The Apple iPad - Anand's Analysis
by Anand Lal Shimpi on January 27, 2010 5:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Mobile
The Hardware
Leading up to today’s announcement I desperately tried to figure out what hardware Apple would use for the iPad. I’ve been on a bit of an SoC kick as of late, so you can understand my fascination.
Apple acquired PA Semi back in 2008. Everyone assumed that it’s because Apple wants to start making its own SoCs for the iPhone. Well, the first results of that acquisition are in the iPad.
Apple didn’t devote much time to the SoC in the iPad other than to tell the world that it’s Apple’s own silicon and it runs at 1GHz. The SoC is called the A4. I’ve asked Apple for more details on it, but I’m not holding my breath for a response.
Given the fact that it runs the iPhone OS and nearly all iPhone apps, I’m guessing the A4 is ARMv7 based. It’s possible that Apple engineered its own architecture for the A4, but more likely that it simply took an existing ARM design and modified it to suit its needs.
If Apple wanted to save cost it would’ve gone with a Cortex A8 based processor, or if it wanted more performance it would be something more A9 like. I’m not ruling out a dual-core implementation, but given the entry level cost point I’m assuming that it’s not anything quite as fantastic.
The 1GHz operating frequency implies a 45nm manufacturing process if it’s indeed an A8 or A9-like core. If we look at Apple’s public video, it appears to render a page at Spin.com in roughly 2.7 seconds. My iPhone 3GS does the same in about 7 - 9 seconds, but it also appears to be loading a lot more content on the current Spin.com site. Even if we assume that the 600MHz Cortex A8 in the iPhone 3GS can render the same page in 5 seconds, the speedup is too big to be from a clock speed increase alone.
Based on this data alone (and the responsiveness of the UI from the videos) I’m going to say that there’s a good chance that the A4 is much closer to the A9 in terms of performance. If it’s not an A9 itself, it may be Apple’s own out-of-order design.
Then there’s battery life. Apple is claiming 10 hours of web browsing battery life, which is reasonable given the 25WHr battery, but over a month of standby power. I suspect that the ridiculous standby power is due to the fact that the 3G radio is completely shut off when the device is asleep, but even then that’s very good power consumption. If anything, Apple’s own engineering here was probably spent on making sure that the SoC’s power consumption was as low as possible. By comparison, even the best SoCs in a smartphone today can usually only offer 300 hours of standby power (12.5 days).
Apple’s battery life claims have been unusually reliable as of late, so I would say that we should expect 10 hours of useful battery life out of one of these things.
I’ve spent a lot of time talking about the CPU, but what about the GPU in the A4? Given that Apple is a shareholder in Imagination Technologies (9.5%), I’d say that it’s a pretty safe bet to assume there’s some sort of a PowerVR SGX core in here. Which core? There’s definitely the physical space to include something ridiculous, but I’m guessing it’s something relatively controlled - perhaps an SGX 535 or SGX 540 at the most.
A4 in the next iPhone?
I've been racking my brain over the past several months trying to figure out what Apple will use in the next iPhone. I figured it could be as simple as a 45nm Cortex A8 shrink, or as ridiculously sweet as a pair of Cortex A9s. With the iPad being based on Apple's own A4 SoC design, I'm guessing we'll see it (or a derivative) making an appearance in the 4th generation iPhone.
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- Thursday, January 28, 2010 - link
My gut is telling me that there are too many open questions about this iPad, I'm feeling like this is a rushed or incomplete presentation of a tablet. Are there problems relative to realistic expectations concerning Apple’s SOC/chip? Did ARM intervene in the final hour with their A9? And why those prices? The product isn’t due to ship for another month; do they have a rabbit up their sleeve? Stay tunedasH
RobberBaron - Thursday, January 28, 2010 - link
MADtv: Apple iPad, 2006http://www.milkandcookies.com/link/47049/detail/">http://www.milkandcookies.com/link/47049/detail/
Shadowmaster625 - Thursday, January 28, 2010 - link
I can definately visualize how tablets can completely replace netbooks. But if you cant even play an avi video what the heck else wont you be able to do on this thing? Its a dead end. I've never accepted apple's limitations, and never will. Just like the iphone, the only people who will buy this are the dumb yuppies who like to waste money. Unfortunately for Apple, they are going extinct at a record rate.I am far more hopeful about windows 7 based tablets for when cpus get small and powerful enough to actually run one.
But what I'm really looking for is a form factor that includes a scree that can flawlessly and seamlessly fold in half. Then I can have a phone and reasonable web surfing in one package.
charles Monneron - Thursday, January 28, 2010 - link
Handbrake is a free software that will enable you to encode all your video library in mp4 format (or m4v if you really like itunes). This is what the creator say about avi :"AVI is a rough beast. It is obsolete. It does not support modern container features like chapters, muxed-in subtitles, variable framerate video, or out of order frame display."
Plus, translating into mp4 using the last versions of x264 is quite likely to shrink the size of your files.
Tikvaw - Thursday, January 28, 2010 - link
Hmm you can play avi Files on the Iphone with the right App, so you will be able to do the same on the Ipad.The disc might not be very large but at least at home you can stream almost any video file from your PC/NAS directly to the Iphone/Ipad with encoding on the go, for example with the "Air Video" App.
If you go somewhere and wan't to take a few Video files with you,
you can take a sd-card and the adapter Apple provides, I'm sure there will be an App that can read and copy those files from the card.
With the Free App "TouchMouse" from Logitech you can control your Computer Mouse so you could connect your Computer with the TV and start a Video with the Ipad from your seat/sofa and use the Ipad as Remote.
There are many free Apps that Read PDF,TXT, etc Files (which you can transfer from your Computer to the Iphone/Ipad with Wifi, no need to use Itunes) so you aren't restricted to IBooks, you can even install Kindle Store and buy their E-Books.
etc etc
So to summarize, even if Apple doesn't really provide open standards, the are many free App's which add this functionalities, probably the Ipad will be "jailbreakable" too, so you are even more free with the choices and not dependable on the AppStore.
ps. I really hope Apple will provide Multitasking in the near future!
taltamir - Thursday, January 28, 2010 - link
the iphone was never popular... early iterations were a failure, later fixed versions are selling better, but still have less than 1% of the phone market share.the iPad cannot be compared to a eReader, because it does not use ePaper. you touted that as a "bonus", as if it being "color" was great. the eReader has the benefit of being a passive display (no light emission) like a book, and unbeleiveable battery. the iPad is nothing like an eReader and if it is trying to be it will be a huge failure... and kindle isn't the only competition in that market.
QueBert - Sunday, January 31, 2010 - link
you're kidding right? From day 1 they were sold out everywhere and going for over $1,000 on Ebay. Hell, even today 1st fucking gen iPhones are selling for more money used than a lot of brand new smart phones. The iPhone is the phone to have, period! I never NEVER hear people talking about any other phone. When I could put my 2st gen iPhone on CL tomorrow for $200 and have it sold before Monday. I'm not too sure how you consider the phone "never popular" there has never been a phone more popular.A5 - Thursday, January 28, 2010 - link
1% of the overall phone market including dumbphones.In the relevant market (smartphones), the iPhone is doing very well - they've already passed the market share of all WinMo phones combined and they're coming up on RIM, who has been in the market a lot longer than Apple.
gwolfman - Thursday, January 28, 2010 - link
I just saw this post with regards to the CPU:http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Apple-A4-SOC-ARM-...">http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Apple-A4-SOC-ARM-...
Steve Jobs incorrectly addressed Apple A4 as a CPU. We're not sure was this to keep the mainstream press enthused, but A4 is not a CPU. Or we should say, it's not just a CPU. Nor did PA Semi/Apple had anything to do with the creation of the CPU component. A4 is a System-on-a-Chip, or SOC, that integrates the main processor [ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore i.e. Multi-Processing Core, identical to ones used in nVidia Tegra and Qualcomm Snapdragon] with graphics silicon [ARM Mali 50-Series GPU], and other functions like the memory controller on one piece of silicon.
vshin - Thursday, January 28, 2010 - link
I don't understand why anyone would want 1080p on a 9.7" screen.