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

arstechnica.com

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

#91

Post by ianai »

djrogers wrote: post #86
mattlondon wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

The speed of SSDs is vastly overstated, as they are generally rated at the speed of the fastest component and the real world slows them down. For a comparison of SSDs in actual devices check this out: https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/2018-macbook-pro-benchmar...

My figure is per the 6th benchmark here https://www.laptopmag.com/reviews/laptops/apple-macbook-air-...

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

#92

Post by Svexav »

philwelch wrote: post #45
camillomiller wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> why would you want a single physical device anyway?

All my files and apps setup they way I want them on a single device that's with me 24/7. Complete privacy and security because my data never leaves my device (except for backups to a time machine or iCloud).

I don't have to own multiple computers. I own one computer: my iPhone. There's only one device to setup, update, and maintain. If I want to have a larger screen, VR headset, eGPU, mouse, keyboard, speakers, headphones, etc., I just pair my phone to one. I can buy different peripherals for my home, my office, etc. but I don't to buy redundant computers.

Think of the Nintendo Switch.

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

#93

Post by wbl »

theluketaylor wrote: post #59
tambourine_man wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They have been fully supporting two instruction sets (at times three with arm32 and aarch64) since iphone came out in 2007. I agree it would be odd for the mac line to bifurcate like that, but even in the ppc -> x86 days they supported ppc macs for quite a long time. Apple has been getting great returns from its chip investments because they have been able to reuse the blocks in so many devices. If they do go ARM for…

How often do you need assembler in device drivers?

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

#94

Post by ubercow13 »

ryacko wrote: post #77
briandear wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Besides compiling code, what can’t an iPad do in terms of “creation” that a similarly priced laptop can do? You can edit movies on it, heck, you can even film movies with it, you can write, edit photos, do drafting and drawing (something that laptops can’t easily do,) you can make music on it, use it as a Logic Pro controller. The only think you can’t easily “create” on iPad is code. You can do spreadsheets, work pro…

Well, ackshually, you can run a server from your phone. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/8417321/run-a-webserver-... https://github.com/robbiehanson/CocoaHTTPServer

It might be randomly killed if the app isn't in the foreground with the screen unlocked, though.

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

#95

Post by CoolGuySteve »

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.

Apple executives have a long-standing habit of saying something sucks for whatever reason only to come out a few years later with the same concept only slightly tweaked.

And now that Apple's on board with USB-C, which can do video/power/peripherals, it's not inconceivable that a Monitor+USB hub would be all you need for a plug and play iOS productivity station.

It would be a trivial firmware change for the next release of iMacs to support, and an extension of their existing target-display mode.

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

#96

Post by CoolGuySteve »

bsder wrote: post #67
camillomiller wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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. That's more a reflection of the fact that Samsung and Huawei suck at software--Bixby, anyone? Everybody said the same thing about WiFi. I used WiFi when it first came out--PCMCIA cards, external stick on antennas, etc. Worked as adver…

“No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame.”

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

#97

Post by CoolGuySteve »

threeseed wrote: post #64
tambourine_man wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They've had dual instruction sets almost continuously since the company began: MOS/68k, 68k/PowerPC, PowerPC/Intel, Intel/ARM

When I worked there, we had to support ppc32/ppc64/x86/x86-64/arm32.

Now I'm guessing the dwarf format is: x86-64/arm32/arm64 with arm32 being legacy.

Back then we were also switching from GCC to LLVM, which at the time I thought was ludicrous because we'd be losing all of the flexibility in architectures GCC gave us. But I guess my worries were without merit.

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

#98

Post by X-Istence »

I really wish Apple to stick an A-series chip in a MacBook Pro with an Intel co-processor.

Best of both worlds.

Don't need x86? Don't spin up the Intel chip, doing something that requires x86, spin it on up.

This way you get software compatibility with the power sipping of the ARM CPU.

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

#99

Post by skh »

CoolGuySteve wrote: post #95
camillomiller wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Apple executives have a long-standing habit of saying something sucks for whatever reason only to come out a few years later with the same concept only slightly tweaked. And now that Apple's on board with USB-C, which can do video/power/peripherals, it's not inconceivable that a Monitor+USB hub would be all you need for a plug and play iOS productivity station. It would be a trivial firmware change for the next relea…

Your comment reminded me of Seve Jobs mocking the idea of a pen for iPads. You can’t trust that such statements are true or that even if true today that they will be true in a few years. Ideas, tech, beliefs change and sometimes companies publicly proclaim things that are just plain false.

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

#100

Post by m_mueller »

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 don’t think it’s just nerds. I think the idea has quite a bit of mass appeal [1], it’s just that existing versions are in some way unsatisfactory. the phone is already on its way to replace our wallet and I think it’s just a matter of time for it to replace our laptop bag. I’d very much welcome that if it could do all the things I’m doing on my Thinkpad, it’s just that human interface and OS are not there yet (meanwhile the chip, RAM and storage is not a problem anymore). Give me character input solution that’s >60% of a Thinkpad and maybe a fold-out screen that doubles the area of a 6inch device and you got it, for more I’m gonna sit at a desk with docking.

[1] see for example the movie “her”.

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