News Apple creates own CPU to power iPad

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2010/01/28/apple-creates-own-cpu-to-power-ipad/1

 

i don't know why but i really want this thing to fail

I think initial sales will be good but as soon as people start to realise its no more than a Larger IPhone with no capability for word processing / excel / other real work activities then sales will start to drop to something that has a keyboard attached

 

I think using their new A4 is something of a mistake in a device this size, not so much for the processing power element but the fact that it severely limits the scope of the device capability by taking it down the OS route it has. Much better, IMO, to put an OSX-lite on it with all the touch features & a new front-end gui, which would at least allow a larger & more immediate software base for users.

As for Apple making processors, I think they're rather late to the party really. If they'd bought a licence to continue development of the 68x series processors then yeah, but this far down the line it requires a massive investment to be able to take it forward & no, I don't think Intel will be nervous about this at all - more likely they will respond with a tie-in involving HP or Dell, with a Tablet PC derivative running on Windows 7 (which also already supports multitouch). Good battle, but I think Wintel will ultimately win this one. If Apple had gone with a device about 40-50% smaller, different story, but you can't put this in your pocket and you cant balance it & read comfortably on your lap or on a desk so won't compete with either their own iphone or the netbook properly.

 

I imagine the cost of making their own x86 CPU would have been too high, the Atom is useless and the Nano doesn't play well with non VIA chipsets. ARM was always going to be the way forward, especially when battery life is such a big issue.

 

Doesn't it come with some kind of iWork with these capabilities?

It make sense for them to ship their own chip I think. Presumably they have forecast selling a considerable number of these so why keep themselves beholden to someone else's silicon? Personally though I remain pretty skeptical about this one... time will tell. Let's see what the competition can offer first.

 

Did anyone see the newsnight report on the iPad last night? They had Stephen Fry saying how good it was, and people on saying it would do the same for ebooks that the iPod did for mp3's. There was no hint of the criticism I hear in the community,

Just for that reason, I think the average iPod owner who is interested in books will probably buy one, or the people who just blindly bought an iPhone because it was by apple, will probably buy one too (if they have the funds).
Shame I can't think of anything to do with it that i couldn't already have done on my psp.

 

If that's in response to me, I said 68x, not x86. Something of a typo, I mean the motorola 680x0 processors that the macs originally ran on. Like I say, they've entered that part of the industry far too late to offer any real threat to Intel.

 

I for one might consider exchanging my unibody macbook for this device, but I will have to see it in the flesh first!

 

The hardware is quite interesting, nice to see the ARM core pushing further into the market. Apple have always been good at interfaces and it seems this is a good follow-up to the work they've done on the iPod Touch and iPhone. However...

I won't buy one, no matter how well it does what it's supposed to do. I'd rather not have Apple telling me what I can and can't do with my own computer, thank you very much.

 

It was in response to the last paragraph of the article.

 

I'm putting my name down for 2. One of me and one for the wife.

The chip and the way it is created is only an issue if you need that extra freedom. Me and the wife have that extra freedom on our other gadgets. This will be purely for social, convenience and 'some' business use.

 

I still can't see any point to this or any other tablet PC...

 

i don't get why would anyone get this instead of a netbook. netbook has a real keyboard, a netbook can multi-task, a netbook can run other programs don't need jailbreak, a netbook can do everything apple tablet does, including reading e-book if you hold it side ways.


as for the Apple A4 processor, i think the rumours on ARM's IP Cortex-A9 or A8 are very accurate. there is no reason for them to port the iPhone OS to Power architecture if they can simply use ARM's IP.

what people usually don't understand is that ARM doesn't really make the processors, they make the intellectual properties which they take a share in every product sold with its IP. so even if the silicon is made by PA Semi, it doesn't make any difference if it's made by Samsung or Intel's fab.

also, Apple's keynote, Jobs said creating their own processor allowed them to do all kind of optimisations. i call bullcrap, unless they make the processor from instruction level, there is not much to optimise. all they've done is to cut down cost by creating a device specific SoC solution.

 

I'd rather have Eee touch. $450 for 8.9" touch screen, full keyboard (eee size ), 1 GB ram, 16GB SSD (with a free 16GB SD card and 20 GB online storage)

 

Assuming of course Intel would grant them a licence, as I believe if you want to make an x86 CPU you have to get a licence from Intel

 

Very true.

 

watching the keynote and the NFS Shift part seems very bad quality. looks to me just higher resolution of iPhone 3GS version.

which i am thinking it's using the same graphics processor as 3GS? not Tegra?

 

I fear many will see this as a way to get a cheap Mac.


Worse though. the more I read, see and hear about this thing, the more I think it will fail.

Locked OS?
What are they thinking, they have created the old Apple commercial... A bunch of drones.

Sorry, but look at the issues with locked Iphones and apps that has already going on. Do you really want your entire computer like that? A phone will at least work as a phone, but given Apple's penchant for just dropping support for old hardware, what happens if in 2 years they do an update on this thing and decide no more support?

Edit:
This is perfect...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQnT0zp8Ya4&feature=player_embedded#

 

I must have had my head in the sand, what's been going on?

 

This is very disappointing. There I was, thinking that Apple had done something revolutionary, lo-and-behold they've just packaged the same processor that was used in the Nexus One, a small graphics card and a memory controller in a chip. Bo-ring.