The Apple iPad Review (2012)
by Vivek Gowri & Anand Lal Shimpi on March 28, 2012 3:14 PM ESTThe Next iPhone
Historically the iPad has been the launch vehicle for Apple's next-generation iPhone SoC. It's safe to say that the 45nm A5X we've seen here today won't be finding its way into a smartphone. Instead what we're likely to see in the next iPhone this year is a 28/32nm shrink of the A5, coupled with Qualcomm's 28nm MDM9615 instead of the 45nm MDM9600 enabling LTE support.
It'll be next year before we see the introduction of the A6 in the fourth generation iPad, which will likely bring ARM's Cortex A15 to the table as well as Imagination Technologies' PowerVR Series 6 (codename Rogue) GPU. Apple isn't done driving GPU performance. There's still a chance we'd see the introduction of a Cortex A15 based SoC late this year for the new iPhone but I still believe the timing is too aggressive for that to happen.
Haswell
In working on this review, Vivek IMed me and told me the best part of using an iPad instead of a notebook is the battery life. When the battery indicator reads only 20% left, chances are you've still got a good couple of hours of battery life left on the new iPad. On a MacBook Pro? You're lucky if you get half of that.
The question is, must this gap always exist? The MacBook Pro has much more power hungry silicon, and it's running a much more power hungry OS and application set. I won't go too far into this but one of the promises Intel is making with Haswell, its 2013 microprocessor architecture, is for a > 20x decrease in connected standby power. Intel's goal is to be able to deliver an Ultrabook in 2013 that can remain in connected standby (still receiving emails, Twitter updates, push notfications, etc...) for up to 10 days on a single charge.
What about for a lighter, more tablet like usage model? Will Haswell be able to deliver more iPad-like battery life for most tasks, but offer the horsepower and flexibility to run a traditional OS? I'm hearing very exciting things about next year...
Windows 8
A while ago I made a list of the top 10 things I did with my computer. It looked something like this:
Web Browsing
IM
Photo/Video Editing
Excel
Editing Reviews (HTML)
Publishing Reviews (FTP, CMS access)
3D Gaming
Writing
Email
Twitter
Of that list of 10, most of them could be done on a tablet, but only a couple of them delivered a better experience on a tablet than on a desktop/notebook (web browsing and email). You could argue that interacting with Twitter is also better on a tablet as well. Regardless of where you draw the line however, the fact of the matter is that for a user like me I can't replace a notebook with a tablet or vice versa. I need both. I don't like the idea of needing both, I'd rather just have one that could always deliver the best experience possible.
It's this problem I believe Microsoft is trying to address with Windows 8. Put Windows 8 on a convertible or dockable tablet (ala ASUS' Transformer Prime), with x86 hardware, and you've got a very real solution to this problem. When you want a touchscreen tablet, you've got one. When you want a more traditional workhorse notebook, you've got one there as well. I make the x86 reference because that way you don't lose out on compatibility with all of your older desktop apps that you may rely on.
For years Microsoft has failed to deliver a consumer friendly tablet by forcing a desktop UI on it. Its experience with Media Center taught us all that vastly different usage models need different user interfaces. It took Microsoft a long time to realize this, but with Windows 8 I believe it has one solution to the tablet problem. It is ironic/funny/depressing that with Windows 8 Microsoft is simply making the same mistake it made for years with tablets, in reverse. This time around the desktop experience suffers (or at best, just isn't moved forward) in order to focus more on the tablet experience. Sigh, one of these days they'll figure it out.
The point of this sidebar on Windows 8 is to talk about the iOS equivalent. Apple advocated so strongly with the iPhone for the consolidation of devices, I can't help but assume that we'll see a similar move in the MacBook Air/iPad space. iOS is far more multitasking friendly today than it was a couple of years ago. The support for multitasking gestures alone on the iPad is huge. But there clearly has to be more. I don't even know if iOS 6 is really when we'll see this intersection between tablet and ultra portable happen. Like Haswell, this may also be a 2013 thing...
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Ammaross - Wednesday, March 28, 2012 - link
"It has the fastest and best of nearly every component inside and out."Except the CPU is the same as in the iPad2, and by far not the "best" by any stretch of the imagination. Hey, what's the problem though? I have this nice shiny new tower, loads of RAM, bluray, SSD, and terabytes of hard drive space. Oh, don't mind that Pentium D processor, it's "good enough," or you must be using it wrong.
tipoo - Wednesday, March 28, 2012 - link
What's better that's shipping today? Higher clocked A9s, or quad core ones like the T3? Either would mean less battery life, worse thermal issues, or higher costs. Krait isn't in a shipping product yet. Tegra 3's additional cores still have dubious benefit. These operating systems don't have true multitasking, you basically have one thing running at a time plus some background services like music, and even on desktops after YEARS few applications scale well past four cores outside of the professional space. The next iPad will be out before quad core on tablets becomes useful, that I assure you of.zorxd - Wednesday, March 28, 2012 - link
I'd gladly trade GPU power for CPU power.That GPU is power hungry too, probably more than two extra A9 cores, and the benefit is even more dubious unless you are a hardcore tablet gamer.
TheJian - Wednesday, March 28, 2012 - link
LOL, the problem is you'll have to buy that new ipad to take advantage because YOURS doesn't have those cores now. Once apps become available that utilize these cores (trust me their coming, anyone making an app today knows they'll have at least quad cpu and gpu in their phones their programming for next year, heck end of this year), the tegra 3 won't need to be thrown away to multitask. Google just has to put out the next rev of android and these tegra3's etc should become even better (I say etc because everyone else has quad coming at 28nm).The writing is on the wall for single/dual. The quad race on phones/tables is moving FAR faster than it did on PC's. After win8 these things will start playing a lot more nicely with our current desktops. Imagine an Intel x86 based quad (hopefully) with someone else's graphics running the same stuff as your desktop without making you cringe over the performance hit.
I'm not quite sure how you get to Tegra3 costing more, having higher thermals (umm, ipad 3 is hot, not tegra3). The die is less than 1/2 the size of A5x. Seems they could easily slap double the gpus and come out about even with QUAD cpu too. IF NV double the gpus what would the die size be? 162mm or smaller I'd say. They should have went 1920x1200 which would have made it faster than ipad 2 no matter what game etc you ran. Unfortunately the retina screen makes it slower (which is why apple isn't pushing TEGRA ZONE quality graphics in their games for the most part...Just blade?). They could have made this comparison a no brainer if they would have went 1920x1200. I'm still waiting to see how long these last running HOT for a lot of people. I'm not a fan of roasted nuts :) Too bad they didn't put it off for 3 months and die shrink it to at least 32nm or even 40nm would have helped the heat issue, upclock the cpu a bit to make up for 2 core etc. More options to even things out. Translation everything at xmas or later will be better...Just wait if you can no matter what you want. I'm salivating over a galaxy S2 but it's just not quite powerful enough until the shrinks for s3 etc.
tipoo - Wednesday, March 28, 2012 - link
I didn't say the Tegra 3 is more expensive or has higher thermals; I said the A5X, with higher clocked cores or more cores would be, and we all know Apple likes comfortable margins. Would I like a quad core A5X? Sure. Would I pay more for it? Nope. Would I switch for reduced battery life and an even hotter chip than what Apple already made? Nope. With the retina display, the choice to put more focus on the GPU made sense, with Android tablets resolution maybe Tegra 3 makes more sense, so you can stop attacking straw man arguments I never made. There are still only a handful of apps that won't run on the first iPad and that's two years old, "only" two cores won't hold you back for a while, plus iOS devs have less variation of specs to deal with so I'm sure compatibility with this iPad will be assured for at least two or three years. If I was buying one today, which I am not, I wouldn't be worried about that.Heck, even the 3GS runs most apps still and gets iOS updates.
pickica - Monday, April 2, 2012 - link
The New Ipad 2 is probably gonna have a dual A15, which means dual cores will stay.Peter_St - Monday, April 2, 2012 - link
The problem here is that most people have no idea what they are talking about. It was just few years ago that we all used Dual Core CPUs on our Desktop Computers and we ran way more CPU load intensive applications, and now all of a sudden some marketing bonzo from HTC and Samsung is telling me that I need Quasd Core CPU for Tablets and mobile devices, and 2+ GB of RAM,If you really need that hardware to run your mobile OS, then I would recommend you to fire all your OS developers, get a new crew, and start from scratch...
BSMonitor - Wednesday, March 28, 2012 - link
If you were to run the same applications a tablet is designed to, then yes, your Pentium D would actually be overkill.PeteH - Wednesday, March 28, 2012 - link
The point is made in the article is that it would be impossible provide the quad GPUs (necessary to handle that display) AND quad CPUs. Given you can only do one or the other, quad GPUs is the right choice.zorxd - Wednesday, March 28, 2012 - link
was it also the right choice to NOT upgrade the GPU when going from the iPhone 3GS to iPhone 4?