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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Mike1111 - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - link
Why I'm disappointed by the current iteration of the iPad:Display:
- Low resolution (9.7" 1024x768 132ppi), no HD (720p), even lower ppi than iPhone (3.5" 480x320 163ppi), no comparison to Motorola Droid's ppi (3.7" 854x480 265ppi), Nexus One (800x480) or even Kindle DX (9.7" 1200 x 824, 150 ppi)
- No advanced display technology (Pixel Qi etc.)
- No digital TV-Out (Micro-HDMI, Mini DisplayPort etc.)
- For a modern device weird display ratio (4:3), IMHO iPhone's ratio (3:2) would have made more sense
- Glossy
- Plus this most likely means that we won't see a higher resolution screen in this years iPhone (iPad 9.7" with 1024x768 and than just 3 months later an iPhone 3.5" with 800x480 or something like that? No way!).
Storage:
- Only 64GB. Last years iPod touch has already 64GB, iPhone 32GB. I'm sure only a few months after the iPad comes out we'll see 64GB iPhones and 128GB iPod touches.
GPS:
- No GPS in WiFi only model
Sound:
- No stereo speakers (Seriously? On top, just opposite to the bottom one would have been so easy. I mean there's no camera and no telephone speaker up there as in the iPhone, there's got to be room there for a second speaker. I mean there are even tiny dumb phones out there with "decent" stereo speakers, e.g. from Nokia and Samsung).
Battery and Power:
- Only "up to" 10 hours of WiFi surfing (comparable to the iPhone)
Size and weight:
- Bezel too big
- Too thick (0.5"), thicker than iPhone and iPod touch
- Too heavy (1.5 pounds). Engadget already complained about the weight in their hands-on.
Camera:
- No camera, not even a low-resolution front facing one for video conferencing
OS:
- No multitasking, notifications etc.
- Just iPhone OS 3.2? In march/april? So it's unlikely that we will see an update to 4.0 just 3 months later (with the next gen iPhone hardware and OS).
jimhsu - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - link
10 hours would be a substantial improvement from the iPhone (the 3G/3Gs models at least). I'm lucky if continuous 3G surfing lasts 5 hours (it usually doesn't). Wifi ... maybe 6 hours.Mike1111 - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - link
Well, officially it's 5 (3G) and 9 hours (WiFi) on the iPhone. So 10 hours via WiFi on the iPad seems comparable.gfxmobile - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - link
Anad could this possible be the featured SGX 545 "The IP is already proven in silicon in a test chip from Imagination and licensed by a lead partner." from PowerVR website.Does Imagtec PowerVR even have a 45nm core?
The video playback should provide clues to figure out witch version of the PowerVR was used. Though it can be the software that it's crippling it. Since the PowerVR has been demoed on the beagleboard doing full HD decoding.
Apple sucks at giving details. Can't anyone take on of those things apart so we can get some anwsers? GRRRR
Rys - Thursday, January 28, 2010 - link
ImgTec aren't the ones who decide which process technology it's made on. That's up to the licensee and their manufacturing partner for the silicon.There are 45nm PowerVR products in the wild though.
Rindis - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - link
I think it looks like it has a good chance to do well in the target market, and will do well.Pity I'm not part of that market. ;) What *I* want is something portable that allows blogging/forum commenting on the go. I don't see that working with that form factor, or without a keyboard.
What I want is a netbook. Need to find the money for that. ;)
What I don't get, is why no one's gone the route of turning one of these devices into a phone (software & cell modem + input/output audio port). I mean, sure, it's it's a horrible form factor for just a phone, but if you're going to carry one of these everywhere *anyway*, why not drop the need for the extra device?
kamper - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - link
Is it true that this thing will be app store only like the iphone and ipod touch? If so, no thanks.jimhsu - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - link
Honestly, while this offers great entertainment potential, I still can't see this being used at all for productivity.Possible usage cases:
1. Browsing docs/spreadsheets. Works.
2. Creating/editing docs/spreadsheets. Frustrating with documents, near completely horrible with spreadsheets (try entering tables of numbers on that thing).
3. Taking notes. Horrible. Lack of pen input seriously degrades this compared to real tablets. Lack of physical keyboard makes inputting inferior to net/notebooks. Of course, there's also the problem of finding a OneNote equivalent, but "that's a software problem".
4. Running scientific/technical apps (ex. Mathematica, SPSS, CAD/CAM tools) - completely impossible, I assume, with the iPhone OS.
5. Photo/image/movie manipulation. Um... yea.
So ... an entertainment device this is.
Lonyo - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - link
An entertainment device with a 4:3 screen, which means either stretched content, cropped content, or huge wastes of screen space with blackness.Oh, and very limited outputs (no HD outputs, only VGA up to 1024x768 or composite up to 576p) means no hooking it up to your TV.
So video is out, which leaves web pages and music. Only you probably can't do both at the same time.
AnnonymousCoward - Thursday, January 28, 2010 - link
All very good points.