deals, like lower prices for TV show downloads on iTunes. But that makes more sense for AppleTV, which can display it at 720p on a big screen.

patsu

19-Mar-2010, 21:39

Yeah, but ported iPhone apps may not be successful on iPad either. They are good as stopgap measures. iPad apps will be more usable than iPhone apps. The freaking phone screen is too small for heavy duty use.

On an iPad, it will be able to do MS's dual-screen tablet UI (The one they paraded a few weeks ago). It can also just show one screen like for games and the musical scores app I'm looking for. There will be more possibilities and flexibility.

pcchen

20-Mar-2010, 17:18

I think there's a function iPad should have: the ability to tether with iPhone's 3G. For many who already own an iPhone, they probably already have some sort of 3G data plan. it'd be very expensive and unnecessary for them to buy a 3G iPad with a data plan, no matter how inexpensive that is, just to be able to use iPad on road, which they can already do with thier iPhone.

It's probably not hard to do either. Just set iPhone's WiFi into ad-hoc mode, and let iPad access it through WiFi. This way, anyone already owns an iPhone will be able to use a normal iPad on the road as long as his/her iPhone is paired with that iPad.

Of course, there could be some "political" problems such as some tele don't want to open tethering on their 3G system. However, this function will be very useful for those with tethering support.

rpg.314

20-Mar-2010, 17:21

wco81

20-Mar-2010, 17:45

It's a political problem. Tethering in general can't be gotten free in the US. There are programs on jailbroken phones or other smart phone OSes which allow it without paying a surcharge for tethering. Of course the carrier could cut you off or try to charge you.

The 3G also has GPS and apparently more antennas to support them. The 3G models are slightly larger.

From the previews, it looks like you can buy a month of 3G access right on the iPad and it will tell you when your data limit is about to be reached and offer you a chance to upgrade to unlimited or buy another month of access. Sounds pretty convenient.

You can easily pay $600 for an unlocked smart phone so the $629 doesn't seem completely out of line.

pcchen

20-Mar-2010, 17:46

Have you looked at the price delta for 3G iPad's? $130 for a chip that prolly costs <$5 in volume. Why do you think ATT cut such a sweet heart deal to Apple for the iPad?

iPad 3G does not just support 3G, it also has GPS, which is not available on normal iPad. A GPS unit is certainly not $130 money (although for a retail price difference of $130 it's not uncommon to see a BOM price difference of about $60 ~ $70), but it's not $5 either.

silent_guy

20-Mar-2010, 17:54

Have you looked at the price delta for 3G iPad's? $130 for a chip that prolly costs <$5 in volume. Why do you think ATT cut such a sweet heart deal to Apple for the iPad?
"Set your price based on what people are willing to pay, not on what it costs to produce."

When I buy my iPad, it will be with 3G capability but without 3G plan, just in case. The $130 is a bit painful but not so much so that it warrants risking buyers regret later on... Who knows what kind of new applications (don't forget GPS) will be created that rely on this.
I'm sure Apple priced it exactly with this in mind.

I expect that 3G usage for the iPad will be less than for the iPhone because it's too big to read your favorite forum while waiting in line at the supermarket. Given the amount of iPhone's already out there, the incremental load on their network (which they have to upgrade anyway) should be reasonable.

ATT cut this deal with Apple because it's going to be profitable for them. I can't believe there are kick backs from Apple to ATT involved too.

frogblast

20-Mar-2010, 18:58

iPad 3G does not just support 3G, it also has GPS, which is not available on normal iPad. A GPS unit is certainly not $130 money (although for a retail price difference of $130 it's not uncommon to see a BOM price difference of about $60 ~ $70), but it's not $5 either.

Also don't forget the patent minefield. The usual set of licenses probably adds up pretty quick (I would be very interested in knowing the real number, but google didn't turn up much)

silent_guy

20-Mar-2010, 19:22

Also don't forget the patent minefield. The usual set of licenses probably adds up pretty quick (I would be very interested in knowing the real number, but google didn't turn up much)
It's really not that bad. In many cases, the chip makers are the ones paying for the patent licenses, not the users of the chips. And when they don't, it's still a trivial amount. Otherwise the technology would never have been allowed to become a standard.

For chips, we're talking cents, not dollars.

Arwin

20-Mar-2010, 22:15

I think there's a function iPad should have: the ability to tether with iPhone's 3G.

It would probably be better if they would allow you to just put the iPhone's sim card into your iPad.

wco81

20-Mar-2010, 22:32

They put in a new micro SIM slot in there.

Mike11

21-Mar-2010, 00:40

It would probably be better if they would allow you to just put the iPhone's sim card into your iPad.
Since SIMs and Micro SIMs are compatible you can just cut your iPhone SIM and make a Micro SIM out of it. I'm sure there will be tons of "conversion kits" (aka cutting tools) and adapters (Micro SIM to SIM) available shortly after launch. Especially for the European market where the iPad's UMTS modem is fully compatible with multiple carriers (and not just one like in the US).

rpg.314

21-Mar-2010, 05:07

"Set your price based on what people are willing to pay, not on what it costs to produce."Fair enough.

I can't believe there are kick backs from Apple to ATT involved too.

Why not? There are kick backs the other way on every iPhone.

patsu

21-Mar-2010, 08:15

My guess is Gen 2 iPad will soar. It needs more input (e.g., camera and mic).

Shooting myself down...

The other way to do this is for Apple to introduce WiFi/wireless peripherals. Say... a camera, some want it to face forward, some want it to face backwards, some sick [MOD DELETE] boys want it to be at the tip of their shoes. The bottomline is if Apple has wireless peripherals for iPad, it might actually be more interesting than same old built-in ones.

silent_guy

21-Mar-2010, 08:16

Why not? There are kick backs the other way on every iPhone.
From a pragmatic point of view: because there's no fixed duration contract between the user and carrier.

From a fundamental point of view: because a company will only do this if there's absolutely no alternative. Apple is obsessed about high margins.

I don't see how kickbacks from ATT to Apple can be used as a argument for the existence of kickbacks the other way around?

Nobody can predict exactly now much 3G usage there will really be for the iPad, so there's a bit of a gamble for AT&T, but, again, I believe that the 250MB plans will be very common and, for the vast majority of users, heavily underused. If this turns out to be correct, it's going to be a pretty good deal for AT&T at $25.

rpg.314

21-Mar-2010, 08:59

From a pragmatic point of view: because there's no fixed duration contract between the user and carrier.Good point.
I believe that the 250MB plans will be very common and, for the vast majority of users, heavily underused. If this turns out to be correct, it's going to be a pretty good deal for AT&T at $25.

iPad is a netbook replacement. People will eat through 250MB/mo like crazy.

Mike11

21-Mar-2010, 10:41

iPad is a netbook replacement. People will eat through 250MB/mo like crazy.
And then they can add another 250MB for another $15 etc. :lol:

mboeller

21-Mar-2010, 11:37

And then they can add another 250MB for another $15 etc. :lol:

You have to pay US$25 for 250MB and US$15 for additional 250MB per month?

WOW! thats really expensive. IMHO a complete rip-off.

In Austria for example you can have mobile internet access with 3.6-7.2Mb/sec UMTS for 15,- Euro ( 15GB/month ) and a "real" flatrate for Euro 25,- /month

http://www.tarifecheck.at/index.php?rubrik=mobilfunk&p=mobilfunk&kategorie=daten&sub_kategorie=daten_uebersicht&go=de

wco81

21-Mar-2010, 13:49

No it's $15 for 250 MB for a month.

It will apparently warn you when you're getting near the limit or the end of the month.

You will be offered another 250 MB plan or the upgrade to the unlimited plan for another $15, which is $30 a month.

All done on the iPad so you can activate only for those times you need it.

mboeller

21-Mar-2010, 16:26

wco81

21-Mar-2010, 16:34

Um no, $30 a month for "unlimited."

Our mobile networks are pretty bad but not that bad.

pcchen

21-Mar-2010, 16:36

so only US $900 for 15GB a month. What a bargain. ;)

Now I understand why the iPad has no Flash-Videos

Of course, US$30 is unlimited. So you only need US$30 for 15GB.
In Taiwan, the standard fee for unlimited 3G data plan by CHT is NT$850 (~US$26). There are other telecom which provides cheaper plans, but their coverages are worse than CHT in general.

patsu

21-Mar-2010, 16:42

Since I have an iPhone, I am not too hard up for 3G at the moment. The iPad has a larger screen to fill than iPhone, that may mean higher/more expensive 3G consumption (and longer wait for content).

I would like iPad app developers to explore ad hoc WiFi applications and user experiences (Yes, that includes social networking apps in the real world).

How far is the range for WiFi these days ? Can I form an ad hoc local network in a traffic jam, or while on tour in a museum ? or backpacking in a YMCA lodge somewhere ? or in a shopping mall directed by coupons and bulk purchases ?

EDIT: Yes you can do these on iPhone too, but I would hesitate to put my phone address book and other more personal info on such ad hoc networks. In a sense, I'm saying iPad = Internet computer (or a Facebook computer, or a Google apps computer) mapped to the physical world and network.

silent_guy

22-Mar-2010, 00:09

iPad is a netbook replacement.
Yeah, that's basically my point. :wink:

People tend to use their netbooks at work, at home or in places with free wifi, like Starbucks (if you have an AT&T contract) and airports. I expect it to be used less for ad-hoc stuff like browsing while waiting in line, listening to Pandora in your car, watching Google maps for directions. The form factor is just too inconvenient for that. And it doesn't even have a camera, so no bandwidth consumption with uploading pictures, movies, like I do all the time with my iPhone.

So from that point of view, there is a decent possibility that 3G data volume will be quite a bit less than for the iPhone. At least, this will be the case for my usage. But maybe there will be other use cases that will compensate for that, so I could very well be completely wrong about this.

Edit: patsu basically makes the completely opposite argument. We'll just have to wait and see...

rpg.314

22-Mar-2010, 04:42

Yeah, that's basically my point. :wink:

People tend to use their netbooks at work, at home or in places with free wifi, like Starbucks (if you have an AT&T contract) and airports. I expect it to be used less for ad-hoc stuff like browsing while waiting in line, listening to Pandora in your car, watching Google maps for directions. The form factor is just too inconvenient for that. And it doesn't even have a camera, so no bandwidth consumption with uploading pictures, movies, like I do all the time with my iPhone.

So from that point of view, there is a decent possibility that 3G data volume will be quite a bit less than for the iPhone. At least, this will be the case for my usage. But maybe there will be other use cases that will compensate for that, so I could very well be completely wrong about this.

Edit: patsu basically makes the completely opposite argument. We'll just have to wait and see...
Yes, you won't use it all the time, but when you get down to actually using it, you'll go past 250 MB in a day. I would, on any decent week-end day.

mboeller

22-Mar-2010, 08:08

Of course, US$30 is unlimited. So you only need US$30 for 15GB.
In Taiwan, the standard fee for unlimited 3G data plan by CHT is NT$850 (~US$26). There are other telecom which provides cheaper plans, but their coverages are worse than CHT in general.

So 250MB for 15 Dollar and unlimited access for 30 Dollar, or?

If so, it is far better. Same price as in Austria then.

Mike11

22-Mar-2010, 09:42

So 250MB for 15 Dollar and unlimited access for 30 Dollar, or?

If so, it is far better. Same price as in Austria then.
I'm guessing it will happen quite often that people pay $30 for 500MB or $45 for unlimited (start with $15 and then add another charge after they realize how quickly 250MB are gone).

Silent_Buddha

23-Mar-2010, 05:16

So 250MB for 15 Dollar and unlimited access for 30 Dollar, or?

If so, it is far better. Same price as in Austria then.

Unlimited for most carriers in the US is a misnomer. It usually means higher cap. I've only looked at Verizon, Cricket, and AT&T where I live and the "unlimited" plan for each of them includes signing off on a terms of use clause that states that if you use more than X amount of data, you will be billed for it. This is with regards to using 3G on laptops.

I'd assume that most carriers will do something similar with regards to the iPad as it's closer to a laptop than a smartphone in form factor and likely data consumption.

Regards,
SB

pcchen

26-Mar-2010, 12:54

According to this report (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/25/technology/25apple.html), the answer to "whether iPad can tether with iPhone" is "no."

Pressure

29-Mar-2010, 14:16

I'm guessing it will happen quite often that people pay $30 for 500MB or $45 for unlimited (start with $15 and then add another charge after they realize how quickly 250MB are gone).

It's really quite easy to grasp.

Either you pay $15 for 250MB chunks or $30 for "unlimited" data per month. If you burn through the 250MB cap, you can pay additionally $15 for 250MB more. Which in this case is rather silly, as $30 gives you the "unlimited" data plan.

And all of this you can do right through an interface on the iPad (http://www.tuaw.com/2010/03/12/ipad-101-managing-your-3g-data-plans/).

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.tuaw.com/media/2010/03/callout320100312.jpg

Mike11

30-Mar-2010, 09:28

It's really quite easy to grasp.

Either you pay $15 for 250MB chunks or $30 for "unlimited" data per month. If you burn through the 250MB cap, you can pay additionally $15 for 250MB more. Which in this case is rather silly, as $30 gives you the "unlimited" data plan.

And all of this you can do right through an interface on the iPad (http://www.tuaw.com/2010/03/12/ipad-101-managing-your-3g-data-plans/).

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.tuaw.com/media/2010/03/callout320100312.jpg
My point was that IMHO lots of people will buy the 250MB and when they run out of data they will add another 250MB, since it's the cheapest option (at that time). It certainly wouldn't be the first time that people go for the cheapest option available but in the end end up paying more... The consumer friendly version would have been to offer only an upgrade to unlimited for $15 after the initial 250MB for $15. But of course, that's not how it works.

wco81

30-Mar-2010, 15:38

My point was that IMHO lots of people will buy the 250MB and when they run out of data they will add another 250MB, since it's the cheapest option (at that time). It certainly wouldn't be the first time that people go for the cheapest option available but in the end end up paying more... The consumer friendly version would have been to offer only an upgrade to unlimited for $15 after the initial 250MB for $15. But of course, that's not how it works.

I thought that was the case, that if you buy the $15 plan and you want unlimited before the month is out, you can pay $15 until the end of that month.

If you don't upgrade before the month, then it's $15 or $30 for the next month.

argor

03-Apr-2010, 04:34

Apple purchases another processor design house
http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/04/report-apple-purchases-another-processor-design-house.ars

jaredpace

03-Apr-2010, 05:06

pics of the inside

https://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/prod/oet/forms/blobs/retrieve.cgi?attachment_id=1251286&native_or_pdf=pdf

wco81

03-Apr-2010, 05:07

I think because the PA Semi guys cashed out and didn't stick around.

These new guys probably were given stock which vests a few years out.

MfA

03-Apr-2010, 08:08

I've always wondered to what extent Intrinsity's FAST14 helped ATI.

Gotta say, not entirely happy with Apple going even further the vertical integration chain ... not great for competition. Wonder when they will get a foundry.

rpg.314

03-Apr-2010, 08:19

Gotta say, not entirely happy with Apple going even further the vertical integration chain ... not great for competition. Wonder when they will get a foundry.They won't get a foundry, but this is going to start off a series of me-too custom chips. I guess Nokia is already there and Samsung could pull one too.

As for competition, I am not worried on that count. The real competition I expect will come from MS. Google is too searchey.

darkblu

03-Apr-2010, 15:01

They won't get a foundry, but this is going to start off a series of me-too custom chips. I guess Nokia is already there and Samsung could pull one too.
IIRC, Intrinsity already did one design for samsung - a 45nm A8 @1+GHz.

Mike11

03-Apr-2010, 20:17

Just 256MB RAM. The same as the iPhone 3GS.

Markings on the A4:
N26CGM0T 1007 APL0398 33950084 YNL184A2 1004 K4X2G643GE
Yes, the K4X2 is a Samsung DRAM part number!
Decoding the part number shows there is 2Gb of memory inside. This translates into ~256MB of memory.
http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iPad-Teardown/2183/2

Not looking good for multitasking in iPhone OS 4.x.

Arwin

03-Apr-2010, 20:40

I'm downloading the latest SDK which just came out today (3.2 final). Which is ironic, because I got my Mac Mini yesterday and downloaded the 3.1.3 SDK first, and then I thought I probably should start looking into developing code that supports both iPhone and iPad as much as possible right away so I got the GM beta, and now it's another 2.3GB download today! ... lol.

As for multitasking, I still have trouble really seeing it as a downside. Battery life is more important. Microsoft has reneged on it for Windows Mobile now too, for the same reasons. We'll have to see if Google can get Android user-friendly enough to deal with it for noobs who don't know to check the task-manager if they have too much running.

That the iPad actually does seem to make it one one charge for 10 hours and more, as is confirmed by some of the initial hands-on previews, that's a much bigger thing right now I think.

Mike11

03-Apr-2010, 20:55

As for multitasking, I still have trouble really seeing it as a downside. Battery life is more important. Microsoft has reneged on it for Windows Mobile now too, for the same reasons. We'll have to see if Google can get Android user-friendly enough to deal with it for noobs who don't know to check the task-manager if they have too much running.
I also think that the iPad doesn't really need 3rd party multitasking, IF Apple implements some other features well like notifications, background audio (streaming) api, OS-level state saving and some sort of quick app switching (for favorites and/or last used app). And with just 256MB RAM in the iPad, I think the chances of something like that happening instead of true multitasking are now bigger than ever.

That the iPad actually does seem to make it one one charge for 10 hours and more, as is confirmed by some of the initial hands-on previews, that's a much bigger thing right now I think.
Yes, that really is a pleasant surprise. With regular use around 10 hours, that's pretty good. The lowest(!) number I heard was 6.5 hours of constant video playback at 100% brightness and 100% audio volume over speaker (from Andy Ihnatko).
I guess the 3G numbers will be 1-2 hours lower, especially with 3G video streaming (but with a 5GB cap you can't do that very often ;-) )

Mike11

03-Apr-2010, 21:41

deleted

Mike11

03-Apr-2010, 22:37

Just 256MB RAM. The same as the iPhone 3GS.

http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iPad-Teardown/2183/2

Not looking good for multitasking in iPhone OS 4.x.

Damn it, the internet... nothings permanent any more :roll:

Markings on the A4:
N26CGM0T 1007 APL0398 33950084 YNL184A2 1004 K4X2G643GE
Yes, the K4X2 is a Samsung DRAM part number!
Decoding the part number shows there is 2Gb of memory inside. This translates into ~256MB of memory per die, for 512 MB total.

Now it's 512MB (2x256MB) RAM. Just forget everything I wrote :oops:

Edit: Ah well, according to furbo.org, we're back at 256MB RAM...
iPad hardware

When using sysctl() to query the amount of memory available to the iPhone OS, the following values are reported:

Kind Bytes Megabytes
Physical (HW_PHYSMEM) 258,998,272 247 MB
User (HW_USERMEM) 210,284,544 200.5 MB

Again, it’s likely that the device is using 256 MB memory chips with a portion of the total being used for other purposes, such as video memory. Also, developers have noted that all of the 200 MB of user memory is not available for use by apps. The OS and background apps make use of a large portion of that memory.
http://furbo.org/2010/04/03/benchmarking-in-your-lap/

warmi

04-Apr-2010, 06:20

Just did some basic GLES fillrate tests and holy crap ..... the iPad is damn slow.

My custom fillrate demo can display about 400 sprites at 30 fps on the older iPhones and it goes up to 1750 on the 3gs (both of them obviously running at 320x480).

On the iPad , running at 1024x768 with sprites scaled up , it cannot pull more than 400 while maintaining 30 fps, which essentially means at that resolution it performs at about the same level as the original iPhone.

Given that , you just won't be able to port graphically intensive 3gs apps to 1024x768 and expect them to run at the same framerate.

rpg.314

04-Apr-2010, 06:55

warmi

04-Apr-2010, 06:59

SO prolly the same gpu as the 3gs. :sad:

Yeah, it certainly looks like that.

Mike11

04-Apr-2010, 11:36

And even ifixit.com is now back to 256MB RAM. Looks like it's final now and consistent with software reports. All in all really seems to be just an overclocked 3GS with a wider memory bus, nothing fancy going on here at all. Which lets me to be believe that the A4 could go into the next iPhone practically without any modifications at all.
Markings on the A4:
N26CGM0T 1007 APL0398 33950084 YNL184A2 1004 K4X2G643GE
Yes, the K4X2 is a Samsung DRAM part number!
Decoding the part number shows there is 2Gb of memory inside. This translates into ~128MB of memory per die, for 256 MB total. (NOT 512MB, as we previously reported.)
http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iPad-Teardown/2183/2

rpg.314

04-Apr-2010, 11:45

Pressure

04-Apr-2010, 12:13

Under these unveilings I am definitely waiting for the 2nd generation iPad before considering it.

Cortex A9 would have been nice as well as 512MB+ ram.

Ike Turner

04-Apr-2010, 12:29

Wow Anandtech's piece is wack as hell IMO. Comparing the A4 vs the SnapDragon using Safari vs Android's browser? WTH? what kind of performance comparison is that?
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3633/apples-a4-soc-faster-than-snapdragon

Mike11

04-Apr-2010, 13:57

Under these unveilings I am definitely waiting for the 2nd generation iPad before considering it.

Cortex A9 would have been nice as well as 512MB+ ram.
Look like Apple's SoC generations will start with the iPad each year. Makes kind of sense, start with the one where heat and power requirements aren't that big a deal (in comparison to the display etc.) and then work yourself down to iPhone and then at last the smallest one, the iPod touch. Nicely stretched over the year so that Apple has one big iPhone OS hardware release each quarter (plus the holiday quarter).

Does anybody know what Samsungs plans are for 32nm/28nm? Are they far behind Globalfoundries where 28LP should start at the end of the year? (Yes, I know start of 28LP doesn't mean start of retail availability of smartphones with 28nm SoCs by like, 18 months or so).

Wow Anadtech's piece is wack as hell IMO. Comparing the A4 vs the SnapDragon using Safari vs Android's browser? WTH? what kind of performance comparison is that?
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3633/apples-a4-soc-faster-than-snapdragon
The only non-"wacky" benchmark I've seen so far is from furbo.org (and warmi of course)
Native performance

Test iPad/3.2 iPhone 3GS/3.0 Faster by
100,000 iterations 0.000035 secs. 0.000137 secs. 3.91x
10,000 divisions 0.000010 0.000018 1.8x
10,000 sin(x) calls 0.000012 0.000018 1.5x
10,000 string allocations 0.004321 0.007915 1.83x
10,000 function calls 0.000338 0.000600 1.78x
This first benchmark compares the native performance of the iPad against the iPhone 3GS. The version of the iPhone OS is the one originally released with both devices (3.2 and 3.0, respectively.) The application used to test the devices was a release (optimized) build for ARM v7.

On average, the iPad is about twice as fast as the iPhone 3GS when executing native (Cocoa Touch) applications. Great news for developers, because it gives us much more flexibility when creating our apps.
http://furbo.org/2010/04/03/benchmarking-in-your-lap/

warmi

04-Apr-2010, 18:12

http://furbo.org/2010/04/03/benchmarking-in-your-lap/

Something is off with their test ...

Test iPad/3.2 iPhone/2.0 Faster by
100,000 iterations 0.000035 secs. 0.015 secs. 428x
10,000 divisions 0.000010 0.004 400x
10,000 sin(x) calls 0.000012 0.105 8,750x
10,000 string allocations 0.004321 0.085 20x
10,000 function calls 0.000338 0.004 12x

A device running Cortex8/Neon at 1 GHZ is not going to be 400 times faster (much less 8700 times) than a device running ARM 11 at 400 mhz.

rpg.314

04-Apr-2010, 18:34

Something is off with their test ...

Test iPad/3.2 iPhone/2.0 Faster by
100,000 iterations 0.000035 secs. 0.015 secs. 428x
10,000 divisions 0.000010 0.004 400x
10,000 sin(x) calls 0.000012 0.105 8,750x
10,000 string allocations 0.004321 0.085 20x
10,000 function calls 0.000338 0.004 12x

A device running Cortex8/Neon at 1 GHZ is not going to be 400 times faster (much less 8700 times) than a device running ARM 11 at 400 mhz.My guess would be that the ARM11 APPLE used did not have hw fpu. Is it true?

idsn6

04-Apr-2010, 18:50

My guess would be that the ARM11 APPLE used did not have hw fpu. Is it true?
No.

I'm willing to chalk up the difference to something having been very sick in OS 2.0.

warmi

04-Apr-2010, 18:53

No.

I'm willing to chalk up the difference to something having been very sick in OS 2.0.

Uh , there was nothing as sick as to cause sinf to be thousands times slower .... I mean even with thumb on it was maybe 2-3 times slower.

From my experience VFP vode was about 2-3 times slower than Neon code on the 3gs and , although haven't tested it, it would most likely be 4-5 times slower than the iPad.

frogblast

04-Apr-2010, 18:55

My guess would be that the ARM11 APPLE used did not have hw fpu. Is it true?

No, the FPU was heavily used. This is perhaps a codegen issue. His original numbers were from an unofficial tool chain that was hacked together by jailbreakers, before Apple provided the real tools. Who knows what kind of code it generated... (soft FP included)

Silent_Buddha

04-Apr-2010, 19:14

ltcommander.data

04-Apr-2010, 19:15

http://twitter.com/zodttd/status/11592511853

The iPad's GPU seems to have been confirmed as the SGX535 just like the third-gen iPhone and iPod Touch. I guess the iPhone 3GS still has the most GPU power available per pixel.

From the K4X2G643GE RAM part number on the A4, it seems like the iPad has a 64-bit memory bus compared to the previous iPhones which I believe are 32-bit. Can anyone confirm this? More memory bandwidth might distinguish the iPad's SGX535 over the other third-gen devices.

Note: I tried to post about this an hour ago, but I don't know what happened to that post. Hopefully it doesn't pop up as a duplicate, in which case I apologize.

silent_guy

04-Apr-2010, 20:14

He's testing the performance increase for the combined HW/SW platform.

iPhone OS 2.0 had a Javascript engine that was way slower.

MfA

04-Apr-2010, 20:29

What's the big deal with multitasking? Just come up with a rating system (from "retardedly programmed battery emptying piece of trash" to "decently programmed multitasking program which with default settings doesn't harm your battery life and has big warning screens for settings bad for battery life") with some nice icons and put it next to the apps in the appstore (where the noobs get their apps).

Arwin

04-Apr-2010, 21:57

Without at least the ability to support a multitasking IM client that supports at the minimum both AIM and Live Messenger, the device would be useless to me. Hopefully they'll allow third party IM clients the ability to multitask.

Regards,
SB

I think the current system is fine now, but they could improve it so that if I get a notification of new messages, I can click on the notification and go there straight away (which is already possible), and then when I close that application, I go straight back to where I was (which I don't think is possible, but should be extremely easy for Apple to add).

tangey

04-Apr-2010, 22:32

Someone has dumped the ipad io registry file:-
http://www.zodttd.com/docs/REGISTRY.plist.txt

In there you'll find a number of references to SGX535. So it appears clear that it has 535 graphics. You'll also see references to VXD375. THis must be an IMG video decoder IP driver. IMG have public VXD versions of 370,380,390, so looks like this is an enhanced/customised VXD370.

darkblu

05-Apr-2010, 00:48

Uh , there was nothing as sick as to cause sinf to be thousands times slower .... I mean even with thumb on it was maybe 2-3 times slower.

From my experience VFP code was about 2-3 times slower than Neon code on the 3gs and , although haven't tested it, it would most likely be 4-5 times slower than the iPad.
perhaps somebody's tests have been using the softfp ABI? in practice arm11's fully-pipelined fpu is actually faster clock-for-clock even compared to VFP3's fast-mode on the A8. i'd expect the 2G scalar fpu performance to be about on par with the 3GS.

warmi

05-Apr-2010, 01:08

pi'd expect the 2G scalar fpu performance to be about on par with the 3GS.

No , it is not .. the compiler is actually generating Neon code for scalars as long as you are not using doubles which makes it about 2x faster.

Simon F

05-Apr-2010, 08:14

Note: I tried to post about this an hour ago, but I don't know what happened to that post. Hopefully it doesn't pop up as a duplicate, in which case I apologize.
As a new B3D member, your post was put into the moderation queue for one of us to approve it. I'll go back and delete the previous one now.

rpg.314

05-Apr-2010, 08:31

No, the FPU was heavily used. This is perhaps a codegen issue. His original numbers were from an unofficial tool chain that was hacked together by jailbreakers, before Apple provided the real tools. Who knows what kind of code it generated... (soft FP included)
yeah, the compiler must be fubared then.....

Florin

05-Apr-2010, 17:17

Ipad's been jailbroken (http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/04/ipad-jailbroken-already-using-leftover-security-flaw.ars) already and Apple shares are up slightly (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/apples-ipad-sales-highlight-tech-action-2010-04-05) on news of 300.000 Ipads sold on day 1.

Florin

05-Apr-2010, 17:32

http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/4/2010/02/500x_evoipad2.jpg

k well I thought it was funny :)

rpg.314

05-Apr-2010, 18:21

http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/4/2010/02/500x_evoipad2.jpg

k well I thought it was funny :)

:lol:

Scott_Arm

05-Apr-2010, 20:20

About 9 out of every 10 stories on every tech feed I read is about the iPod Large. It's so annoying. It seems like just about every app that's made its way to the iPod Large is getting a writeup. Please, let the hysteria stop.

Exophase

05-Apr-2010, 22:16

Entropy

05-Apr-2010, 22:23

I'm also kind of annoyed that after getting so much negative or indifferent feedback upon announcement Apple is still getting an insane amount of positive recognition and coverage post-release. I really think they could sell almost anything.

You know, it could also be that once people have been able to try it it in their own hands, they actually like it. That is, after all, exactly the story going around.

warmi

05-Apr-2010, 23:00

I'm also kind of annoyed that after getting so much negative or indifferent feedback upon announcement Apple is still getting an insane amount of positive recognition and coverage post-release. I really think they could sell almost anything.

Apple is primarily a marketing company as opposed to say Microsoft or others who are primarily technological companies and thus they pay a lot of attention to make sure that their announcements are always something to talk about - people who write about this sort of stuff love it as well so we have here a symbiotic relationship ...

silent_guy

06-Apr-2010, 07:18

I'm also kind of annoyed that after getting so much negative or indifferent feedback upon announcement Apple is still getting an insane amount of positive recognition and coverage post-release. I really think they could sell almost anything.

It thought this blog post (http://al3x.net/2010/04/05/ipad-openness-moderates.html) was interesting in that regard.

I played with it for a couple of hours at the local Apple Store. I have an iPod, iPhone, MacBook and iMac and really have no pressing need for an iPad.

But, boy, it's hard to resist... I don't believe it's marketing. Apple has this magic touch about perfecting the user experience. Little things: silky smooth scrolling. Absolute perfection when it comes to touch accuracy. (See also: MacBook track pad.)

You often don't notice it until you try a competing product. Take the Nexus 1: pretty much just as capable as an iPhone wrt browsing (often faster), but there's always this ever so slight stutter when scrolling. The iPad takes this to the next level.

I believe this is what's making skeptics change their mind after actually using it for a while.

tangey

06-Apr-2010, 10:06

I'm also kind of annoyed that after getting so much negative or indifferent feedback upon announcement Apple is still getting an insane amount of positive recognition and coverage post-release. I really think they could sell almost anything.

there is a world of difference between what the "tech press" thinks and what the buying public thinks. Obviously Apple are out to appeal to the buying public as opposed to the tech press, and although it is early days, it appears they are once again spot on.

Arwin

06-Apr-2010, 10:19

I'm also kind of annoyed that after getting so much negative or indifferent feedback upon announcement Apple is still getting an insane amount of positive recognition and coverage post-release. I really think they could sell almost anything.

Expectations were too high, which is fairly typical for the internet. And as is typical for Apple lately, they manage to focus on what's important and are willing to sacrifice a lot of 'techie' features in order to get the basics right.

Now all they have to worry about is their reputation for messing up their first generation product (which seems very bad). Though to be honest, this being mostly a very large iPod, I think it may not be so bad this time. ;)

Anyway, I was one of the few non-skeptics vs the iPad, and I feel vindicated already. A large-screen iPod is just fine. ;)

Scott_Arm

06-Apr-2010, 14:22

A large screen iPod is not a terrible idea, I just wouldn't pay over $500 for one. Here in Canada, it will probably launch at $550-600, which seems absolutely ridiculous.

MfA

06-Apr-2010, 14:42

The problem is the competition all suck so awfully ... mainly the fact that they use TN LCD with spongy touch solutions. What's so difficult about making a Netbook with twistable screen for tablet mode with a MVA/PVA/IPS LCD and a PCT touch screen? I mean it's not like Apple is setting the prices so low there is no room to compete with them.

Pressure

06-Apr-2010, 14:53

pcchen

06-Apr-2010, 14:54

I think it's because most credible competitions are using x86, which is expensive (even Atom is expensive compared to ARM). So, in order to maintain a good price, they have to use worse parts. And for those who are brave enough to use ARM, they generally failed to provide a good software eco system. Android may be able to change this in the future, though.

Florin

06-Apr-2010, 16:04

I think the main problem for most competitors is that they somehow don't seem to know how to make stuff cool. Pure technologists tend to sneer at Apple's offerings, pointing out to alternatives that are faster/cheaper/more compatible/open/have more features, but somehow those devices usually tend to end up niche.

You obviously need to start with delivering a strong brand for people to identify with, and Apple has that. Android may be on the way to unifying 3rd parties under one coolness factor, but the versionitis and the low end characteristics of some of the devices are hurting its progress. And even if you already have an established strong brand like Windows, that's still no guarantee for success in the consumer sector.

And after that there is of course the distribution network. Apple knows how to get these devices out to retailers like noone else. Just a few weeks after a launch you'll find them prominently in every airport electronics store, phone shop and department store, alongside their own highly strategically located stores.

Gotta hand it to em, Apple knows how this works.

patsu

06-Apr-2010, 16:12

Arwin, are you going to program it ?

I am curious about an ad hoc network of iPads.

I read some article about iPhone/iPod Touch ad hoc network setup. It's doable but the article says the app can't connect to the Internet (via ad hoc network). But they should be able to exchange data with each other.

I am also keen in integrating the iPad with WiFi devices (e.g., webcam).

Also tried hooking it up to a PS3, but it doesn't mimic a USB drive.

Blazkowicz

06-Apr-2010, 16:57

In other terms it's successful because it's proprietary, however sad that may be.

x86 can get there, maybe as the next generation of Atom, or a single core AMD Bobcat SoC ; you also have Xcore86 right now, a very cheap and low power x86 SoC, but with lower performance and no 3D/video acceleration, made on 90nm.
It takes time because embedded/mobile has costs.

IPS has to get mass-produced, it would be nice if Ipad lead to more use of IPS displays. but as long TN exists, it will be the default. let's hope we can at least have the option, for a reasonable cost - imagine a cheap tablet, $300 version with TN and 16GB flash, $400 version with IPS and 32GB flash.

tangey

06-Apr-2010, 17:13

Its not so much because its proprietary, its because its a closed system. Ignoring Jailbreaking (which is an irrelevance to the discussion) If I have downloaded an App there is no way I can give it to anyone else. If I get a music track or a video, similarly its only mine.

Apple have pretty much proven they can control content distribution. No surprise then that the book publishers, magaines and newspapers are seriously looking at the Apple ecosystem as a way to distribue their IP and get pay for it each time they should.

Apple of course will make it super simple and in fact attractive for users to buy content, which is again cruical to the IP owners.

darkblu

06-Apr-2010, 17:26

Why are you people so surprised? Apple know how to do these things - they know how to market, they know what technological tidbits matter to the user, they can deliver content. Once apple do something, everybody else is 'ohh, it's so simple!' - doh, of course it's simple, eveybody should've done it ages ago! (But they didn't).

Apropos, just played with an ipad at work here - the responsivness of the interface is unmatched. And there's not a single bit in there that is negligent to the user - everything is built to pamper. The user loves that. The ipad is like the antithesis of the geekbox - it's designed to please.

Blazkowicz

06-Apr-2010, 20:51

the model isn't that new, they used one that successfully delivered billions of digital content units since the 1980's. it's a computer that works like a gaming console.

Nintendo developed that model, with litigation and a DRM chip
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10NES

Arwin

06-Apr-2010, 21:09

Arwin, are you going to program it ?

Well, it will be a while even before iPads are available where I live, and I just bought a Mac Mini, so that I can even start programming for the iPhone SDK to begin with. But I'm trying to learn to program our iPod and iPhone (and soon iPhones, as our office has just ordered one for each of us). I still really have to get used to it, and right now I'm even having trouble getting my provisioning profile - seems that the server for this is rather busy at the moment, wonder if that's something to do with the iPads sold? ;)

I am curious about an ad hoc network of iPads.

I read some article about iPhone/iPod Touch ad hoc network setup. It's doable but the article says the app can't connect to the Internet (via ad hoc network). But they should be able to exchange data with each other.

I am also keen in integrating the iPad with WiFi devices (e.g., webcam).

Also tried hooking it up to a PS3, but it doesn't mimic a USB drive.

I saw iPod Apps that can do file or even web? hosting, which should allow the PS3 to access it on the web. Connecting directly over USB is probably limited by 'virtue' of Apple's iTunes controls everything approach.

Assuming the iPad also supports BlueTooth, you can use that for networking as well - it's not perfect, but I'm assuming they won't interfere with each other as much as they do on the iPod, and this has the advantage of being able to both network and connect to the internet at the same time.

pcchen

06-Apr-2010, 21:13

I saw iPod Apps that can do file or even web? hosting, which should allow the PS3 to access it on the web. Connecting directly over USB is probably limited by 'virtue' of Apple's iTunes controls everything approach.

When an iPhone is connected, it acts as a camera by default. This creates a hole because, accidentally, photos are the only shared storage accessible by every applications. Therefore, some iPhone apps use the photo storage to exchange data through USB with the host (which, of course, has to be a PC or Mac running a specially designed application). Unfortunately, this hole has been plugged, and Apple provided another mechanics for this purpose (which is still proprietary).

Lazy8s

07-Apr-2010, 07:30

The iPhone/iPod touch's full range of gestures for touch control and its intelligent keyboard for text entry give it a lot of potential for general, personal computing tasks which go underutilized with its current focus on media consumption, so a large version of the device which puts at least a little more emphasis on productivity with its port of iWorks and the expanded email client functionality can be a legitimately good personal computer.

The manual manipulation of files and folders with conventional OSs is just an abstraction of performing the downloading, categorizing, etc. that people are actually trying to accomplish, so the one-touch automation of the iPhone OS gains a lot more in accessibility than it loses in functionality, especially to the average user.

Likewise, the iPhone OS's push notifications, background iPod audio playback, context saving, and relatively fast application launching negate most of the need for user-controlled, arbitrary multitasking, although a quick switch between recently-used apps would be a welcome addition, as mentioned.

Cortex-A9 has only just achieved production availability in chips, and that by companies whose sales actually depend upon being early to market with the specific CPU, so Apple, who's selling an end product and not a specific CPU and who would need at least some lead time to customize the software/UI for the new form factor of the iPad, really had a low chance of being first out with Cortex-A9, let alone a custom ARMv7 for iPad.

With around 300M tex/s and an immunity to overdraw for filling a 320x480 display on the 3G S (and with the legacy generation at about one-sixth of that fill rate), plenty of performance headroom should be there for the iPad to run iPhone/iPod touch apps even if the Pad's GPU is the same thing clocked just around 100 MHz faster.

Panajev2001a

07-Apr-2010, 10:05

With around 300M tex/s and an immunity to overdraw for filling a 320x480 display on the 3G S (and with the legacy generation at about one-sixth of that fill rate), plenty of performance headroom should be there for the iPad to run iPhone/iPod touch apps even if the Pad's GPU is the same thing clocked just around 100 MHz faster.

According to the people on Oolong engine's mailing list the iPad brought developers (when developing native resolution games) back to iPhone 3G level fillrate.

The advantage the iPad has is a faster CPU. That ties with the "immunity to overdraw" bit which, according to the SGX optimization guidelines Apple gives, basically suggest you avoid as much vertex processing on the SGX as possible (run your VS on the CPU and cull there as much as possible).
You have more CPU time to spend optimizing vertex processing to reduce SGX stalls and maximize its pixel and texturing power.

warmi

07-Apr-2010, 15:31

frogblast

07-Apr-2010, 16:45

The advantage the iPad has is a faster CPU. That ties with the "immunity to overdraw" bit which, according to the SGX optimization guidelines Apple gives, basically suggest you avoid as much vertex processing on the SGX as possible (run your VS on the CPU and cull there as much as possible).

That was never the advice for SGX. That approach has often proven useful on MBX, but most applications on SGX rarely approach any kind of vertex processing bottleneck. There is quite a lot of unused capacity there.

MfA

07-Apr-2010, 17:04

IPS has to get mass-produced
They already are ... doesn't really need to be IPS though. Something like this (http://www.chimei-innolux.com/opencms/cmo/products/iaav/products_iaav_G104X1_L03.html?__locale=en) would do.

warmi

07-Apr-2010, 17:43

That was never the advice for SGX. That approach has often proven useful on MBX, but most applications on SGX rarely approach any kind of vertex processing bottleneck. There is quite a lot of unused capacity there.

Well... but it seems to make sense ... the biggest problems so far with the iPad is its fill rate performance and since on an SGX device ( with USSE based processing) offloading vertex processing to what is pretty much an underutilized NEON chip running at 1 GZ, should theoretically help with having more cycles for fragment processing on the GPU side of things ....

MfA

07-Apr-2010, 18:07

It doesn't really matter, world of goo and sims type games don't really need the horsepower any way.

Lazy8s

07-Apr-2010, 18:17

The iPad is more about making apps more accessible than running them faster.

MfA

07-Apr-2010, 18:18

Really? I see it more as an in-house PMP and e-reader (and game console for people who don't know any better).

Scott_Arm

07-Apr-2010, 18:55

Pressure

07-Apr-2010, 21:09

The thing I hate about the apps is that you get nickel and dimed for very small features. Most apps perform one very small task, and you're charged $1 to $2 for it. These are things that people wouldn't even consider buying in the PC space. Most reviews I've read for the iPad say it's great for doing x, but the app you need costs say $1.99. Well, by the end of the review, you add up the price of all the apps they're buying and it comes in around $50 on top of the initial sale price, which is already expensive. I actually like the device, but I think the price is far beyond what I'd be willing to pay for it.

I'll be frank here, saying $50 is beyond what you are willing to pay for a bundle of applications just makes you seem cheap.

I've bought plugins that have cost me ten times that. Software is expensive but it have rarely been cheaper than what the App Store is charging.

Scott_Arm

07-Apr-2010, 22:58

I'll be frank here, saying $50 is beyond what you are willing to pay for a bundle of applications just makes you seem cheap.

I've bought plugins that have cost me ten times that. Software is expensive but it have rarely been cheaper than what the App Store is charging.

I'm not saying I'd never pay for an app. I'd pay for something useful. What I don't want to pay for, even if its only a dollar, are apps/functionality that are freely available on the PC or Mac. Maybe that's cheap, but why would I pay for something that I'm legally using for $0?

pcchen

08-Apr-2010, 01:24

I'm not saying I'd never pay for an app. I'd pay for something useful. What I don't want to pay for, even if its only a dollar, are apps/functionality that are freely available on the PC or Mac. Maybe that's cheap, but why would I pay for something that I'm legally using for $0?

There are also many free apps for iPhone and iPad. And to be fair, if you somehow need some non-free applications on a PC or Mac, they generally are much more expensive than on iPhone or iPad. Most "small" non-free applicatons on PC or Mac sells for US$19 or US$29, instead of US$1.99 or US$2.99 on iPhone/iPad.

MfA

08-Apr-2010, 18:37

Smaller iPad coming :
http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20100407PD226.html

In unrelated news, Liquavista's first screen is 6 inches, they are now shipping SDKs and it looks hot :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95cPuf1Ns5k

Pressure

08-Apr-2010, 21:34

Finally people can put the argument to rest that the iPad / iPhone does not multitask.

pcchen

08-Apr-2010, 21:58

Finally people can put the argument to rest that the iPad / iPhone does not multitask.

It's multitasking model is quite similar to what I was thinking. Basically, applications in background stay dormant, so the "battery problem" is solved. For those applications which needs to be running in the background, they can register a "background process." For example, Pandora can keep streaming it music when in background, but its UI part does not need to be running. The same goes to Skype.

It does not have a task manager, so you don't "close" background applications. To my understanding, right now they are going for a "garbage collection" route. That is, a background application, if not used for a while, and some other applications needs more memory, it can be "recycled." So the user does not need to worry about which application is there and which is not. Since many applications already save their internal status (in case of necessary interruptions such as an incoming call), they can easily switch between the applications.

For background process, if I understand correctly, it's up to the application to delete it. For example, if you are using Skype, it should only launch a background process when you are talking with someone. When you are done talking, the background process is terminated. So a background process is not designed for tasks which may run indefinitely. For example, it's not desired to run a background process to simply check whether your friend is calling you. An application should use push notifications for that (which is already available now).

There is also a new local notification which can be used for several things. For example, an application may run a background process for downloading data, and when it's completed, it can signal a local notification to tell the user that the task is done. Apple also provided another example, which is a notification for TV schedule.

Unfortunately, the multi-tasking system is not available for iPhone 3G or 2nd generation iPod Touch. I guess that their RAM are simply not big enough (Steve Jobs claims that "the hardware does not support it"). The good news is that iPhone 3GS and 3rd generation iPod Touch will support this.

BRiT

08-Apr-2010, 22:43

Aside from some 'blessed' usage patterns, this is not genuine multitasking. There doesn't seem to be a means for IM / IRC clients to multitask. Several other sites are indicating this to be the case. At least there's background VoIP and Audio task models.

Actually the iPad won't multitask until Fall 2010. The iPhone 3G and iTouch 2nd Gen or older wont ever multitask.

Lazy8s

08-Apr-2010, 23:12

Push notifications have already been displaying my received IMs outside of Yahoo Messenger, and the new fast task switching feature which doesn't require apps to be reloaded anymore will make IM multitasking even better.

pcchen

08-Apr-2010, 23:40

Yeah. The fast switching function shall be very useful in many situations. For example, when you are browsing a web page, and suddenly you want to look up the dictionary for a word, you'll have to mark the word, copy it, close the browser, launch the dictionary, paste the word, to do the look up. Then after that you'll close the dictionary, launch the browser, and hope the browser remembers where you were. This is utterly stupid. This also forces many applications to include many functions they think to be useful. For example, an e-book reader application may include a dictionary look-up function. This is redundant at best.

Of course, Andriod has similar functions already, so Apple is really playing catch-up now. But it's better late than never, I think.

Another function I hope Apple would provide is to open the keyboard layout SDK, or at least provide a way to make a custom keyboard layout/IME. Currently, the iPhone OS does not have very good IME for traditional Chinese. There are only three IME for traditional Chinese, one is hand-writing (which is good, but slow). Another one is Pin-ying, and I don't know about it at all. Another one is Bopomofo, which I know, but I don't prefer. This greatly limited my ability to type Chinese quickly on an iPhone, so I rarely use my iPhone for that. There is a Hong Kong company which provides a software library for custom IME, but that requires jailbreak.

Mike11

09-Apr-2010, 01:10

Finally people can put the argument to rest that the iPad / iPhone does not multitask.
You wish. Now it's gonna be "no true multitasking" or more specific "no multitasking for twitter, IM, IRC etc."

Push notifications have already been displaying my received IMs outside of Yahoo Messenger, and the new fast task switching feature which doesn't require apps to be reloaded anymore will make IM multitasking even better.
It would be even better if notifications were better. If there was an easily accessible notification history and management and if they weren't still implemented as super annoying pop-ups. IMHO better notifications were the biggest missing thing in todays announcement.

Entropy

09-Apr-2010, 12:22

You wish. Now it's gonna be "no true multitasking" or more specific "no multitasking for twitter, IM, IRC etc."

This is so true. As always on the net, most people don't want to discuss, they want to argue. I've seen literally decades worth of pointless bickering over what constitutes "true" multitasking. With the loudest mouths typically claiming that Unix style moderately intelligently scheduled preemptive multitasking inherited from multiuser adminstrative systems is the holy grail that all operating systems should strive for - without any consideration of usage patterns, application environment, real-time response demands, various intricacies of interrupt handling, ....

MfA

09-Apr-2010, 13:02

It would be even better if notifications were better. If there was an easily accessible notification history and management and if they weren't still implemented as super annoying pop-ups. IMHO better notifications were the biggest missing thing in todays announcement.
Why are they even handled by the IPhone OS? Why not simply start the app and let it handle it?

Arwin

09-Apr-2010, 13:21

Of course, Andriod has similar functions already, so Apple is really playing catch-up now. But it's better late than never, I think.

The concept of being able to register a certain task type in Android, like say, 'look up word xxx in dictionary language yyy' is definitely very powerful. But it's going to take a while I think before it has reached a level that's manageable and friendly for most users. Think about the implications - you need to manage:

1. what happens if no default task handler has been installed yet for the task you want to perform
- can you install one on-demand?
- can you auto-install a recommended one?
- can you check at run-time and say something like 'these additional components are required/recommended, would you like to download and install them?'

etc.

2. what happens if there are already several task handlers installed for the task you want to perform
- can you manage your preferred task handler through some kind of general settings?
- can you manage them per application?

3. what happens if an application has a preference for a specific task handler?
- can you manage the preferred task handler from the application? (see also 2)
- can some task handler be selected by the user at runtime
- can the task handler be changed according to environment profiles (say, use skype when in wifi range, use regular phone nationally, use a different voip service internationally, etc.)

I haven't checked and it may well be that Android has good scenarios for these already, but I think it'll take some time before this is working flawlessly, to the point where I can give a device with software that uses it extensively to my wife, if you catch my drift.

Still, the potential for it is huge, no question about it, and I definitely applaud it being there. But to become a success, it needs firm management from Google I think.

Another function I hope Apple would provide is to open the keyboard layout SDK, or at least provide a way to make a custom keyboard layout/IME. Currently, the iPhone OS does not have very good IME for traditional Chinese. There are only three IME for traditional Chinese, one is hand-writing (which is good, but slow). Another one is Pin-ying, and I don't know about it at all. Another one is Bopomofo, which I know, but I don't prefer. This greatly limited my ability to type Chinese quickly on an iPhone, so I rarely use my iPhone for that. There is a Hong Kong company which provides a software library for custom IME, but that requires jailbreak.

You can make custom inputs for the iPad, and iPhone 4.0 inherits almost all the iPads 3.2 SDK features (all but the new UI controls, in fact). Though I'm not sure whether or not these are limited to your application, or can be used globally.

As for the notifications, I don't know what is public information on that yet, so I can't say much on it, but definitely some changes happening here in OS 4.0

In terms of multi-tasking, I'd say it's all there except for actual UI multi-tasking (no two applications displaying at the same time possible as far as I can tell). This is where Android will keep its advantage.

MfA

09-Apr-2010, 14:16

Arwin

09-Apr-2010, 15:09

If they let something like Skype run in the background waiting for calls (they seem to have given a presentation where skype does that, without push notifications) then you could write something like an IRC client too ... which would keep the CPU out of sleep mode in busy channels and thus would impact battery life (which I have no problem with myself, caveat emptor). That's assuming Skype doesn't just get preferential treatment of course.

The multitasking in OS 4.0 seems to me to be varied and flexible enough for programmers to find a sweet spot that won't impact battery too much. That said, there's no question that the more a background application will be doing, the more it will impact battery.

PS. they seem (http://share.skype.com/sites/en/2010/04/skype_for_iphone_will_run_in_t.html) to let Skype do UI multitasking (look at the top bar).

Seems is the right word. I think that's just the new notification system UI.

darkblu

09-Apr-2010, 15:10

If they let something like Skype run in the background waiting for calls (they seem to have given a presentation where skype does that, without push notifications) then you could write something like an IRC client too ... which would keep the CPU out of sleep mode in busy channels and thus would impact battery life (which I have no problem with myself, caveat emptor). That's assuming Skype doesn't just get preferential treatment of course.

PS. they seem (http://share.skype.com/sites/en/2010/04/skype_for_iphone_will_run_in_t.html) to let Skype do UI multitasking (look at the top bar).

I thought they do not allow anything but event-handling-type-of-tasks on the background, UI updates included. Situations where you run a worker thread on the background are still off limits. As they should be, if you ask me.

MfA

09-Apr-2010, 15:19

If you ask me a good programmer can create a more appropriate pop up than Apple can for his own application ... as for bad programmers, don't buy their damn apps.

darkblu

09-Apr-2010, 16:14

If you ask me a good programmer can create a more appropriate pop up than Apple can for his own application ... as for bad programmers, don't buy their damn apps.

1. If it's a darn pop-up you're after then leave that to the OS - that's what UI services are for.
2. Good programmers write bad code too. Or refuse to write certain code at all. Otherwise, I'd go further and say that 'A good programmer needs a blank slate. OS' protocols and APIs be damned - he can and will do it better!'.
3. Apps don't come with a tag 'This code was written by a bad programmer.' The user usually discovers that only after many hours with the application, if ever. 'Hey, my phone's started dying after two hours of use. I wonder which one of the 5 apps I normally run on the background is the culprit. Here, let me run this comprehensive use-case test grid and figure it out.'

Frankly, I find it baffling people still have difficulties seeing the differences in the rules of engagement between something that runs off the mains and something that runs off batteris, and may also have utility functions to boot (ie. is a phone). As much as I enjoy the idevices, my phone is a dedicated SE unit that lasts me a week on a charge. I find the idea of my cell dying in the middle of the day due to me playing too much crosswords on it ridiculous. Pocketables' power efficiency is still a long way from the day we'd be carrying a single convergence device. Neglecting that has helped noone in the industry.

Arwin

09-Apr-2010, 18:18

I thought they do not allow anything but event-handling-type-of-tasks on the background, UI updates included. Situations where you run a worker thread on the background are still off limits. As they should be, if you ask me.

No, there are more options available. I think that what really helps Apple here is that they have control over what goes on the App store. They can refuse applications that needlessly stay active or don't inform users sufficiently.

Arwin

09-Apr-2010, 21:02

I think the OS 4.0 discussion deserves a new thread, so here:

http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?p=1419510#post1419510

eastmen

10-Apr-2010, 05:17

Got to play with this thing for about 30 minutes in bestbuy today. I have to say I'm impressed for the first time by apple.

Its really nice. However I still wont buy it for a few reasons.

1) Price. Thing is way to expensive. Seriously I gotta pay extra for the 3g model and then extra monthly ?!?! I have no problems paying extra monthly for the servce , but i shouldn't be paying $130 bucks more for 3g

2) This thing has no way to replace the battery and no standard memory ports like micro sd or memory stick to expand the memory. This is one of my major gribes gainst the kindle also and why the nook is more interesting to me in the ereader space.

3) I'd be buying all these things for only one device that doesn't exist well with my current ecco system or my future ecco system. I'm basicly stuck in apple land with that

I did have alot of fun playing plants vs zombies tho. I'm going to look hard and long at the slate when it comes out. But here is hoping MS introduces windows 7 mobile for tablets soon. I already have a zune , 360 and windows 7. Being able to use programs between all those and a tablet would be ideal.

But much props to apple on this thing. Itsreally nice.

Mike11

10-Apr-2010, 06:28

Why are they even handled by the IPhone OS? Why not simply start the app and let it handle it?
I'm not sure I understand. So if you come back to your iPhone and got 10 notifications of different types, do you want the iPhone to start 10 different apps? I would want an easy and always directly accessible option to see a list of all the notifications, where/from who they came and when, and if needed or wanted what app is associated to follow up. Also I want to be able to manually or automatically dismiss or delete notifications and also safe them for later.

As for the notifications, I don't know what is public information on that yet, so I can't say much on it, but definitely some changes happening here in OS 4.0
Interesting. Can't wait to learn more about that.

tangey

10-Apr-2010, 11:29

Got to play with this thing for about 30 minutes in bestbuy today. I have to say I'm impressed for the first time by apple.

Its really nice. However I still wont buy it for a few reasons.

2) This thing has no way to replace the battery and no standard memory ports like micro sd or memory stick to expand the memory. This is one of my major gribes gainst the kindle also and why the nook is more interesting to me in the ereader space.

You do realise that the absence of a memory card, or any external memory device is again why it appeals so much to publishers (be it games, magazines apps or newpapers).

It eliminates running any app on one device that can copy IP to an external memory, which can then be put into another unit and copied onto it. From a publishers point of view a secure IP delivery mechanism is paramount. Having every bit of content coming from Apples servers means that content protection is pretty much guaranteed, and also more or less eliminates viruses.

I don't see memory cards on any of these devices happening anytime soon.

eastmen

10-Apr-2010, 21:17

You do realise that the absence of a memory card, or any external memory device is again why it appeals so much to publishers (be it games, magazines apps or newpapers).

It eliminates running any app on one device that can copy IP to an external memory, which can then be put into another unit and copied onto it. From a publishers point of view a secure IP delivery mechanism is paramount. Having every bit of content coming from Apples servers means that content protection is pretty much guaranteed, and also more or less eliminates viruses.

I don't see memory cards on any of these devices happening anytime soon.

I don't really care to be honest.

16GB is not enough , even 64GB can be argueed is not enough.

I don't care if they limit the sd card to eternal content I.E my own movies or to off load game saves or mail or what have you.

I'm also pissed at being able to change the battery. I perfer the option instead of having to head to apple .

ban25

11-Apr-2010, 03:05

I don't really care to be honest.

16GB is not enough , even 64GB can be argueed is not enough.

I don't care if they limit the sd card to eternal content I.E my own movies or to off load game saves or mail or what have you.

I'm also pissed at being able to change the battery. I perfer the option instead of having to head to apple .

I've never changed a battery on any device, whether my iPhone, PSP, camera, you name it. One's all you need. As for storage, by the time my 64 GB iPad is full, there will be a new model that I'll want anyway.

eastmen

11-Apr-2010, 04:52

I've never changed a battery on any device, whether my iPhone, PSP, camera, you name it. One's all you need. As for storage, by the time my 64 GB iPad is full, there will be a new model that I'll want anyway.

I like to have multiple batterys. For example the ipad seems to last 6-11 hours depending on what your doing. If i'm on the go alot it b great to have a second battery to switch in when I need too.

As for upgrading when anew model comes out thats great. Some of us don't wnat to toss out $830 bucks a year on tablets.

11-Apr-2010, 09:45

Can't believe I'm considering Apple product. Anyway, my question is can iPad remote control PC ? I saw some article giving instructions on how you can control PC with iPod Touch using some VNC apps, so I assume iPad can do it too ? Anyone got any experience ? How does the experience translate? I don't mind plunging some money for one if it let me do my sketches anywhere around my house or the office.

For my purpose the iPad is seriously underpower but if my desktop is the one that is powering it, I can work with that.

silent_guy

11-Apr-2010, 17:07

Anyway, my question is can iPad remote control PC ?
Yes, no problem. Apps like iSSH support cmd line login and VNC.

I've only tried in on my iPhone. Controlling is a 1920x1200 screen with a 480x360 console is not exactly a user friendly experience. iPad should be better. The other problem is control keys: awkward at best.

IMHO it's only useful as an emergency solution, unless you have a very specific use case that's specifically designed for it.

flynn

11-Apr-2010, 18:17

Of course, Andriod has similar functions already, so Apple is really playing catch-up now. But it's better late than never, I think.

FWIW neither system is perfect. It's trivial to write an Android app that will drain the battery in no time by abusing/missusing the wakelocks framework, a really ugly hack Android developers put in place to handle multitasking while keeping good battery life.

I think Apple's solution is okay considering the usage pattern on these devices.

idsn6

11-Apr-2010, 19:11

tangey

12-Apr-2010, 01:34

I don't really care to be honest.

Of more relevance is that Apple doesn't care that you don't care :)
If seems clear to me that Apple has decided that content is king, and the protection of that content is a high priority requirement.

I don't care if they limit the sd card to eternal content I.E my own movies or to off load game saves or mail or what have you.

They clearly concluded that any external storage could be compromised, i.e. use .jpg file as a carrier to transfer non-image data.

eastmen

12-Apr-2010, 04:01

Of more relevance is that Apple doesn't care that you don't care :)
If seems clear to me that Apple has decided that content is king, and the protection of that content is a high priority requirement.

They clearly concluded that any external storage could be compromised, i.e. use .jpg file as a carrier to transfer non-image data.

Pretty funny considering the ipad is out two weeks and already hacked

tangey

12-Apr-2010, 10:07

Pretty funny considering the ipad is out two weeks and already hacked

No at all, iphones have been out a couple of years now. Its on the very fringe, akin to how many PCs are overclocked, its a total irrelevance. Do you really imagine that hacked iphones are losing anthing more that 0.00x% of iphone content revenue ?

Now compare to how much content revenue gets lost from open systems such as PC ?

tangey

16-Apr-2010, 00:16

Do you want to see something REALLY scary:-

http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/24815/
(be afraid,be very afraid)

FLAME ON !

Ike Turner

16-Apr-2010, 00:27

Do you want to see something REALLY scary:-

http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/24815/
(be afraid,be very afraid)

FLAME ON !

lol!

wco81

16-Apr-2010, 03:22

One reason why iPad may sell better than other tablets, including the HP Slate, is that they advertise the hell out of it.

Certainly several orders of magnitude more than the tablets from startups.

warmi

16-Apr-2010, 04:24

One reason why iPad may sell better than other tablets, including the HP Slate, is that they advertise the hell out of it.

Certainly several orders of magnitude more than the tablets from startups.

Not to mention it has a tiny apple logo on top of it which , more often than not, can magically make people overlook product shortcomings.

Ailuros

16-Apr-2010, 08:51

On a sidenote iPad results appeared in the GLbenchmark database:

iPad:

http://www.glbenchmark.com/phonedetails.jsp?benchmark=glpro11&D=Apple iPad&testgroup=lowlevel (http://www.glbenchmark.com/phonedetails.jsp?benchmark=glpro11&D=Apple%20iPad&testgroup=lowlevel)

iPhone3GS:

http://www.glbenchmark.com/phonedetails.jsp?benchmark=glpro11&D=Apple iPhone 3G S&testgroup=lowlevel (http://www.glbenchmark.com/phonedetails.jsp?benchmark=glpro11&D=Apple%20iPhone%203G%20S&testgroup=lowlevel)

Keep in mind the target resolution of each device when looking at fill rates.

iPad GL environment:

http://www.glbenchmark.com/phonedetails.jsp?benchmark=glpro11&D=Apple iPad&testgroup=gl (http://www.glbenchmark.com/phonedetails.jsp?benchmark=glpro11&D=Apple%20iPad&testgroup=gl)

silent_guy

16-Apr-2010, 09:01

Keep in mind the target resolution of each device when looking at fill rates.

There are no numbers that are resolution dependent in those results, right?

So, basically, texturing performance of the iPad is exactly double. All the rest is pretty much identical, except for some texture size performance numbers that are higher for the 3GS?

Any idea how this can be explained?

eastmen

16-Apr-2010, 09:16

No at all, iphones have been out a couple of years now. Its on the very fringe, akin to how many PCs are overclocked, its a total irrelevance. Do you really imagine that hacked iphones are losing anthing more that 0.00x% of iphone content revenue ?

Now compare to how much content revenue gets lost from open systems such as PC ?

I'm not sure where you'd loose content revenue on a pc that you wouldn't loose on an ipad.

Are you saying for the iphones and ipad if i downloaded a tv show from a torrent site that I couldn't then convert it to the proper file format and load it through itunes onto my ipad or iphone ?

Ailuros

16-Apr-2010, 09:36

There are no numbers that are resolution dependent in those results, right?

No idea frankly. But why shouldn't I assume that the benchmark actually runs at the device's maximum resolution?

So, basically, texturing performance of the iPad is exactly double. All the rest is pretty much identical, except for some texture size performance numbers that are higher for the 3GS?

Any idea how this can be explained?The benchmark is vsynced afaik.

kishonti

16-Apr-2010, 09:53

No idea frankly. But why shouldn't I assume that the benchmark actually runs at the device's maximum resolution?

The benchmark is vsynced afaik.

Low level tests are not vsynced on iPad/iPhone. Only the high-level "HD" test (pretty old) is vsynced.

tangey

16-Apr-2010, 10:50

I'm not sure where you'd loose content revenue on a pc that you wouldn't loose on an ipad.

Are you saying for the iphones and ipad if i downloaded a tv show from a torrent site that I couldn't then convert it to the proper file format and load it through itunes onto my ipad or iphone ?

You are starting with torrent sourced content, bringing compromised content *INTO* an iphone. which concisely illustrates the problem (from a content providers point of view) with open platforms like PCs, a lot of content out there has been compromised from open systems.

Getting content *OUT OF* an iphone/ipad is a *LOT* more involved that stuffing the content on a flashdrive/memory card and handing it to someone else. Maybe not to you or me, but to the average iphone/ipad user, the content is only theirs.

I'm also saying that other than jailbroken devices, every single app runing on an iphone came from apples servers.

Also it will not be at *ALL* surprising if the new content (magazines, newspapers ibooks) etc are in a proprietary format that only iphone/ipad plays.

Content is king, followed by user experience, everything else is just for hardware geeks. Apple knows it

Ailuros

16-Apr-2010, 11:23

Low level tests are not vsynced on iPad/iPhone. Only the high-level "HD" test (pretty old) is vsynced.

That's highly interesting and thanks for the clarification. Are benchmarks being run at each device's max resolution?

Rys

16-Apr-2010, 11:37

As far as I know, they run at native display resolution.

Entropy

16-Apr-2010, 11:42

On a sidenote iPad results appeared in the GLbenchmark database:

iPad:

http://www.glbenchmark.com/phonedetails.jsp?benchmark=glpro11&D=Apple iPad&testgroup=lowlevel (http://www.glbenchmark.com/phonedetails.jsp?benchmark=glpro11&D=Apple%20iPad&testgroup=lowlevel)

iPhone3GS:

http://www.glbenchmark.com/phonedetails.jsp?benchmark=glpro11&D=Apple iPhone 3G S&testgroup=lowlevel (http://www.glbenchmark.com/phonedetails.jsp?benchmark=glpro11&D=Apple%20iPhone%203G%20S&testgroup=lowlevel)

I found the CPU benchmarks interesting as well
iPad Float : 3968
iPad Int : 26420

iPhone Float : 2352
iPhone Int : 9751

So the fill rate benchmarks are not the only ones that show higher results than the "overclocked iPhone chip" assertion would imply.

tangey

16-Apr-2010, 12:24

I found the CPU benchmarks interesting as well
iPad Float : 3968
iPad Int : 26420

iPhone Int : 2352
iPhone Float: 9751

So the fill rate benchmarks are not the only ones that show higher results than the "overclocked iPhone chip" assertion would imply.

your iphone numbers are the wrong way round.

iphone Int=9751
iphone float=2352

processor clock has risen from 600MHz to 1Ghz (x1.667)

ipad float has risen from 2352 to 3968 (x1.687)
ipad int has risen from 9751 to 26420 (x2.71)

Float has risen exactly in line with clock.
int has risen by about twice that rate
Could the int increase have anything to do with the supposedly doubling of the memory bus width from 32 to 64 bits ? Would that also go to some way to explain the increased fillrates ? That is the only other known (suggested) difference between iphone and ipad APs.

source:
http://www.embedded.com/underthehood/224201433

Ailuros

16-Apr-2010, 12:40

As far as I know, they run at native display resolution.

Ok then (personal notes: higher frequency = check)

darkblu

16-Apr-2010, 14:05

Could the int increase have anything to do with the supposedly doubling of the memory bus width from 32 to 64 bits?

That'd be one heck of an ALU test if it did not operate tightly from cache.

warmi

16-Apr-2010, 15:35

There are no numbers that are resolution dependent in those results, right?

So, basically, texturing performance of the iPad is exactly double. All the rest is pretty much identical, except for some texture size performance numbers that are higher for the 3GS?

Yeah, but it real life you will end up sampling from larger textures than you would do on the 3gs which will make things even worse ( <2x performance, 5x as many pixels to fill)

Entropy

16-Apr-2010, 16:53

your iphone numbers are the wrong way round.

iphone Int=9751
iphone float=2352

processor clock has risen from 600MHz to 1Ghz (x1.667)

ipad float has risen from 2352 to 3968 (x1.687)
ipad int has risen from 9751 to 26420 (x2.71)

Float has risen exactly in line with clock.
int has risen by about twice that rate
Could the int increase have anything to do with the supposedly doubling of the memory bus width from 32 to 64 bits ? Would that also go to some way to explain the increased fillrates ? That is the only other known (suggested) difference between iphone and ipad APs.

source:
http://www.embedded.com/underthehood/224201433
Thanks for pointing out my editing error!

Increased bandwidth obviously helps realize the increased arithmetic capabilities of the SoC, but when the integer capabilities increases by a factor of 2.7, we are looking at more than a just the clock differences (and the just over factor of two pixel writing capabilities are a bit surprising as well in that context).

silent_guy

16-Apr-2010, 17:03

As far as I know, they run at native display resolution.
Yes, but those tests are written to evaluate the speed of the GPU internals. One would assume that the screen resolution doesn't have an impact on those, except for the second order effect of slightly reducing memory bandwidth because the display unit has to work harder?

I just find it curious the fill rate has doubled (because of a double width memory bus?) on the iPad but that for a number of texturing tests, the iPhone 3GS is quite a bit faster.

eastmen

16-Apr-2010, 17:46

You are starting with torrent sourced content, bringing compromised content *INTO* an iphone. which concisely illustrates the problem (from a content providers point of view) with open platforms like PCs, a lot of content out there has been compromised from open systems.

The problem is the iphone allows use of this comprimised data. The only real reason apple doesn't put sd ports or usb ports for expandibilty is because its better for them to out data a device due to storage capacity then by new features. ITs also an excuse to charge you an arm an a leg for the same device. Do you really think going from 16 gigs of flash to 64 gigsof flash warrents a $200 price hike. The only reason apple gets away with it is because theycripple your ability to increase its cpacity.

Getting content *OUT OF* an iphone/ipad is a *LOT* more involved that stuffing the content on a flashdrive/memory card and handing it to someone else. Maybe not to you or me, but to the average iphone/ipad user, the content is only theirs. If the average iphone/ipad user can get torrented content or has the ability to hand off a flash drive / memory card then its not hard for that drive to a.so have the jail broken software or to have software to copy out and strip the drm from the i whatever device.

Once again the only reason there are no sd or usb ports is to force users into an upgrade path and to over charge for small flash upgrades.

I'm also saying that other than jailbroken devices, every single app runing on an iphone came from apples servers.

Also it will not be at *ALL* surprising if the new content (magazines, newspapers ibooks) etc are in a proprietary format that only iphone/ipad plays. And they will still be hacked. Jailbroken iphones are as easy as downloading torrents. NOthing has changed.

Content is king, followed by user experience, everything else is just for hardware geeks. Apple knows it

No flashy advertising is king. User experience and content is to keep people content on the platform. You get people in by the flash of the gee wiz adverts.

Apple has a good scam going that I'm sure all other comanys would love to get in on. For years they were able to keep people ocming back to the ipods because of storage increases. Then they got to such huge capacity amounts no one needed to upgrade after all how many people need 200 gigs of space on a mp3 player with a crappy screen. Then they were able to start again with storage on thier mini /nano/ shuffle devices. Then they moved to the touch and capcity started out so small again that many had to upgrade as they could to put thier collections back on a single device.

Apple will do the same with the ipad. People might say 16 gigs is alot. But when your consuming music , video and apps with the internet included 16 gigs will go very very fast.

My hope is that a more open platform will actually compete with Apple so that it will drive prices down on both the devices and the content.

wco81

16-Apr-2010, 17:58

My hope is that a more open platform will actually compete with Apple so that it will drive prices down on both the devices and the content.

Good luck with that. JooJoo and tablets from other startups will excite a few geeks but that's about it.

Even a better known Chinese company like HTC can't offer the package of content and services that Apple can. And for service and support, you have to go with Apple, Dell, HP and MS when it gets in the game.

eastmen

16-Apr-2010, 18:07

Good luck with that. JooJoo and tablets from other startups will excite a few geeks but that's about it.

Even a better known Chinese company like HTC can't offer the package of content and services that Apple can. And for service and support, you have to go with Apple, Dell, HP and MS when it gets in the game.

Yea.I was hoping windows mobile 7 would find a good life on a tablet. Hopefully MS can get a good ecco system set up. I much rather be stuck with MS as my evil over lord than apple. MS has the xbox and I already have alot of content from that. Apple doesn't have a real gaming experiance.

Xmas

16-Apr-2010, 18:08

Low level tests are not vsynced on iPad/iPhone. Only the high-level "HD" test (pretty old) is vsynced.
Vsync is always enabled on iPad/iPhone. Even though the devices are not reaching 60 fps (which would be equal to 9.81 Mtri/s) at which point the tests would be entirely vsync limited, vsync already has an effect at lower framerates. Many of the geometry tests are running at either 30 fps (4.9 Mtri/s) or 40 fps (6.54 Mtri/s) on iPad/iPhone.

Yeah, but it real life you will end up sampling from larger textures than you would do on the 3gs which will make things even worse ( <2x performance, 5x as many pixels to fill)
Larger textures for a higher resolution generally do not make things worse as mipmapping should select the right level of detail for 1:1 pixel to texel mapping.

Yes, but those tests are written to evaluate the speed of the GPU internals. One would assume that the screen resolution doesn't have an impact on those, except for the second order effect of slightly reducing memory bandwidth because the display unit has to work harder?

I just find it curious the fill rate has doubled (because of a double width memory bus?) on the iPad but that for a number of texturing tests, the iPhone 3GS is quite a bit faster.
Don't forget the cycles spent in filling the screen on unified shader GPUs. The triangle tests are drawing 163456 triangles per frame (and even less vertices), 1024x768 is 786432 pixels per frame. Fragment processing actually has a significant impact in these tests.

The "texturing tests" you mention aren't actually texturing tests. They measure geometry throughput with texturing enabled.

wco81

16-Apr-2010, 18:18

warmi

16-Apr-2010, 18:44

Larger textures for a higher resolution generally do not make things worse as mipmapping should select the right level of detail for 1:1 pixel to texel mapping.

True but even assuming 1x1 mapping sampling from a 64x64 texture (say on the 3gs) seems to be faster than sampling from a larger texture.

In any case, I have a somewhat related question ... when rendering to a rtt target on the iPhone , it seems that there is a performance hit related to the size of the rttt target regarldess of the actual texel coverage.

What I do is something like this:

Case 1

1. Render a 64x64 quad to a 64x64 rtt target.
2. Map the resulting texture to a bunch of quads rendered to the framebuffer.

Case 2

1. Render a 64x64 quad to a 256x256 rtt target ( 1x1 mapping – using only a 64x64 subsection of the 256x256 target)
2. Again, map a subsection (64x64) of the 256x256 texture to a bunch of quads rendered to the framebuffer.

The second case is significantly slower … I am wondering if this is related to my framebuffer targeted geometry sampling from a larger texture (256x256 vs 64x64) ?

Mike11

16-Apr-2010, 23:32

Yeah, but it real life you will end up sampling from larger textures than you would do on the 3gs which will make things even worse ( <2x performance, 5x as many pixels to fill)
I think in the future the 3GS and iPod touch 3rd gen 3D performance will be known as an anomaly. There are clear indications that the next gen iPhone/iPod touch will get a higher resolution display. Combined with a (slower) version of the A4 this should normalize the 3D performance across all iPhone OS devices within an generation (e.g. 800MHz A4 with a 960x640 display on the iPhone/iPod touch vs. 1GHz A4 with 1024x768 on the iPad).

wco81

17-Apr-2010, 00:23

Apple is more likely to design a level of graphics performance needed for their UI, not for graphically-intense games.

The App. Store has settled around cheap, simple games with not too demanding graphics.

eastmen

17-Apr-2010, 09:28

MS is not any more open than Apple.

In fact WP7 is copying all the strategies, like App. Store as the only point of adding apps., managed APIs, etc.

iTunes still has more music and movies than the Zune store.

Yet its all you can eat on the zune store for as low as $13 a month plus you can keep 10 songs a month forever.

Once xbox live fully intergrates with win mo 7 and zune things will change very quickly

Mike11

17-Apr-2010, 10:24

Yet its all you can eat on the zune store for as low as $13 a month plus you can keep 10 songs a month forever.

Once xbox live fully intergrates with win mo 7 and zune things will change very quickly
Zune music subscription SOUNDS good (at least to me), but so far it's a flop (at least compared to iTunes and even Amazon). And since Apple allows 3rd party music subscription services (spotify etc.) in the App Store, combined with the new 3rd party background audio ability in iPhoneOS 4, the only real advantage Zune on WP7 will have by year's end (WP7 release), is being preinstalled and maybe a little bit cheaper than some other services.

17-Apr-2010, 14:20

Yes, no problem. Apps like iSSH support cmd line login and VNC.

I've only tried in on my iPhone. Controlling is a 1920x1200 screen with a 480x360 console is not exactly a user friendly experience. iPad should be better. The other problem is control keys: awkward at best.

IMHO it's only useful as an emergency solution, unless you have a very specific use case that's specifically designed for it.

How laggy is the process of controlling your desktop within 20 meters radius ? Is it like using wireless controller good (like wireless mouse) or is it MMORPG bad (like poor framerate and everything becomes jumpy and hard to work with) ?

Also if you match your desktop resolution to the iPad's, you shouldn't need to scroll around right ?

Do stylus work on iPad screen or do you actually need finger ? I want to be able to sketch out design and stuff so probably be using stylus instead of finger.

http://tugrik.livejournal.com/834583.html

I read this from his report

My only true complaint is the lack of multitasking. If you have to pop over to answer an email or cut-and-paste something from another app you lose your connection. This isn't so bad with RDP and VNC, but is a pain in the kiester with SSH. If the 4.0 software lets you leave apps open so I can pop in/out of remote sessions it would be a huge improvement.

Here he meant switching between apps in iPad right ? I should be able to multitask when connected to my desktop right ? I mean I can run whatever applications my workstation can handle right ?

Basically I shouldn't care about the specs of iPad or it's apps since I am just using it as a wireless touchscreen right ?

Anyone know what other options I should be looking into beside iPad ? I wish Wacom would make wireless Cintiq already but that could be another year or two away.

Arwin

17-Apr-2010, 16:15

How laggy is the process of controlling your desktop within 20 meters radius ? Is it like using wireless controller good (like wireless mouse) or is it MMORPG bad (like poor framerate and everything becomes jumpy and hard to work with) ?

Should be like wireless controller good.

Also if you match your desktop resolution to the iPad's, you shouldn't need to scroll around right ?

Yep. I think the iPad is 1024x768, so that should still be a workable display size for most cases.

Do stylus work on iPad screen or do you actually need finger ? I want to be able to sketch out design and stuff so probably be using stylus instead of finger.

You'll use the finger by default, but there are special stylusses available (they have been available for the iPhone/iPod Touch for quite a while as well).

Like this one:
http://tenonedesign.com/sketch.php

I thought you might lose pressure sensitivity, but apparently even that is still an option. Though I don't know if that would transfer over remote access, that might be a problem.

Here he meant switching between apps in iPad right ? I should be able to multitask when connected to my desktop right ? I mean I can run whatever applications my workstation can handle right ?

Basically I shouldn't care about the specs of iPad or it's apps since I am just using it as a wireless touchscreen right ?

Correct.

tangey

17-Apr-2010, 17:11

If the average iphone/ipad user can get torrented content or has the ability to hand off a flash drive / memory card then its not hard for that drive to a.so have the jail broken software or to have software to copy out and strip the drm from the i whatever device.

And they will still be hacked. Jailbroken iphones are as easy as downloading torrents. NOthing has changed.
.

I easily know 40+ people who have iphones/itouches. None of them would even be remotely aware of the term "jailbroken", never mind contemplate it. Nearly *all* of them would be familiar with the process of inserting memory cards into devices for the purpose of swapping data. For all those people (and for the vast vast majority of iphone owners), the absence of a memory slot means they can not transfer content to/from iphone, except via the authorised methods.

But you aren't going to agree with that assesment so I'll leave it there.

eastmen

17-Apr-2010, 17:14

Zune music subscription SOUNDS good (at least to me), but so far it's a flop (at least compared to iTunes and even Amazon). And since Apple allows 3rd party music subscription services (spotify etc.) in the App Store, combined with the new 3rd party background audio ability in iPhoneOS 4, the only real advantage Zune on WP7 will have by year's end (WP7 release), is being preinstalled and maybe a little bit cheaper than some other services.

Of course the zune service came into existance what 5 years after the first ipods came out.

ALso apple had taken steps to keep people on itunes. Many who used it to rip music or buy music found that they would have to reconvert to cd burning each disc of 70minutes or so of music and then re ripping it for other players. Apple did very good with keeping people locked in.

Zune however keeps growing. Its extremely capable for its intended tasks. I'm also not aware of how the other services on apple work. Do any of them let you keep the music even if you stop subscribing. I have 120 songs that i got with my zune pass subscription. Not only that but I have 3 zunes hooked up to my zune account. So my actual payments are much cheaper than the $13 a month the zune card costs.

At the end of this year MS will have xbox live , zune and windows mobile linked together. Through xna developers will be able to create apps that will work with all 3 platforms and perhaps even windows 7 in the future.

I think you under estimate MS and its ability to compete in the mobile market. I for one will want a more open competetive market that causes prices to drop and features to go up.

silent_guy

17-Apr-2010, 18:16

How laggy is the process of controlling your desktop within 20 meters radius ? Is it like using wireless controller good (like wireless mouse) or is it MMORPG bad (like poor framerate and everything becomes jumpy and hard to work with) ?
There is another application that converts your iPhone in a touch path + keyboard for your Mac. The idea is that you can control your Mac when it's connected to your TV. For that one, it's wireless controller good.

For VNC, it's MMORPG bad when I control my MacBook 13", which only has a resolution of 1200x800. There's easily a lag of 500ms between clicking on somewhere on the screen and seeing the result. This is on my iPhone 3GS, iPad will be better due to faster CPU and faster network if you have 802.11n at home.

Edit: Gizmodo has something up on iPad <> computer sharing (http://gizmodo.com/5519283/how-to-access-your-entire-computer-from-an-ipad) today. Nothing earth shattering, but they are recommending Mocha VNC.

Edit 2: I tried Mocha VNC. More or less the same (bad) lag as iSSH.

Blazkowicz

17-Apr-2010, 18:59

is that because of a lousy VNC server?
my main experience is with LTSP (which turns a linux distro into a multi-user machine, and PCs into thin clients), with a pentium 2 233 at 1024x768 16bit the performance is excellent (can do non-full screen youtube and some limited gaming).

my other one is running RealVNC on windows as the server, 1024 as well. It's slow as fuck in comparison, even using an ubuntu laptop with an ultra-powerful CPU as the client. Good for static content and occasional fiddling.

I'm left a bit puzzled, but performance depended on the software used, not the hardware, nor even network bandwith that much. (11Mb, 10Mb or 100Mb ethernet)

Lazy8s

17-Apr-2010, 19:06

The average person prioritizes the social interests of their life so far beyond their interest in playing with and learning technologies that any extra effort spent having to figure out or manually handle shopping/purchacing/playing back their media content is a severe annoyance and a major reason to instead invest in a platform that presents them with the most intuitive, automated user interface.

Blazkowicz

17-Apr-2010, 19:31

lol, what you hear more often than not is : "why can't I drag'n'drop files as it were an USB drive?"

not expecting effort from the user is reasonable, they don't have time and don't know what is important to learn. except files and folders are the most basic, most common and most long-standing way of dealing of data (if you were using MS-DOS, you already had folders and files).

ipad is a computer that users will want to use for taking documents with them on the go. if they can't do that from a public or office PC because it doesn't have iRealplayer installed and they don't have admin rights, that sucks.

MfA

17-Apr-2010, 22:04

All VNC servers are lousy, framebuffer polling is not exactly conducive to a fluid UI.

You really want something directly plugged into the OS's windowing system, so RDP in the case of windows, x-windows (potentially through NX) for *nix and I guess Apple Remote Desktop for Apple (expensive though). I think it will take a while for a x-windows/nx client to show up for the iPad ... so you are probable best off with controlling a windows computer through a RDP client.

wco81

17-Apr-2010, 22:51

I'm surprised Timbuktu was never ported to iPhone. Maybe now that Motorola owns that software, it won't happen.

As for file system, I guess we can expect a multitouch-based file system UI in one of the annual OS updates.

silent_guy

18-Apr-2010, 03:28

is that because of a lousy VNC server?

Regular MacOS screen sharing, which probably just uses the same code as RealVNC ? Works with the expected (low) latency when going Mac to Mac...

Helmore

18-Apr-2010, 13:35

Of course the zune service came into existance what 5 years after the first ipods came out.

ALso apple had taken steps to keep people on itunes. Many who used it to rip music or buy music found that they would have to reconvert to cd burning each disc of 70minutes or so of music and then re ripping it for other players. Apple did very good with keeping people locked in.

Zune however keeps growing. Its extremely capable for its intended tasks. I'm also not aware of how the other services on apple work. Do any of them let you keep the music even if you stop subscribing. I have 120 songs that i got with my zune pass subscription. Not only that but I have 3 zunes hooked up to my zune account. So my actual payments are much cheaper than the $13 a month the zune card costs.

At the end of this year MS will have xbox live , zune and windows mobile linked together. Through xna developers will be able to create apps that will work with all 3 platforms and perhaps even windows 7 in the future.

I think you under estimate MS and its ability to compete in the mobile market. I for one will want a more open competetive market that causes prices to drop and features to go up.

Hey there :grin:.

As far as I know you can develop for Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 with Microsoft's XNA Game Studio, as well as for Windows Phone 7 and Zune of course. Microsoft even demonstrated how easy it is to make a game work on all three platforms with minimal extra coding needed to make them work on all three, you can see a video of that over at the bottom of this article: http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/09/microsoft-shows-off-xna-games-running-on-windows-phone-full-3d/

Oh well, this is the iPad thread, not a Windows Phone 7 thread. Maybe we should start a Windows Phone 7 thread, I would really like to know what exact chipset Microsoft will be using for the initial Windows Phones.

rpg.314

18-Apr-2010, 13:54

Hey there :grin:.

As far as I know you can develop for Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 with Microsoft's XNA Game Studio, as well as for Windows Phone 7 and Zune of course. Microsoft even demonstrated how easy it is to make a game work on all three platforms with minimal extra coding needed to make them work on all three, you can see a video of that over at the bottom of this article: http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/09/microsoft-shows-off-xna-games-running-on-windows-phone-full-3d/

Oh well, this is the iPad thread, not a Windows Phone 7 thread. Maybe we should start a Windows Phone 7 thread, I would really like to know what exact chipset Microsoft will be using for the initial Windows Phones.

Qualcomm's snapdragon seems to be leading the rumor race.

Ike Turner

19-Apr-2010, 14:04

Qualcomm's snapdragon seems to be leading the rumor race.

It's not a rumor thought ;) Only SnapDragon is certified for Windows Phone 7 now.
http://www.qualcomm.com/news/releases/2010/02/15/qualcomm-becomes-first-chipset-company-support-microsoft-windows-phone-7-se

rpg.314

19-Apr-2010, 19:52

http://wepad.mobi/en

At minimum, this thing has a nice name. :)

MfA

19-Apr-2010, 20:30

No mention of what kind of screen they use, so probably TN ... so fail for a device which has to be able to be used as an e-book. One of the big companies has to stop being a pussy and go to Chi-Mei/Innolux and say "I'll order 100K screens, give me a G104X1 variant suitable for a tablet" and push the viewing angle quality of the screen.

Why is the entire IT industry except for Apple too scared to point out the simple fact that TN sucks? There is a substantial cost difference, but it's not that fucking huge (TVs don't use TN either).

rpg.314

19-Apr-2010, 20:55

Why is the entire IT industry except for Apple too scared to point out the simple fact that TN sucks? There is a substantial cost difference, but it's not that fucking huge (TVs don't use TN either).

Coz no one's got the margins except Apple? :???:

Seriously, MS is the only one at this point that looks to have a reasonable chance against a Apple monopoly over all of mobile devices.

Helmore

19-Apr-2010, 21:10

It's not a rumor thought ;) Only SnapDragon is certified for Windows Phone 7 now.
http://www.qualcomm.com/news/releases/2010/02/15/qualcomm-becomes-first-chipset-company-support-microsoft-windows-phone-7-se

What I would like to know is, which exact version of Snapdragon? The same chipset as is used in the Nexus One for example, or something newer with better graphics performance? The former would make sure that the hardware can't (or should not) be the cause for any delays. The latter option would certainly be interesting, especially because Microsoft will be pushing Windows Phone's XBox Live integration and because the first chipset that is going to be used will set the benchmark for all future chipsets (for Windows Phone).

The idea behind initially only using one chipset is to make it easy for developers, they will know exactly what the platform is capable of. The first phones will thus determine how games, for example, on Windows Phone will look for the first couple of years. I'd say it's in Microsoft's best interest to have a platform which has better 3D performance than the current iPhone.

I'm not claiming that Microsoft will use something more advanced than the current Snapdragon chipset, only that it is in their best interest to use something even better than the QSD8250/8650.

This is not the thread to discuss something like this though.

MfA

20-Apr-2010, 01:41

Microsoft's advantage is that they can pocket the cost of windows ... but that doesn't make any difference for an android tablet. Atom vs. Arm shouldn't make that much difference.

Ailuros

20-Apr-2010, 06:20

Coz no one's got the margins except Apple? :???:

Seriously, MS is the only one at this point that looks to have a reasonable chance against a Apple monopoly over all of mobile devices.

A monopoly? Don't you think that's way too far fetched even for the less foreseeable future?

rpg.314

20-Apr-2010, 06:45

A monopoly? Don't you think that's way too far fetched even for the less foreseeable future?

A bit far-fetched yes. But since Apple's juggernaut shows no signs of slowing down, that scenario appears more and more reasonable as time goes on. Once their market share crosses 50%, it'll be hard for others to stop them.

Arwin

20-Apr-2010, 09:05

A bit far-fetched yes. But since Apple's juggernaut shows no signs of slowing down, that scenario appears more and more reasonable as time goes on. Once their market share crosses 50%, it'll be hard for others to stop them.

You're not basing these statements on any hard data though are you? ;) In fact, Apple shows all signs of slowing down, and the market has enough strong players without Microsoft already:

comScore has just released its latest report on smartphone marketshare, and the trend we saw last month has continued: Google's Android is gaining quickly on the iPhone, as Palm and Microsoft's shares continue to dip. The report compares smartphone market share averaged over the three-month period ending November 2009 against the three months ending February 2010. The report concluded that 45.4 million people in the United States were using smartphones in the period ending in Feb. 2010, which is a 21% increase over period ending last November. RIM still has a strong lead over the field, with 42.1% of the smartphone market share, and it rose by 1.3% over this period. But the most interesting story is the rapid rise of Android, whose share grew 5.2%. Apple's share has remained stable, with a .1% drop.

http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/05/comscore-android-market-share-continues-to-gain-on-the-iphone/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+Techcrunch+(TechCrunch)

rpg.314

20-Apr-2010, 09:11

I based that on the level of disparity in their app stores. Apple easily has a ~1.5 year lead there. Once the market settles into 3-4 big players, then Apple's strengths will begin to matter there.

Arwin

20-Apr-2010, 09:28

I based that on the level of disparity in their app stores. Apple easily has a ~1.5 year lead there. Once the market settles into 3-4 big players, then Apple's strengths will begin to matter there.

One important impediment to Apple's growth has been the exclusivity deals they've had with telecom providers. Now that they are being removed, it will be interesting to see if this helps.

Another important impediment however is only being able to develop applications for the iPhone on a Mac. This is an issue that could be fairly easily solved, but it's not happening right now and I don't know when it will. This will hold the App Store back.

Also, it's very easy to port applications like those on the App Store to something like the Android platform. It may take Google another year to iron out the kinks in Android (though a fair few developers already prefer it) and make the Market Place as friendly as the App Store, but it will happen and this lead could dissolve really quickly.

The smartphone market is extremely competitive, and while Apple could have gotten to a complete market domination position by now, I think the only way they could have done that is to do something very un-Apple like - i.e. by opening up iPhone OS to other cellphone manufacturors, and iPhone OS development to the Windows platform, or release OS/X for all PCs rather than just the Mac.

I don't think that's very likely to happen though.

eastmen

20-Apr-2010, 12:17

Right now iphone only works on at&t here in the states. Once it moves to verizon , sprint and tmobile it will gain market share like a mofo.

We also have 4g coming , sprint is rolling it out , verizon is supposed to start select markets the end of the year and at&t is in 2011. This will bring broad band speeds to these phones along with networks better able to cope with high data traffic. At&t's network is amongst the worst currently for 3g both in coverage and its capcity to handle traffic.

Apple has the brand in the smart phone arena. Many of andriod's sales is at the cost o windows 6.5

wco81

20-Apr-2010, 15:25

Apple may have blown it by not selling on Verizon last year, before Android got a foothold.

Pressure

20-Apr-2010, 17:25

Apple may have blown it by not selling on Verizon last year, before Android got a foothold.

The market in the United States is comparatively rather small compared to all the markets the iPhone is selling. I think they are doing alright.

Lazy8s

20-Apr-2010, 17:54

With the largest emphasis on and the tightest integration of 3D/multimedia hardware to the software (native acceleration from the ground up), Apple is still the only phone maker that really understands how to push a mobile platform, and they'll continue to dominate until someone else fully "gets it".

wco81

20-Apr-2010, 18:06

But a lot of people will go for "good enough." Android may not be as polished but there will be a wide array of hardware options, at different price points, on different networks.

Especially on the price issue, they could cause Apple trouble when they were doing BOGO with Droid just a couple of months after release.

silent_guy

20-Apr-2010, 23:06

But a lot of people will go for "good enough." Android may not be as polished but there will be a wide array of hardware options, at different price points, on different networks.
Looking at the just announced results, that moment isn't there just yet... They sold more iPhones in the past quarter than during the holiday quarter. :shock:

Florin

20-Apr-2010, 23:36

I based that on the level of disparity in their app stores. Apple easily has a ~1.5 year lead there. Once the market settles into 3-4 big players, then Apple's strengths will begin to matter there.

Also, considering that you mentioned mobile devices in general, people seem to be forgetting about the ipod. That one is sitting at a sweet 70% marketshare among media players, and although not counted in iPhone market share, the Touch counts for more than 40% of the iphone OS devices out there.

These are markets that Microsoft never managed to capitalise on and if they're not careful the same will happen on the emerging tablet/e-reader/mid categories. I guess at this point in time Android is looking like a more likely competitor for Apple.

wco81

20-Apr-2010, 23:38

Great news.

But I think Apple will feel pushed to put out the strongest products they can, with the competitive pressures, which is great for consumers.

Looks like the leaked 4G prototype was for real and rumors suggest a good improvement over the 3GS.

eastmen

21-Apr-2010, 04:48

Also, considering that you mentioned mobile devices in general, people seem to be forgetting about the ipod. That one is sitting at a sweet 70% marketshare among media players, and although not counted in iPhone market share, the Touch counts for more than 40% of the iphone OS devices out there.

These are markets that Microsoft never managed to capitalise on and if they're not careful the same will happen on the emerging tablet/e-reader/mid categories. I guess at this point in time Android is looking like a more likely competitor for Apple.

MS is making moves with the tablets.

You'll see win mobile 7 tablets by the fall when the os is done. I'm also of the belief that a moble xbox 360 is in the cards for next e3 ( i think they have thier hands full with win mo 7 this year)

Ailuros

21-Apr-2010, 06:03

A bit far-fetched yes. But since Apple's juggernaut shows no signs of slowing down, that scenario appears more and more reasonable as time goes on. Once their market share crosses 50%, it'll be hard for others to stop them.

No that's not a "bit" that's "way too" far-fetched IMHO. Remember you said mobile devices. If you would have limited it to high end smartphones it's easier to swallow than that one. I haven't looked into any statistics regarding that matter but I find it very hard to believe that Apple's mobile sales volumes are comparable to NOKIA for example.

With the largest emphasis on and the tightest integration of 3D/multimedia hardware to the software (native acceleration from the ground up), Apple is still the only phone maker that really understands how to push a mobile platform, and they'll continue to dominate until someone else fully "gets it".

I don't expect other vendors not to react down the line and that's exactly the point where I consider rpg's scenario over the top. I have no doubt that competition will continuously heat up in general and stakes in the embedded market never have been higher than in recent times. Competition and monopolies don't exactly fit in the same sentence IMO.

MS is making moves with the tablets.

You'll see win mobile 7 tablets by the fall when the os is done. I'm also of the belief that a moble xbox 360 is in the cards for next e3 ( i think they have thier hands full with win mo 7 this year)

What's a "mobile Xbox360" exactly or better what is there integrated in a multitude of current devices that isn't a mobile XBox360 already?

rpg.314

21-Apr-2010, 06:45

No that's not a "bit" that's "way too" far-fetched IMHO. Remember you said mobile devices. If you would have limited it to high end smartphones it's easier to swallow than that one. I haven't looked into any statistics regarding that matter but I find it very hard to believe that Apple's mobile sales volumes are comparable to NOKIA for example.Yes, I meant smartphones there. But I feel over time normal mobiles will convert into smartphones.

I don't expect other vendors not to react down the line and that's exactly the point where I consider rpg's scenario over the top. I have no doubt that competition will continuously heat up in general and stakes in the embedded market never have been higher than in recent times. Competition and monopolies don't exactly fit in the same sentence IMO.
Well, the iPod vs competitors sage doesn't hold much promise there. It's not like others didn't try to compete either. May be this time the competition is wiser. :???:

Ailuros

21-Apr-2010, 08:02

Yes, I meant smartphones there. But I feel over time normal mobiles will convert into smartphones.

Irrelevant of hw capabilities there will always be a distinction even in the future between low end and high end products. Where's the highest sales volume exactly and where are Apple's low end mobile phones to justify your chain of reasoning? In essence it could mean two things: as much as all other vendors might want to buckle up for high end devices to not lose any market share there against Apple, just as much Apple will have to consider to have a wider variety of products for different price points so that we can even think of Apple's sales volumes exploding in any distant future.

Well, the iPod vs competitors sage doesn't hold much promise there. It's not like others didn't try to compete either. May be this time the competition is wiser. :???:

You seem to forget that mobile or if you prefer embedded is describing a very wide market and isn't necessarily limited to just smartphones or PMPs.

silent_guy

21-Apr-2010, 08:02

MS is making moves with the tablets.
Like this beauty (http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/19/hp-slate-leaks-its-way-into-the-wild-meh/) from HP? :wink:

Ailuros

21-Apr-2010, 08:19

I think in the future the 3GS and iPod touch 3rd gen 3D performance will be known as an anomaly. There are clear indications that the next gen iPhone/iPod touch will get a higher resolution display. Combined with a (slower) version of the A4 this should normalize the 3D performance across all iPhone OS devices within an generation (e.g. 800MHz A4 with a 960x640 display on the iPhone/iPod touch vs. 1GHz A4 with 1024x768 on the iPad).

Uhmm where's the hypothetical "anomaly" in terms of 3D performance exactly? Albeit not sure I'd place the SGX535 frequency in the iPhone3GS at 150MHz and in the iPad at 250MHz.

With your line of reasoning and assuming that the next iPhone will be based on a lower clocked A4 SoC I wouldn't expect only a CPU frequency but also a GPU frequency reduction compared to the iPad.

rpg.314

21-Apr-2010, 08:27

Irrelevant of hw capabilities there will always be a distinction even in the future between low end and high end products. Where's the highest sales volume exactly and where are Apple's low end mobile phones to justify your chain of reasoning? In essence it could mean two things: as much as all other vendors might want to buckle up for high end devices to not lose any market share there against Apple, just as much Apple will have to consider to have a wider variety of products for different price points so that we can even think of Apple's sales volumes exploding in any distant future.

You seem to forget that mobile or if you prefer embedded is describing a very wide market and isn't necessarily limited to just smartphones or PMPs.
Let me rephrase/correct/edit. In the markets Apple has decided to compete, it has so far thrashed all others put together. In the >$1000 desktop/laptop market too, I seem to recall that Apple has >~50% revenue share. On the basis of track record, I doubt Apple's competition is any good. The only solace is that Apple will prolly not compete in the low margin category, leaving a window for the competition there.

Pressure

21-Apr-2010, 11:37

Albeit not sure I'd place the SGX535 frequency in the iPhone3GS at 150MHz and in the iPad at 250MHz.

I think that the 65nm SGX535 in the iPhone 3GS is clocked at 200Mhz.

Mike11

21-Apr-2010, 14:21

Assuming the iPhone 4th-gen also uses an A4, how much more empty (or totally battery dominated) would the iPad have looked on the inside if had used the 4th-gens logic board? That board is really super small...

http://cache-01.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/4/2010/04/open19_01.jpg
Gallery: http://gizmodo.com/5520877/open-gal//gallery/1

Uhmm where's the hypothetical "anomaly" in terms of 3D performance exactly?

Not in all performance aspects of course. I was mainly referring to this post from warmi regarding fillrate:

Just did some basic GLES fillrate tests and holy crap ..... the iPad is damn slow.

My custom fillrate demo can display about 400 sprites at 30 fps on the older iPhones and it goes up to 1750 on the 3gs (both of them obviously running at 320x480).

On the iPad , running at 1024x768 with sprites scaled up , it cannot pull more than 400 while maintaining 30 fps, which essentially means at that resolution it performs at about the same level as the original iPhone.

Given that , you just won't be able to port graphically intensive 3gs apps to 1024x768 and expect them to run at the same framerate.

So in regards to fillrate running at native resolution: iPhone = iPhone 3G = iPad = iPhone 4th-gen
Totally simplified of course (and assuming the iPhone 4th-gen uses an (slightly slower) A4 and has a 960x640 resolution).