iPad Pro • Hacker News Board

Re: iPad Pro

#361

Post by sergiotapia » Tue, Oct 30, 2018, 5:32 PM UTC

SllX wrote: post #24

From the keynote, Cook claimed the new A12X Bionic[1] is faster than 92% of portable PCs[2] (in English, laptops, Surfaces) sold in the past year, including some i7 models. - 8 core CPU (4 low and 4 high power cores) - 7 core GPU - HEVC encoding/decoding - Neural Engine (they haven't made any comparisons to the A12 sans X neural engine, so at this point I think it's the same) - Audio DSP, Storage controller, Image Si…

The more hardware support for HVEC the faster the scene will move to x265, the smaller files everywhere. I'm excited!

Re: iPad Pro

#362

Post by dragontamer » Tue, Oct 30, 2018, 5:32 PM UTC

DrNuke wrote: post #29

It is impressive but an overkill imho, going into desktops’ territory. I would have bought a refreshed iPad mini instead.

Certainly not "desktop territory" (at least, 2018 desktop), but its definitely in "laptop territory" now, which is a major advancement.

Desktops are 8-fat-core behemoths in 2018 with incredible potential. Ryzen 7 2700x == 8-core / 16 threads. Intel i7-9700k isn't even the top-end anymore and is also 8-core /(only 8-threads). And its actually reasonable to build a 64-GB of RAM Consumer Desktop (Ryzen 7 2700x or Intel i7-9700k).

------

iPad Pro may be 8-core... but its configuration is 4-fast core + 4-low-power Core, still building itself as a way to reduce power consumption at the cost of speed / performance.

4GB of RAM is also pitiful and won't be sufficient for desktop-level tasks.

Desktops can run 8-fat cores all day long due to their wall-power connection. iPads are still designed for mobility and low-power consumption. Its a good compromise, but I wouldn't bill it as anything more than a laptop-class system.

Re: iPad Pro

#363

Post by jrochkind1 » Tue, Oct 30, 2018, 5:32 PM UTC

collinf wrote: post #344

jrochkind1 wrote: post #332

How long til they stop selling laptops or developing MacOS (as opposed to iOS), ya think?

I would have to imagine that they have a huge market share of Developer laptops. Unless they are willing to jeopardize all of that or integrate developer first productivity into a tablet which nobody has done yet, MacOS will stay.

How much revenue/profit do you think they get from that (possibly, imagined) huge market share? Compared to iOS?

I guess that is something we could research.

This isn't profit/revenue, but some brief googling suggests 77 million iOS devices shipped in Q1 2018, and 5 million MacOS devices in the same quarter.

It seems clear that devices like this one announced are at least intended to capture some of the previous market for MacOS laptops as well.

Market share doesn't mean much if the market isn't contributing much to their bottom line, and/or has an expense to produce out of line with it's revenue/profit.

Ah, here we go:

"The Mac's Waning Relevance to Apple" https://www.statista.com/chart/8817/mac-sales-as-a-percentag...

I think releases like OP will accelerate this trend further.

Re: iPad Pro

#364

Post by sigi45 » Tue, Oct 30, 2018, 5:32 PM UTC

clawoo wrote: post #277

criddell wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not just put a case on it?

Billions of dollars in research and industrial design, thousands of man-hours sourcing the perfect materials, hundreds of thousands of hours of engineering that give a device a most perfect feel. Only to be placed in a $10 case with bunny ears so it won't crack if you accidentally drop it.

Exactly!

Slim sleack shiny phones which break when dropped. Easily dropped because of shiny slippery surface.

What to do? Put some cheap something around it.....

And I'm wondering why people ask me why I don't have a case around my phone.

I don't get the thin phone to have more space for the plastic protection that's why...

Re: iPad Pro

#365

Post by OkGoDoIt » Tue, Oct 30, 2018, 5:32 PM UTC

olyjohn wrote: post #334

lwkl wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft is preparing the move to ARM too. I'd be really interested how the performance will be. The Intel Mobile Processor (i7 + M7) felt really slow before the eight generation and still used a lot of power (at least in the Lenovo and HP Business notebooks).

Is Microsoft preparing an x86 emulation layer for their ARM-based OS? Because as the past has proven, nobody wants to buy a Windows PC that can't run Windows software. Unfortunately, it's almost all been compiled to run on x86. Or are they still betting on moving everything to UWP?

Yes, it was launched earlier this year: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/porting/apps-on...

Re: iPad Pro

#366

Post by bunnycorn » Tue, Oct 30, 2018, 5:33 PM UTC

metafizikal wrote: post #267

saagarjha wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iPad Pro has 4 GB of RAM. There are Macs with that much RAM that can run Xcode.

But iOS doesn't have a concept of swap like a traditional PC OS like macOS or Windows does, does it?

Correct, it kills apps before they swap.

Re: iPad Pro

#367

Post by MontagFTB » Tue, Oct 30, 2018, 5:34 PM UTC

OskarS wrote: post #156

stupidbird wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scrolling through layers in photoshop doesn't necessarily just scroll a list though, it's also actively selecting the content of those layers... which can be very complex (I didn't watch the demo so I'm not entirely sure of the specific scrolling context). You're dealing with filters, transparencies, hand-drawn paths, masking, linked files, embedded files — there's a wide realm of potential data and complexity. If yo…

If you want to test the mettle of a computer, try opening a large Photoshop file and doing anything in it. This, right here, is why it's an indictment of the software industry. It SHOULDN'T be impressive that Photoshop doesn't lag. When she said that line, the entire audience should have shrugged and said to themselves "Of course you can zoom into an image in Photoshop. It's 2018. What's the big deal?"

The demo file shown at the event was 12000x12000, 127 layers. It was 3GB on disk, 5GB fully loaded into memory. Double-tap to zoom was happening at 120Hz, fully animated, to anywhere within the document.

I realize I'm biased, but on such a machine, the observed performance is anything but rudimentary.

Re: iPad Pro

#368

Post by hobls » Tue, Oct 30, 2018, 5:34 PM UTC

reacharavindh wrote: post #32

I wish they made an iPhone SE as a miniature form of this iPad. square-ish edges (easier to hold), better & larger LCD displays within the same body size, and powerful internals. The new iphones are just too big for one-handed use. you want to type the name of the website on top bar of mobile Safari - bring the next hand out or drop your phone....

> bring the next hand out or drop your phone....

This is not a great solution, but in "Accessibility Options" you can enable the gesture to swipe down on the bottom to bring the top of the screen down to the middle so you can reach it one handed. It's clunky but helpful.

It's the functionality that used to be on a double tap of the home button or something, and I thought it was removed, but it was just turned off by default.

Re: iPad Pro

#369

Post by lozf » Tue, Oct 30, 2018, 5:36 PM UTC

dpark wrote: post #197

ghostly_s wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"mostly acceptable teardrop everyone else standardized on."?

Yeah, that's pretty delusional. I don't think anyone has created a phone with a notch that would accurately be characterized as a teardrop shape. The closest was probably Essential (which inexplicably had a notch and a chin). The Pixel 3 notch is a V shape. The OnePlus notch pretty much looks like an iPhone notch. There's no "standard" and certainly no "standard teardrop shape".

Looks more like a "condensation drip about to fall" than a tear drop...

Not very catchy though, perhaps "innovative CDATF notch - uses 66% less screen space" would sound hype enough for the Marketing department?

Re: iPad Pro

#370

Post by Karunamon » Tue, Oct 30, 2018, 5:36 PM UTC

SteveNuts wrote: post #333

MR4D wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steve is rolling over in his grave on this.

People have been saying this since the day after Steve died... Yet somehow Apple still thrives.

I think Apple has become enough of a

crosses self, prays for forgiveness

/lifestyle brand/

...that it's going to take a massive misstep of some kind to shake people off the platform. A handful of UI misfeatures won't do it, even if it would do it to users of other software and platforms.