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

#141

Post by tambourine_man » Thu, Nov 08, 2018, 4:08 AM UTC

tambourine_man wrote: post #49

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…

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.

To everyone citing transitions and Mac & iPhone, I meant two architectures for the same product, not as stop gap, but fully supported going forward.

And it’s not that the can’t techically, it’s that they are all about focus and unambiguous messages to developers and costumers.

But after reading it all, I guess they could fork the Mac into two categories. Air, light or whatever, and Pro.

I actually like that idea a lot.

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

#142

Post by iagooar » Thu, Nov 08, 2018, 5:58 AM UTC

xvector wrote: post #110

iagooar wrote: post #56

This is nuts. The iPad Pro is so massively ahead of the game, it's even hard to believe. It is faster than the MBP 2017 and ALMOST as fast as the MBP 2018. We're talking a device that is 5.9mm thick and is battery-powered! Now here's my prediction: Apple does not really want to build an ARM-powered MBP. Instead, they will eventually allow iPads to double boot into iOS and/or MacOS. Call me crazy, but this would be hu…

Tim Cook himself flat out said they have no intention of ever merging MacOS and iOS or converging the two in any way.

Merging does not equal dual boot. They'd still be separate pieces of software, but the ability to run MacOS on iPad hardware would be huge.

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

#143

Post by ksec » Thu, Nov 08, 2018, 6:10 AM 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…

>The question is how much was that a negotiating ploy for better pricing/stock with intel.

From an Apple perspective you could easily justify the price for all the old Intel Chip. 1. Intel has a 2 years+ node advantage which you cant get anywhere even if you pay. 2. Intel has the best performance / watt CPU on the market, also highest performance Core on the market, you cant get it anywhere even if you pay. 3. x86 compatibility, which is more like a x86 tax. Although you could get it from AMD.

Now the first two is gone. TSMC has now edged Intel in node, Apple themselves has the best Pref / Watt work in A12X. AMD has proved to be very competitive at the high end. And Intel is still charging Apple the same when they have far less value.

Apple is now being hold up by Intel, but I don't think Apple could dump Intel just yet. There are two thing that is holding Apple up.

Thunderbolt - TB is currently still an Intel only technology. There are no other host controller on the market other than Intel's one. And they cost a fortune ( relatively speaking ) Apple has invested a lot into TB, but Intel is making all the same Firewire mistakes. May be Apple is working on a USB 4.0 solution, and they would dump TB once and for all in 2020. Intel promised to make TB as an open standard in 2018 but has yet to do so.

Modem - Apple relied on Intel Modem for iPhone, which is Apple's bread and butter. Before any move on the Mac side Apple will need to think about its consequences on Modem. In worst case Apple could switch away from x86 and Intel decide to hike the price of Intel Modem. I think the revenue of Modem is roughly the same as revenue of x86 from Mac. Intel 10nm isn't performing. And Apple is not happy with Intel on both front.

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

#144

Post by jacobolus » Thu, Nov 08, 2018, 6:14 AM UTC

skh wrote: post #131

Arn_Thor wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a pet peeve of mine.. Steve didn't mock the idea of styluses in abstract, he didn't want it to be the default and only way people interact with their devices. So Apple made the operation of iPad be all about the touch experience. Now, later on Apple released a much improved stylus as an optional, secondary and not at all necessary input method. That has nothing to do with the truth or untruth of Job's stateme…

My recollection is different. The only thing I could find on Youtube substantiates your claim. I was wrong. Thank you for pointing this out. I think my overall point still stands though.

Q: How do you close applications when multitasking?
A: (Scott Forstall) You don't have to. The user just uses things and doesn't ever have to worry about it.

A: (Steve Jobs) It's like we said on the iPad, if you see a stylus, they blew it. In multitasking, if you see a task manager... they blew it. Users shouldn't ever have to think about it.

The point was that using a stylus as intermediary when doing basic interaction with a touchscreen is indirect/awkward and unnatural (the mouse is too, frankly), not that nobody should ever use a stylus for drawing.

Styluses clearly have a big precision (and visibility) advantage vs. tracking a whole fingertip touching/sliding around the screen (i.e. if we compare inherent human capabilities, not specific hardware), but relying on a stylus is also much more prescriptive about acceptable hand movements, and all of the stylus-first mobile devices pretty much suck compared to finger-based multitouch, in practice.

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

#145

Post by kllrnohj » Thu, Nov 08, 2018, 6:39 AM UTC

tokyodude wrote: post #126

Is it really true this A12X is comparable to last year's Macbook Pro? On that Macbook Pro I could run several VMWare sessions running Windows and Linux (have run 3 at the same time in the past). I can run Handbrake encoding videos across cores while still browsing the net in Chrome with 4 windows open each to different profiles each with 5 to 20 tabs. Have 4 terminal windows open, at list one of them serving a dev we…

It is comparable at running geekbench 4, yes. And some web benchmarks seem pretty comparable.

But your workload doesn't seem to include those things, so hard to say. Critically A12X is unlikely to have hardware virtualization support, so your use case of VMware would be slow even if it wasn't doing any binary translation.

Also your MBP's fans spin because it's trying to achieve higher sustained performance. Typically mobile devices will just instead thermal throttle hard. Like, lose half their performance hard. How well can the iPad Pro sustain its performance? That's a real big question.

Re AWS racks: No, they can't. A12X in the server world would be a joke. It'd be competing against things like AMD's Rome which is 64 cores / 128 threads with, and this part is critical, up to 4TB of RAM with 128 PCI-E lanes. Even if the A12X could compete on raw CPU throughput it can't compete on I/O, virtualization, etc... The A12X is also going to be pulling a lot more power than you might expect. It's not that much more power efficient.

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

#146

Post by gambiting » Thu, Nov 08, 2018, 7:46 AM UTC

aaronblohowiak wrote: post #40

gambiting wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>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.

The iPad is already this but with a bigger screen.

No, I'd argue it isn't. Even if you connect an external keyboard an display to the iPad, you are just getting the ipad experience on a larger screen. There is never any transformation of interface when used this way. Apple has never allowed mouse/trackpad on iOS(with some very very narrow exceptions) so it's not transformative - you are still getting the same experience essentialy.

For it to work on the iPhone, they would have to add support for some kind of mouse/trackpad, because the iphone itself is sitting in the dock - and I don't see apple doing that in a million years.

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

#147

Post by m_mueller » Thu, Nov 08, 2018, 8:03 AM UTC

kllrnohj wrote: post #134

m_mueller wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think one thing you’re missing is how good Apple’s GPU have become (and will be in 1-2 years). I’m thinking you’re going to have a hybrid architecture for MBP. The T2 will expand to support all of Apple’s own software plus all upgraded one sold through a revamped Mac Appstore (plus hopefully your own compiled stuff when security settings are off). This can power down (all but ~2 cores) and instead power up an x86 c…

> I think one thing you’re missing is how good Apple’s GPU have become (and will be in 1-2 years). Not compared to other discreet GPUs they haven't. They are still 5 years behind consoles. The only time mobile ever "catches up" and achieves "console-class" is near the end of a consoles ~5-8 year lifetime. The performance is superb for mobile, and certainly good enough for integrated (it'd be perfect in something like…

Right, but I figure this could be scaled up with larger dies. Sure, Apple is not yet on eye level with Nvidia & AMD, but given their massive R&D budgets I don’t think that’s for long. Also, AR & VR drives demand for GPU FLOPS/Watt in a tight envelope, which has proven to scale quite well to larger chips in CPUs (see mobile ARM -> Cavium & co.).

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

#148

Post by mtgx » Thu, Nov 08, 2018, 8:23 AM UTC

philwelch wrote: post #87

ianai wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Moving to Intel chips did two or three things for Apple: 1. It helped them jump from a failing CPU platform to a non-failing CPU platform. PPC was not keeping up with x86 anymore and Apple's two PPC vendors were going in opposite directions because there wasn't enough of a market for CPU's for Macs. (There were even rumors of future Power Macs migrating to a full POWER CPU rather than PPC.) 2. It meant you could run…

Apple is already blocking Linux installations on new hardware via the T2 chip, so I'm getting the feeling Apple doesn't care much about Linux support on its laptops.

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

#149

Post by solarkraft » Thu, Nov 08, 2018, 10:02 AM UTC

jimbokun wrote: post #105

m_mueller wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 (mean…

"it’s just that existing versions are in some way unsatisfactory" You say this as if it is an easy problem to solve.

Not easy, but something Apple is good at.

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

#150

Post by solarkraft » Thu, Nov 08, 2018, 10:05 AM UTC

gambiting wrote: post #146

aaronblohowiak wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The iPad is already this but with a bigger screen.

No, I'd argue it isn't. Even if you connect an external keyboard an display to the iPad, you are just getting the ipad experience on a larger screen. There is never any transformation of interface when used this way. Apple has never allowed mouse/trackpad on iOS(with some very very narrow exceptions) so it's not transformative - you are still getting the same experience essentialy. For it to work on the iPhone, they…

iOS still has a long, long way to go. It seems like they're preparing all the hardware, though.