Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple releases Ipad 3

apple.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 346 posts

Re: Apple releases Ipad 3

#61

Post by jevinskie »

kenrikm wrote: post #50
mbreese wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple doesn't release how much memory their iOS devices have as a tech spec. The best we can do is find out by debug messages (like you just linked) or physically examining the device (ifixit). Apple would say it has "enough" RAM. I thought that one of the game demos mentioned that it had more resources than an Xbox 360 or PS3, but I don't think they were talking about RAM.

IIRC the PS3 has 256mb of ram.

256 MB of XDR (for the Cell BE) and 256 MB of some kind of DDR (for the RSX).

Re: Apple releases Ipad 3

#62

Post by huggyface »

I have four Android smartphones and two tablets, but this is the first Apple product that has really opened my wallet. Literally, my wallet is sitting open.

But their store keeps crashing and going back to the offline state. Called their phone sales and they couldn't help me because they use the online system to enter orders. :-)

Ah well, I'll get one soon enough.

Re: Apple releases Ipad 3

#63

Post by Osiris »

I think Apple is doing a great thing by pushing up display resolutions. I can't believe that PC manufacturers still REFUSE to produce laptops (at least consumer grade) with any resolutions higher than 1366x768.

I've been watching consumer laptop sales for a year and the only one I've seen with a higher resolutions is a 17" beast. Luckily I got a 15" Macbook Pro from work with a 1680x1050.

Everyone's known since the iPhone 4 that Apple would do a hi-res Tablet display, but PC manufacturers still refuse to innovate and put in hi-res displays in their laptops.

I refuse to try to write code with only 768 vertical lines.

Re: Apple releases Ipad 3

#64

Post by afterburner »

lukifer wrote: post #31
afterburner wrote: post #24

It's 10% heavier: http://www.engadget.com/2012/03/07/new-ipad-vs-ipad-2/ Yes, I know why, but I was hoping against hope it would get a little lighter. But I didn't think it would. Maybe next year, when there's no reason to up the resolution.

It's still slightly lighter than the first iPad, so for those of us who didn't upgrade, it'll be an improvement. :)

Heh, yes, by 5%. :)

I think a nice weight would be about 400g. The Kindles are 200-300g, except the DX-2 which is 540g.

Re: Apple releases Ipad 3

#65

Post by WiseWeasel »

moe wrote: post #51
WiseWeasel wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks like they're just calling it "iPad" now on their website. It's an interesting idea; maybe they plan on always calling the current one "iPad", and renaming the old model something like "iPad 2012" once the 2013 "iPad" is released.

The lack of a numbering scheme is a royal pain in the ass when googling bugs or trying to find pretty much any information about a specific model. Although admittedly we already have that with most of their other devices ("do i have an early 2011 MB or was it the mid-2010?") and it's not like other vendors are much better in this regard.

I guess it helps that the iPad is on a yearly release schedule, as opposed to their Mac products.

Re: Apple releases Ipad 3

#66

Post by jevinskie »

kenrikm wrote: post #49
jevinskie wrote: post #18

No mention of bumping the RAM from 512 MB to 1 GB. Even my TF101 Tegra 2 tablet has 1 GB of RAM. I wonder how much the 4x larger retina display assets will increase RAM usage. Edit: I guess it does have 1 GB of RAM. http://chronicwire.com/the-ipad-3-has-1gb-of-ram

I did a test a 1024x768 PNG vs the Same PNG at 2048x1536. 299k vs 664k. So for raster images it more than doubles the footprint, however if you use vector assets there should be little impact.

But you don't store compressed PNGs in RAM for display by the GPU. Does the GPU even support lossless texture compression? I would imagine it supports lossy texture compression.

Edit: It is also interesting to see that the ~ 2x increase in the size of the PNG can be explained by PNG's run length encoding. When you double the pixels in each direction, RLE should readily compress the horizontal pixel replication but not the vertical pixel replication.

Re: Apple releases Ipad 3

#67

Post by YooLi »

icki wrote: post #25

I'm excited that they're addressing user complaints about 'content creation'. iPhoto looks particularly impressive; it looks like people will be using their tablet devices for more than just content consumption now.

"...it looks like people will be using their tablet devices for more than just content consumption now."

They have been for a while...

Re: Apple releases Ipad 3

#68

Post by samstave »

kacy wrote: post #27
Aloisius wrote: post #10

It should be noted that the limited data plans for both AT&T and Verizon mean that at the max 4G speed of 73 Mbps, you could use all your bandwidth for the entire month in less than three and a half minutes (2 GB plan). The overages of $10/GB per month on both services mean once you go over your plan, you'll be looking at a little over $5/minute in new charges. It is possible (though highly unlikely) to rack up over…

Well, you could legitimately use 2GB by simply purchasing a movie that they discussed in the presentation. A 720p version of "Drive" on iTunes is 3.17GB. Soon it will be upgraded to 1080p, which would be at /least/ 5GB. That's at least $50 in data for one movie, assuming the data plans stay the same.

Someone needs to do exactly this, then sue the balls off these carriers for such draconian plans and rates.

Re: Apple releases Ipad 3

#69

Post by cheald »

afterburner wrote: post #24

It's 10% heavier: http://www.engadget.com/2012/03/07/new-ipad-vs-ipad-2/ Yes, I know why, but I was hoping against hope it would get a little lighter. But I didn't think it would. Maybe next year, when there's no reason to up the resolution.

Pushing 4x as many pixels doesn't come cheap. You have to add bigger batteries.

I'm really curious to see what the battery is like when playing games. Quadrupling the effective required fill rate is gonna have that GPU working overtime.

Re: Apple releases Ipad 3

#70

Post by samstave »

Aloisius wrote: post #10

It should be noted that the limited data plans for both AT&T and Verizon mean that at the max 4G speed of 73 Mbps, you could use all your bandwidth for the entire month in less than three and a half minutes (2 GB plan). The overages of $10/GB per month on both services mean once you go over your plan, you'll be looking at a little over $5/minute in new charges. It is possible (though highly unlikely) to rack up over…

This is exactly what happened to me after I bought a MyTouch 4G which allowed wifi hotspotting for my laptop.

While I was not charged overage fees, my data rate was crippled to 57Kbps.

The thing sits in the drawer and I NEVER use it because its useless.

I am paying $100 a month for it. They want $400!!! to cancel it.

Fuck these carriers.

Post reply on HN