Apple walks Ars through the iPad Pro’s A12X system on a chip • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple walks Ars through the iPad Pro’s A12X system on a chip

#41

Post by mattlondon » Wed, Nov 07, 2018, 9:53 PM UTC

ianai wrote: post #18

carlesfe wrote: post #13

Apple are paving the way to A-chip laptops, not only by building excellent tech, but also PR-wise. Their last keynote was clearly a gymnastics exercise to ignore Intel CPUs and dismiss laptop performance while later praising their own chips which power a tablet that has no software ready to use that much speed. The fact that one of the most secretive companies executes a PR-stunt by providing an exclusive interview t…

That sounds like a truthful explanation of their motives. On the one hand, I definitely welcome challengers to the chip industry. On the other, I remember the Power days. Having non Mac users “talk down” to me about using a different processor was beyond annoying. It adds a quill to the Mac haters. Here’s hoping Apple produces cpus that outperform their competitors like their 2 G/s ssds do. Also makes me not really h…

Got any data on the SSD? I believe that consumer NVMe SSDs are all 2-3,000MB/s or more these days (for sequential reads which I believe is the "standard" benchmark people use for speed (ignoring iops))?

E.g. this from 2015 (!): https://www.anandtech.com/show/9396/samsung-sm951-nvme-256gb... This from this year: https://www.anandtech.com/show/13438/the-corsair-force-mp510...

Re: Apple walks Ars through the iPad Pro’s A12X system on a chip

#42

Post by aaronblohowiak » Wed, Nov 07, 2018, 9:53 PM UTC

camillomiller wrote: post #37

Svexav wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does it have to be a laptop? What not an iPhone with a desktop mode you can pair with a monitor, keyboard, and trackpad? I’d love the ability to carry all my software and data around in a phone without lugging around a laptop or having to buy a desktop computer. And I’d love to never concern myself with transferring or syncing data again. And why not let us connect an iPhone to an eGPU for desktop gaming?

Look up what Tim Cook thinks about convergence. That is not what an iPhone is for. Period. This gimmick is just a pipedream of us nerds. It won't have the slightest chance in the market and it would be a subpar product. Both Huawei and Samsung have implemented such a solution on their flagship smartphones since at least two years. They work as advertised, but nobody could give half a shit about them.

I am on the other side of this bet. I believe it is just a matter of time and the Surface Pro / iPad Pro are paving the way for just that.

Re: Apple walks Ars through the iPad Pro’s A12X system on a chip

#43

Post by pohl » Wed, Nov 07, 2018, 9:54 PM UTC

macintux wrote: post #32

carlesfe wrote: post #13

Apple are paving the way to A-chip laptops, not only by building excellent tech, but also PR-wise. Their last keynote was clearly a gymnastics exercise to ignore Intel CPUs and dismiss laptop performance while later praising their own chips which power a tablet that has no software ready to use that much speed. The fact that one of the most secretive companies executes a PR-stunt by providing an exclusive interview t…

> ...which power a tablet that has no software ready to use that much speed. I guess it depends on what you mean by "ready" how long the list is, but I'd suggest that Photoshop, console-quality games, AutoCAD, video editing tools like iMovie, all can take advantage of the speed.

Yeah, Civilization VI is well known to respond well to having additional cores, so I expect the lags I see in late-stage games on large maps to not be as bad as they are on my 1st generation iPad Pro.

Re: Apple walks Ars through the iPad Pro’s A12X system on a chip

#44

Post by iodiniemetra » Wed, Nov 07, 2018, 9:55 PM UTC

camillomiller wrote: post #37

Svexav wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does it have to be a laptop? What not an iPhone with a desktop mode you can pair with a monitor, keyboard, and trackpad? I’d love the ability to carry all my software and data around in a phone without lugging around a laptop or having to buy a desktop computer. And I’d love to never concern myself with transferring or syncing data again. And why not let us connect an iPhone to an eGPU for desktop gaming?

Look up what Tim Cook thinks about convergence. That is not what an iPhone is for. Period. This gimmick is just a pipedream of us nerds. It won't have the slightest chance in the market and it would be a subpar product. Both Huawei and Samsung have implemented such a solution on their flagship smartphones since at least two years. They work as advertised, but nobody could give half a shit about them.

They don't work as advertised - they're terrible.

Besides Microsoft, Google has come the closest, but they're not pushing it as convergence.

I think it is the future, but it's going to be a difficult one that requires an excellent launch - at least 3 years off before the next major inroads.

Re: Apple walks Ars through the iPad Pro’s A12X system on a chip

#45

Post by philwelch » Wed, Nov 07, 2018, 9:56 PM UTC

camillomiller wrote: post #37

Svexav wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does it have to be a laptop? What not an iPhone with a desktop mode you can pair with a monitor, keyboard, and trackpad? I’d love the ability to carry all my software and data around in a phone without lugging around a laptop or having to buy a desktop computer. And I’d love to never concern myself with transferring or syncing data again. And why not let us connect an iPhone to an eGPU for desktop gaming?

Look up what Tim Cook thinks about convergence. That is not what an iPhone is for. Period. This gimmick is just a pipedream of us nerds. It won't have the slightest chance in the market and it would be a subpar product. Both Huawei and Samsung have implemented such a solution on their flagship smartphones since at least two years. They work as advertised, but nobody could give half a shit about them.

You might be right, but I'd like to unpack that a little. Why would that be the case?

Obviously, the laptop form factor is missing, but it would be...interesting if the iPad, iPhone, and MacBook were all pretty much the same compute device with different form factors and different battery sizes and possibly different storage sizes. Honestly, the form factor and user experience are going to be the biggest user-visible differences, and those are also the things Apple seems to care the most about (even if they don't consistently get it right!)

Also, why would you want a single physical device anyway? Because hardware is expensive? Sure, maybe. Because you want to keep all your data in one place? That's the purpose of iCloud. Because you don't trust the cloud and want to keep all of your data physically on the same device and still access it from multiple form factors? That's a small fringe of the market that probably wouldn't buy Apple products anyway.

Re: Apple walks Ars through the iPad Pro’s A12X system on a chip

#46

Post by theluketaylor » Wed, Nov 07, 2018, 9:58 PM UTC

Shivetya wrote: post #35

theluketaylor wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The near total lack of the word "intel" at the keynote was certainly quite noticeable. The question is how much was that a negotiating ploy for better pricing/stock with intel and how much was positioning for arm macs. I think a bit of both. I went back to remind myself of the details of the switch from powerpc to intel. It was announced at wwdc 2005 (june) when they released a developer transition kit. The announcem…

with the iPad line there is no reason to move the computer line to ARM. They would alienate a lot of the current user base who has software there are no Arm equivalents nor likely to ever be one. while I have seen many laud the iPad Pro for its power I haven't see any mention of heat or how long it can sustain a workload. Personally I do not want to see the Mac line change processors again for two reasons, like I men…

iPad, especially with the limitations artificially imposed by iOS is a content consumption device first. You can trick it into other tasks, but it's not a primary computer.

If I was apple I wouldn't go all in on arm macs. I'd build arm thin and light laptops to get incredible battery life and leave the pro line as x86 for at least the next 3+ years. Even if I did decide to stop building new x86 devices I'd support macOS on x86 for at least 5 additional years.

Re: Apple walks Ars through the iPad Pro’s A12X system on a chip

#47

Post by dep_b » Wed, Nov 07, 2018, 9:58 PM UTC

baybal2 wrote: post #25

carlesfe wrote: post #13

Apple are paving the way to A-chip laptops, not only by building excellent tech, but also PR-wise. Their last keynote was clearly a gymnastics exercise to ignore Intel CPUs and dismiss laptop performance while later praising their own chips which power a tablet that has no software ready to use that much speed. The fact that one of the most secretive companies executes a PR-stunt by providing an exclusive interview t…

Man, do you do PR as your job? A very nuanced understanding of the matter you have there.

He's an Apple employee massaging our brains to be ready for the big message in 2019. It's all part of their master plan, the post you replied to has been crafted and trimmed to perfection by Jony Ive, Tim Cook and 26 lawyers.

Re: Apple walks Ars through the iPad Pro’s A12X system on a chip

#48

Post by bitwize » Wed, Nov 07, 2018, 9:58 PM UTC

gambiting wrote: post #36

Svexav wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does it have to be a laptop? What not an iPhone with a desktop mode you can pair with a monitor, keyboard, and trackpad? I’d love the ability to carry all my software and data around in a phone without lugging around a laptop or having to buy a desktop computer. And I’d love to never concern myself with transferring or syncing data again. And why not let us connect an iPhone to an eGPU for desktop gaming?

>>What not an iPhone with a desktop mode you can pair with a monitor, keyboard, and trackpad? That sounds like the most un-apple thing I can possibly imagine. Their ethos was always to build a device that does something incredibly well - a phone that can be a phone but also a desktop computer is everything but this.

ISTR seeing illustrations from an Apple patent showing a computer display with a slot in the back into which an iPhone can be docked, turning the phone into a full-size desktop workstation.

And this was during the Jobs era.

Re: Apple walks Ars through the iPad Pro’s A12X system on a chip

#49

Post by tambourine_man » Wed, Nov 07, 2018, 10:04 PM UTC

theluketaylor wrote: post #28

carlesfe wrote: post #13

Apple are paving the way to A-chip laptops, not only by building excellent tech, but also PR-wise. Their last keynote was clearly a gymnastics exercise to ignore Intel CPUs and dismiss laptop performance while later praising their own chips which power a tablet that has no software ready to use that much speed. The fact that one of the most secretive companies executes a PR-stunt by providing an exclusive interview t…

The near total lack of the word "intel" at the keynote was certainly quite noticeable. The question is how much was that a negotiating ploy for better pricing/stock with intel and how much was positioning for arm macs. I think a bit of both. I went back to remind myself of the details of the switch from powerpc to intel. It was announced at wwdc 2005 (june) when they released a developer transition kit. The announcem…

I really like and share your vision for the Mac line, but I doubt keeping two instruction sets simultaneously is the Apple way.

I hope I’m wrong though.

Re: Apple walks Ars through the iPad Pro’s A12X system on a chip

#50

Post by flazzarino » Wed, Nov 07, 2018, 10:08 PM UTC

ianai wrote: post #18

carlesfe wrote: post #13

Apple are paving the way to A-chip laptops, not only by building excellent tech, but also PR-wise. Their last keynote was clearly a gymnastics exercise to ignore Intel CPUs and dismiss laptop performance while later praising their own chips which power a tablet that has no software ready to use that much speed. The fact that one of the most secretive companies executes a PR-stunt by providing an exclusive interview t…

That sounds like a truthful explanation of their motives. On the one hand, I definitely welcome challengers to the chip industry. On the other, I remember the Power days. Having non Mac users “talk down” to me about using a different processor was beyond annoying. It adds a quill to the Mac haters. Here’s hoping Apple produces cpus that outperform their competitors like their 2 G/s ssds do. Also makes me not really h…

This is all hidden tech, you and OP have very valid points, but who is the intended audience of this message?

In the Jobs' days they'd promote the practical value of a product. For example they might say how the new iPod can have 50k songs, not how big the storage is, let alone the storage type. They'd mention a smaller form factor or improved battery life, not about HDD to SSD.

So when they talk about SoCs, cores, GPUs, intel or anything else hidden, are they signaling to customers? Maybe its signaling to investors that apple is innovating and that ought translate to profits; maybe the inner geek in all of us?

The dirty trick with hidden tech's performance figures is that they don't directly translate to customer value. As you mentioned, you're dissuaded from buying because the new stuff will be so much better. Maybe it will but the old apple would tell you that the new macs can process video in final cut 10x faster, or you don't have to buy a separate gaming rig, i.e. you can do more stuff better.

The good part about focusing on what the products can do is that you can't fake it. You can't fake it to [geeks] like me, [non-geeks like] my mom, my kids, investors, etc.