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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piroroadkill - Thursday, January 28, 2010 - link
Seemed plausible, but wikipedia seems to cite it as being Cortex A9-MPCorecjs150 - Thursday, January 28, 2010 - link
Movies: Sadly for apple my home system runs windows. I am not going to transcode movies that set up for windows media centre just to play on the iPAD - I did this once for the PSP and it is a pain.Also only 720p is pathetic.
EBooks: big plus point will be format but will want to see DRM rules first. However all ebook readers fail for me - I am a very quick reader, ebook readers like Ipad only display a single page at a time and currently the refresh rate on page turnover makes reading a very poor substitute for a real book.
itunes - do not use, storage is dirt cheap and I only use lossless formats - sounds better as well.
Storage: needs an SSD.
Output - no HDMI port
So far the only things this will be any use for are
1. reading the newspaper on my morning commute - as it is a better size - but even there how do I do the sudoku and crossworld puzzles in the paper
2. keeping kids quiet on long journeys by watching movies - but the PSP does that and is a lot cheaper
Not impressed. Suggested second gen improvements: HDMI port, SSD capability, expand the formats supported, speed up the processor so that page turnover for Ebooks is instant, 1080p display and that is just off the top of my head
Griswold - Thursday, January 28, 2010 - link
No mention of the lacking flash support? And they call it a surfpad?piroroadkill - Thursday, January 28, 2010 - link
Because there is NOTHING compelling about iPad, the oversized ipod touch.It is so amazingly limited, and so expensive for what you can do, that it literally seems like apple is creating a parody product that is a sure fire way to tell if someone is an absolute dick
piroroadkill - Thursday, January 28, 2010 - link
Maybe I should build out on that comment:No multitasking
No flash/java (Apple™ Full Internet Experience®)
No full OS X, and thusly, no freedom to decide what you want on it, apple decides
Capacative touchscreen (creating the retarded bezel, and removing all use as a sketching tool, which mystifies me, surely Apple goes for creative types, and a sketching tablet would be attractive, ooh, but PINCH TO ZOOM)
No SD port, or indeed, memory expansion of any kind (640k is enough, right)
No replacable battery (Apple's perfect creation would never run out and need charging when you need it most, surely!)
piroroadkill - Thursday, January 28, 2010 - link
If only I could edit. That said, it will sell in the millions and be heralded as amazing, of course, proving once again, you really can sell a turd. A REALLY polished and shiny turdcharles Monneron - Thursday, January 28, 2010 - link
One thing the iPad could excel with is remote desktop display. Jaadu VNC on the iPhone already provides a very decent experience on the iPhone (I can even use the "Spaces" feature on OS X on an iPhone 3G with 3G connection), but the use is ultimately crippled by the small size of the screen, especially when one needs to display a keyboard. With an IPad, such app would really shine.With virtualized machine outputing as VNC servers, it could be a cost effective for corporates compared to laptops, with much better data security (with VPN or SSH tunelling, that IPhone OS offers).
Of course, the same can be said for netbooks, but, ironically, they become too powerful for this usage !
As far as I am concerned, as I always have wireless internet access, I see no point at having a laptop anymore. An IPad, possibly with the keyboard accessory, and a desktop/server at home is sufficient for me.
piroroadkill - Thursday, January 28, 2010 - link
A netbook too powerful?As a consumer do you often think "damn, this is too powerful for my needs, I've just been waiting all this time for a less powerful, more restricted, and more expensive product to come along!"
charles Monneron - Thursday, January 28, 2010 - link
Powerful as in too hot on my lap. The superfluous software layers of a full fledged Windows XP (or worse, windows 7) end up eating cpu power and shorten battery life. When I play a video on my iphone, it stays cool. Read the introduction to the article again !zonkie - Thursday, January 28, 2010 - link
What Apple is doing with the iPad is pretty smart.The iPad isn't really intended to be revolutionary as a computing device. It will be just good enough at enough things that you will justify it's purchase. It's meant to find more ways to sell you Apple stuff. It's not going too be great at anything except giving you the preceived need to buy loads of small ticket items from Apple.
You can read a book on it so you're going to try that out. Money for Apple. You're going to buy that stupid beer drinking app a 2nd time. Money for Apple. You're going to buy apps and music and data plans and it all has to be from Apple.
People buy a netbook and get all the functions the iPad has and mostly for free. Apple is smart because they are finding magical ways to seperate you from your cash under the guise of convenience.