Apple iPad announced

[Urian]

I find that accusation somewhat offensive! I don't read all the press releases and I don't work in the video processing group.

Admittedly I did do some some entropy decode research for VXD, but that was years ago now (and I'm still having therapy for being exposed to CABAC ).


Errr....So you are proposing they have an ARM emulator to run the iPhone apps?

I was thinking in LLVM.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

Needed is a big word. Independent app developers may supply a lot of functionality, some of course depending on how accessible the dock connector will be for extending the hardware capabilities of the system. But Apple is definitely not pitching it as a general creative tool, no.

LOL! I bet those "independent app developers" arn't developing their apps on the Ipad!

 

[rpg.314]

Except all netbooks can do video skype

Yes. Like has been pointed out earlier, seems like a rushed out device to me. They probably didn't have the time to do it right.

 

[MfA]

That's dangerous though for a company as image driven as Apple. Could they really afford to put out a say Fusion or Lincroft/Pinetrail based tablet next year around the same price? I could see them market an Arm and x86 based tablet at the same time in two price ranges ... but the present iPad would have to come down in price at a huge speed to create room for the x86 one (selling a tablet for say 1200$ would seem a bit ambitious even for Apple) and Apple fans do like to brag about resale values ...

 

[loekf]

After sleeping over it for a night, my mind seems to agree that is a single core chip.

Not quite... latest rumours talk about a 45nm SoC with:

4 x Cortex A9 MP clocked at 1 GHz each. 1.3 GHz is possible, but Apple decided to lower the clock to maximize battery life and to minimize the risk on thermal issues

Mali 50 GPU

Integrated SDRAM controller, flash i/f, LCD controller and I/O interfaces

So basically it's a custom design application engine like the Tegra (2), OMAP, Snapdragon etc. What's new though is that Apple decided to throw in four Cortex A9 cores. Most competitor's devices currently have two.

 

[warmi]

Mali 50 GPU
.

Assuming it is Mali in the first place ( which I now doubt) it must be something other than Mali-5X since these chips are GLES 1.x only and their beta SDK clearly states support for GLES 2.x

 

[corduroygt]

It's way too big, I'd have been interested if it was quad-iphone sized with 7" screen, but this is simply too big. An internet tablet without flash means iFail to me.

 

[Pressure]

Not quite... latest rumours talk about a 45nm SoC with:

4 x Cortex A9 MP clocked at 1 GHz each. 1.3 GHz is possible, but Apple decided to lower the clock to maximize battery life and to minimize the risk on thermal issues

Mali 50 GPU

Integrated SDRAM controller, flash i/f, LCD controller and I/O interfaces

So basically it's a custom design application engine like the Tegra (2), OMAP, Snapdragon etc. What's new though is that Apple decided to throw in four Cortex A9 cores. Most competitor's devices currently have two.

If that is really the case, it screams multitasking...

But it would make more sense if it used the newest from Imagination Technologies like the PowerVR SGX545.

 

[Ailuros]

Assuming it is Mali in the first place ( which I now doubt) it must be something other than Mali-5X since these chips are GLES 1.x only and their beta SDK clearly states support for GLES 2.x

Unless it's clocked at some completely idiotic frequency that thing is clock for clock even slower than the iPhone3G GPU. If it should be ARM IP then it's a Mali 200 or higher.

If that is really the case, it screams multitasking...

But it would make more sense if it used the newest from Imagination Technologies like the PowerVR SGX545.

If Apple doesn't need DX10.1/OGL3.2 compliance it's an idiotic investment in terms of die area, power consumption and in extension performance. In order to drive higher resolutions a GPU needs mostly fillrates; here the 545 has as many TMUs as a 535. Since the 545 has twice the ALUs, Z/stencil units and all the necessary featureset for DX10.1 you're probably at a 2:1 difference in die area between the 545 and the 535.

Now if they don't need 10.1 (which I don't think they really need for something like the iPad and especially the OS it's running) then why not save a healthy amount of die area and a 535 at much higher frequencies than the iPhone3GS instead? We all could of course be completely wrong, but I wouldn't say myself that the 3GS actually needed a 535, meaning that any sort of weird decision shouldn't surprise me either.

Once we're there why not go for a multi-core config instead: http://www.imgtec.com/News/Release/index.asp?NewsID=497

 

[Entropy]

LOL! I bet those "independent app developers" arn't developing their apps on the Ipad!

You'd be surprised what tools some people use to develop software. (Besides the young whippersnappers of today don't know how good they have it - in MY days, people thought terminals were an awesome step up from punchcards.)
But no, I was thinking more in the line of certain kinds of music creation software, to use the iPad as a quick movie cutting station, word processing obviously (I've written parts of professional texts on Palm Pilots!), various kinds of compositing and sketchwork, it could probably be made into a pretty good data logger/grapher for field work, hmm any computing task in the field given the weight/battery life/screen quality...
With as large a base of developers as the App Store has, I'm rather confident that the iPad will soon make you coffee in the morning, while playing a cheerful ditty and displaying something suitably motivating to bolster the morale the troops. I'd buy it in a flash.

 

[Pressure]

If Apple doesn't need DX10.1/OGL3.2 compliance it's an idiotic investment in terms of die area, power consumption and in extension performance. In order to drive higher resolutions a GPU needs mostly fillrates; here the 545 has as many TMUs as a 535. Since the 545 has twice the ALUs, Z/stencil units and all the necessary featureset for DX10.1 you're probably at a 2:1 difference in die area between the 545 and the 535.

Once we're there why not go for a multi-core config instead: http://www.imgtec.com/News/Release/index.asp?NewsID=497

Basically I just meant something from Img Tech but I understand your point

I just took the newest IP as an example.

 

[darkblu]

so aside from PAsemi's A9 derivative in the role of the CPU, we have not idea whatsoever of the ipad SoC?

 

[loekf]

If that is really the case, it screams multitasking...

But it would make more sense if it used the newest from Imagination Technologies like the PowerVR SGX545.

The source is:

http://www.brightsideofnews.com/new...c-unveiled---its-an-arm-cpu-and-the-gpu!.aspx

Not sure if this is a reliable website.

 

[MfA]

Not sure if this is a reliable website.

I'm going to go with what Darkblu says (and just to state the obvious, we don't even know if the 4 relates to the number of CPU cores).

 

[Arwin]

I can add to this discussion the simple fact that when my wife saw the iPad 'infomercial', she said, "this is what I want, forget about the eBook reader". This is partly thanks to being very impressed with the iPod Touch.

 

[Xmas]

Devices like the Notion Ink Adam will blow the iPad out of the water in terms of hardware specs (really big time).

Which aspects would you consider most important in terms of hardware in a tablet: SoC, memory, storage, connectivity, screen, input technology, camera, dimensions, weight, battery life, etc.? I can see areas where other tablets could well be superior, but on the whole I don't see any of the announced tablets being that much better than the iPad. Just curious, not arguing against your opinion.

I think the hardware is pretty solid. Ok, the bezel is too wide, and it's still too heavy. A USB port, extensible storage, and a digital video output would have been nice, but I can live without them. No, I see the iPad's shortcomings mostly in software. Still no multitasking, an oddly unispired way of running iPhone apps, still very locked-in. I expected something more innovative than the large on-screen keyboard, and interestingly some of the fan-made/fake iTablet interface concepts were a lot more daring and appealing than what Apple showed yesterday.

And, in my view the most important point: When I'm on the move I have my phone with me anyway, and at home I need no 3G or GPS. So why not let the iPad connect to an iPhone via Bluetooth to get a 3G connection and GPS data, transfer photos and sync other stuff, or even let you read SMS and receive calls directly on the tablet if you happen to hold it? A bit like using it as an extension of the iPhone.

I still see the iPad as an important step forward, but it's a flawed product, pretty much like the first iPhone at launch. The timing is also curious. There can be little doubt that summer will bring a new iPhone, and equally little doubt that it will be accompanied with a significant software update. So the iPad will start selling in the March/April timeframe, possibly later in some countries, and just three months later it will likely get a major software overhaul.

 

[Arwin]

I still see the iPad as an important step forward, but it's a flawed product, pretty much like the first iPhone at launch. The timing is also curious. There can be little doubt that summer will bring a new iPhone, and equally little doubt that it will be accompanied with a significant software update. So the iPad will start selling in the March/April timeframe, possibly later in some countries, and just three months later it will likely get a major software overhaul.

Yes, I think the rumors about the 4.0 version of the Firmware may well be as true as the rumours about the 'iSlate' have been. But we'll see. Apple isn't typically a company that hurries things.

 

[Mize]

I can add to this discussion the simple fact that when my wife saw the iPad 'infomercial', she said, "this is what I want, forget about the eBook reader". This is partly thanks to being very impressed with the iPod Touch.

I think I've managed to talk my wife into waiting for iPad 2.0...fingers crossed.

 

[Xmas]

Yes, I think the rumors about the 4.0 version of the Firmware may well be as true as the rumours about the 'iSlate' have been. But we'll see. Apple isn't typically a company that hurries things.

Well, this isn't really hurrying. I don't know what the next major version of iPhone OS will bring, but a release in Summer along with a new iPhone is just their regular schedule, like the three times before.

 

[brain_stew]

Yup, so it depends on what you would use the iPod Touch for.
The iPad by virtue of its size and speed alone greatly extends the capabilities for by example photo and film viewing, web browsing, mail communication and reading text. It also gives new capabilities in terms of inputting text and other data. It does this by compromising portability. (In terms of size, not battery life.)

The problem is it lacks a whole host of basic functionality to be useful for those sort of tasks. No flash, no multitasking, no USB host, no SD slot, no hybrid frontlit/backlit display, no camera, crappy codec support, no HDMI out, you name one potential suited usage case and this thing is lacking some serious basic functionality to make it useful for them potential usage cases. The form factor is potentially great for photo viewing, ebook reading, video conferencing, VOIP, video playing and web browsing, yet what Apple has delivered is simply not upto the task off delivering a decent experience for any of them tasks.

I'm with the others, this is a seriously gimped "product 1.0" (just like the original iPhone), the actual real device won't be launching for a year or more as Apple know their followers will lap up the original revision no matter how terrible it is (and this thing is pretty damn terrible) and "ipad 2.0" will be such a major leap that they'll feel compelled to upgrade just when everyone else starts to take the device seriously.

As for the SOC, would a Mali core affect compatability with existing iphone apps/games or is the development platform suitably high level enough for that not to be an issue? Either way, if by some chance it does use a Mali core its obviously not the one BSON specified, as there's already a move towards OpenGL ES 2.0. beginning in the development community and its in Apple's interest to hurry that along (got to push that upgrade cycle). Once native games are running on the thing surely the 1024x768 resolution necessitates a decent increase in graphics grunt unless Apple want some games and applications to actually perform worse than they do on a 3GS?