Apple iPad announced

[Arwin]

In no way does the iPad compete with the PSP or the DS as much as the iPod/iPhone does imho, so the discussion on whether or not the iPad competes with these two is almost irrelevant. The iPod definitely will compete with the DS as much as the PSP ... I can see it for myself - I'll now never need a DS probably, because my 21 month old kid is already perfectly capable of browing to the page that contains the app he wants, boot it up, and play (already some really great applications out there for him). It's all kinds of amazing to me, honestly, but it's clear that the intuitiveness of the touch interface is not limited to bringing in the non-gamers, women and elderly.

On the other end, the iPod for me is fast becoming my primary podcast device, over the PSP, and also internet and the youtube app are finding a lot of use over here. Same for stuff like watching photos, although here I'm always using the social network clients rather than put any actual fotos on the device. And definitely, there are some fun games on this too. Games that tailor specifically to the device and its touch interface are great, and there are a few games here that my wife enjoys too, which was previously limited to a tiny bit of Lumines and LocoRoco.

However, there are a lot of big games on the PSP that so far no iPhone game seems to get close to. It's really DS type games more than anything, like Civilization for instance, that are seeing strong competition in their iPod/iPhone versions. And adding to that, an application on the iPod/iPhone that has as intensive use of 3D as its PSP counterparts, even if for the 3GS versions they can actually get close to the detail and in some aspects even look better, they drain the battery like mad. Half an hour of intensive 3D stuff kills its charge. Even the worst PSP battery gets six times that. Besides that I'm also finding that the video quality of my 2004 PSP is still better than that of the iPod (PSP is bigger, wider, and also looks great at any angle), and for me personally being able to lock the keys without locking the screen is essential if I want my kid to be able to watch a movie or some kids cartoon on it (Has better sound too) And again, the PSP is a 2004 device. It will have its own successor eventually as well, I reckon.

Now enter the iPad. The iPad doesn't even begin to be anywhere near the size of something like a DS or PSP, so it's totally not the same kind of device we're talking about here. The iPad is a competitor to notebooks, laptops and netbooks more than anything else. I've personally always been enthusiastic about the Tablet PC, which was announced ages ago, but which has taken forever to reach an acceptable price-range, and as a result progress in user interface design has been incredibly slow as well.

Enter Apple, who have basically redesigned the UI framework for OS/X to run on a multi-touch device like the iPod/iPhone. They did a great job in designing a user interface for the iPod, and I think it's very well suited to scale up to something like the iPad. It will be a great device for all sorts of things, but for each category it competes in, it's all about the dedicated software and the ease of use of both the UI and the service side of things (App Store, iTunes, etc.)

In my mind there is no quesiton that it will have great games. But it will expand the market as much as anything else, that much is clear. I think it will bring about a great rethink about user interface design brought to larger computers and even desktops, and I think it will be an awesome device for a lot of people who are now struggeling with various forms of laptops. I really feel it will be perfect for me and my wife - I can see us sitting together on the couch leaning against each other, each using an iPad rather than sitting together behind a desk as we do now.

 

[wco81]

I think price and sheer volume of cheap or free games trump graphics capability. PSP software sales isn't that great, is it? And if developers have to spend money to exploit great graphics and production values, that means $40 games, encroaching on console game territory.

There probably won't be an instant conversion of those 99 cents and free iPod games to the bigger form factor. Can there be enough money to bother converting or re-designing, re-thinking the interface given the larger screen and the possibility of using more multitouch, maybe from both hands?

Unless they devote a lot of screen real estate to serve up ads or something.

There may also be some attempts to use the larger screen to go further with graphics than games have on the iPhone. But games seem to have a ceiling of $9.99 so how far will developers go given that market reality?

Apple should try to cut a deal to get the next Starcraft ported to this thing.

 

[Entropy]

I was thinking of touch screen + keyboard and not use the mouse at all. Of course, new applications need to be developed, but so what?

Touch screen + keyboard is precisely what the iPad + keyboard offers, with the keyboard being light, detachable, and cheap. Particularly since you are OK with new apps needing to be developed.
I don't really get it - it seems you want exactly what for instance the new iWork suite for the iPad offers.
(Which, if I had been a student again, would have been awesome. The media and browsing prowess of the iPad combined with a keyboard when taking notes and writing lab reports. I would have so gotten the chicks! )

 

[MfA]

Rys that can sustain the casual game ports ... but how smart is it to only aim for that market?

With Ontario and Medfield on the horizon they better be quick about it if they want to capture players of more high end games, with those x86 tablets of similar power consumption can be made (and hybrid forms thereof like the touchbook and the netbooks with fold away keyboards) with capable GPUs ... and adding a touch interface to a PC game is easier than porting it to the iPad.

 

[infinity4]

Touch screen + keyboard is precisely what the iPad + keyboard offers, with the keyboard being light, detachable, and cheap. Particularly since you are OK with new apps needing to be developed.
I don't really get it - it seems you want exactly what for instance the new iWork suite for the iPad offers.
(Which, if I had been a student again, would have been awesome. The media and browsing prowess of the iPad combined with a keyboard when taking notes and writing lab reports. I would have so gotten the chicks! )

Well, to be more specific, I wanted a Mac or MacBook with touchscreen and keyboard that I can use at home, and can do everything a PC can do. Lack of applications, fine. I have patience to wait for applications to be developed.

And I hate touch keyboards. I will always prefer mechanical buttons over touch buttons because I don't get that tactile sense of typing.
And that's why chose Blackberry over iPhone.

 

[Ailuros]

Arwin,

While I don't think next generation handheld consoles will end up with a screen size as the iPad, the latter has the disadvantage that the resolution is too low for the screen size.

On top of that I don't expect future handhelds to be pure handheld consoles as we know them today; some functionalities will be added.

Look in your post how often you pointed out that the PSP is a 2004 device

 

[Rys]

Rys that can sustain the casual game ports ... but how smart is it to only aim for that market?

With Ontario and Medfield on the horizon they better be quick about it if they want to capture players of more high end games, with those x86 tablets of similar power consumption can be made (and hybrid forms thereof like the touchbook and the netbooks with fold away keyboards) with capable GPUs ... and adding a touch interface to a PC game is easier than porting it to the iPad.

The market's enormous though. Apple sell upwards of 2M iPhones a month now. Just iPhones. Combined iPhone and iPod Touch sales are in the combined DS sales ballpark now (a bit of a way off, granted, but obliterating everything else in the world at the same time).

The high end/non-casual market might be better served by Windows on other tablets and PC game ports, but as a developer that market is just orders of magnitude smaller to play in. Games developers go where the money is, by and large, so while adding a touch interface to an existing PC game might be easier than an iPad port, are they going to bother (at least in 2010-2011)? Studios that make AAA PC games are already moving their IP to Apple handhelds. None of them have announced plans to go into what they see as a new Windows-based touch gaming market on PC-based tablets. That market is imaginary right now.

 

[Rys]

And that's before we argue that x86 in the same power, heat and battery envelope is any better than ARM. Show me a 10hr x86 device at 10" that isn't already SGX, that doesn't weigh more than 800g (if that's a shitty strawman argument, I apologise, I haven't researched what's out there in that form factor for x86 that much).

 

[Silent_Buddha]

After looking at the announcemet of the iPad I went from somewhat interested (pre-launch) to not even remotely interested. If I want something like this I'll get the iPod version.

For book reading, nothing comes even remotely close to E-Ink, especially outdoors on a sunny day.

For a tablet, I'm going to want a full OS. I was hoping to see something like an OSX Tablet PC edition. Similar to Window XP Tablet PC, Vista or Win7.

As such I'll keep hoping someone comes out with a cheaper Slate PC (not covertable tablet PC) than most of what's out there. I love Vista/Win7 tablet interface and handwriting recognition, but hate the weight and limited battery life of a convertable tablet. And most Slate PC's (lighter and longer battery life) are either too expensive or underpowered (for the cheap ones).

That said I certainly would find an Atom based slate PC interesting if it had long battery life and was cheap, even if it was underpowered.

Regards,
SB

 

[MfA]

Games developers go where the money is, by and large

Even without WoW the PC games market still has an order of magnitude over the iPhone in revenue ...

Studios that make AAA PC games are already moving their IP to Apple handhelds.

Everything is multiplatform these days. Next years PC netbooks/tablets though will most likely be powerful enough to run multiplatform current gen console aimed titles ... though we don't have the specs yet, I'm willing to bet the same can't be said about the iPad.

I don't see how the installed base for the iPhone/iPod touch is entirely relevant BTW. The limited resolution and the fact that your finger's width is ~1/10th that of the screen kind of limits the potential of touch based gaming there. The iPad gets away from that, at the same time any game which wants to make use of the extra potential leaves the installed base of the iPhone/Ipod touch behind as well.

 

[mboeller]

But what about the times when you are carrying it, and fancy some casual gaming? It's not like an iPad owner will religiously only use it in the places where they'll have access to other forms of gaming.

IMHO; its not about the will to use the iPad on the go, but about the ability to use it on the go. One IMHO big point is the really Glare Glare display of the iPad (as far as I have seen on the pics). Maybe you are not able to see a lot on the screen if you are not in your "dark" house/flat?

 

[MrSpiggott]

I wonder if Apple have plans to take the iphone OS further.
Could this be a genuine threat to Microsoft, a beachhead into their home user market?

We, as B3D forum members, are not typical PC users. We think nothing of tweaking settings, installing patches and ignoring the 'I can't close this program' error messages that pop up from time to time. Now this isn't a dig at Windows or microsoft, trying to support an almost infinite number of hardware and software configurations must be akin to herding cats. But looking at Ipad, doesn't the OS do almost everything that a home PC user would need? A few little improvements here and there, DVD writing, multitasking support etc stick it in a box with a hard disk and a big monitor, well an imac case in fact, and I think you'd have a perfectly acceptable home computer. One that just works out of the box with 'good enough' performance. In other words take the WII console model and apply it to the desktop space.

I never considered before that a new OS would ever stand a chance. No software would support it so you'd need to make it windows compatable.....what's the point. But Apple have the app store and millions of people have grown quite comfortable using and downloading from it. Wouldn't they be happy with an iPC as well?

 

[N00b]

I wonder if Apple have plans to take the iphone OS further.

iPhone OS could make sense as foundation of a gaming console plattform.

 

[Entropy]

Even without WoW the PC games market still has an order of magnitude over the iPhone in revenue ...

Everything is multiplatform these days. Next years PC netbooks/tablets though will most likely be powerful enough to run multiplatform current gen console aimed titles ... though we don't have the specs yet, I'm willing to bet the same can't be said about the iPad.

This is a very strange assertion, are you sure your biases aren't unduly influencing your analysis?
What device was more powerful than the iPhone3Gs at launch? The iPad is according to reports significantly faster still - what is out there in the same class that is more powerful exactly?
As far as I can see, the pattern thus far is that Apple has been leading in terms of general graphics performance, for phones and now for small handheld pads/tablets/PDAs/whatever. Since they have a history of being on the leading edge performance wise, and of updating the internals of their devices to stay there, why would you assume that this would change now that they seem to acknowledge games on their platform?

 

[MfA]

There is a huge difference between a SGX543 quad core (which is the fastest I see Apple using) and a 80 shader HD5000 (which is the slowest I see the AMD Ontario using). Now of course that's the difference a year makes, but as I said ... if Apple wants to capture non casual gamers it has to be quick about it.

 

[Ailuros]

There is a huge difference between a SGX543 quad core (which is the fastest I see Apple using)

Way too much die area dedicated for graphics for a device like the iPad IMHO. It's times likelier SONY's next generation goes for such a solution and in that case it's at least 4x times more graphics power compared to anything the iPad could contain.

and a 80 shader HD5000 (which is the slowest I see the AMD Ontario using). Now of course that's the difference a year makes, but as I said ... if Apple wants to capture non casual gamers it has to be quick about it.

Llano is bigger than Ontario and has 6 clusters or else 240SPs or 48 Vec5 ALUs. How are you counting ALUs on a SGX543 exactly, because I get 4 ALUs/core there and 80SPs gives me for Ontario 16 Vec5 ALUs

 

[MfA]

Also designed for about double the clockspeed.

 

[Ailuros]

Also designed for about double the clockspeed.

SGX543 is in production while Ontario or any future SoC obviously isn't. What makes you think that it's impossible to use anything SGX in the future under 28LP and I'm even elegantly avoiding to mention the bandwidth advantage a TBDR can have especially in a UMA environment.

 

[MfA]

This isn't about the potential of SGX543 ...

As for a quadcore SGX543 being way too much die area for the iPad ... a quadcore SGX543 probably wouldn't have power consumption in the same order of magnitude as the backlight for a 10" LCD display. The cost for the physical silicon would be multiple orders of magnitude removed from the price of the iPad. So why too much die area?

 

[Lazy8s]

Apple's close relationship with IMG and their liberal use of die area and clock speed for the GPU when they were speccing chips with Samsung indicates that they'll probably put a lot of emphasis on the graphics parts of their own SoCs in the future. The next, 45/40nm iPad and iPhone/touches should compare well to any other ARM platform and offer a superior form factor and/or battery life to any competing x86 device.

The around 32 mm^2 of die taken up by the SGX543MP8 on a 45/40nm process isn't so much considering Apple is making custom SoC's for the iPad and its form factor.