The Apple iPad - Anand's Analysis
by Anand Lal Shimpi on January 27, 2010 5:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Mobile
Resolution and Video Decoding
The iPad uses a 9.7” IPS panel with a 1024 x 768 resolution. The panel technology is great, the resolution is a bit disappointing.
Video decoding is presumably fully hardware accelerated, but there are limitations here. Apple says you can only decode H.264 video up to 720p, 30 frames per second, Main Profile level 3.1 with AAC-LC audio up to 48kHz. The only containers supported are .m4v, .mp4 and .mov.
This is horribly unfortunate and it means that anyone with existing content not in a friendly format will have to convert it before it’ll play on the iPad. While Apple likes to assume the world revolves around it, the truth is it just doesn’t. This is great for folks who already watch movies on their iPhones and not so great for those who don’t. Luckily with a good enough desktop, transcoding movies to your iPad shouldn’t be too painful.
There’s no camera on the device so I’m assuming there’s no video encoding support either. You can get rid of any image processing as well. In order to hit that $499 price point with such an attractive device Apple most likely had to cut corners wherever possible.
Final Words
Apple never entered the netbook market because it believed the devices weren’t very good. I’d tend to agree. You can get better performance and similar size out of a CULV notebook if you’re looking for an actual notebook. The netbook makes sense if you are using it as a 2nd, 3rd or 4th machine - but then who’s to say that you need to stick with the same form factor as a notebook?
This is where the tablet/smartbook device comes in.
Intel’s Atom processor is more than fast enough for the tasks you’d do on a netbook. The issue is that the OS and its applications running on netbooks are optimized for a class of processor that’s many times faster than Atom.
The iPad isn’t revolutionary, it simply takes an OS tailored to the power of the machine and pairs it with hardware that doesn’t look or feel like a netbook. Assuming that browsing the web, sending emails, using apps and watching videos is as fast on the iPad as it is on an Atom based netbook, Apple will have effectively capped the price of netbooks at $499. And to be honest, there’s no reason netbooks should ever approach that price to begin with.
A device that slots in between a smartphone and a notebook shouldn't look too much like either device. It needs to borrow from the strengths of both and bundle them in an attractive package. As a consumption device, the iPad looks promising. The big unknowns for me are: multitasking support, the performance of the A4 and ultimately whether or not you can actually be productive on the iPad. Based on all of that, we'll be able to figure out how much this thing is really worth.
Like the original iPhone (perhaps even moreso), the iPad is an extremely polarizing device. Even among AT staff it's a hit or miss depending on the person, regardless of their Mac buying history. For what it's worth, Mike Andrawes and I are both excited about its potential. Perhaps it's what we've been waiting for these past ten years.
We’ll find out in 60 days.
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piroroadkill - Thursday, January 28, 2010 - link
Seemed plausible, but wikipedia seems to cite it as being Cortex A9-MPCorecjs150 - Thursday, January 28, 2010 - link
Movies: Sadly for apple my home system runs windows. I am not going to transcode movies that set up for windows media centre just to play on the iPAD - I did this once for the PSP and it is a pain.Also only 720p is pathetic.
EBooks: big plus point will be format but will want to see DRM rules first. However all ebook readers fail for me - I am a very quick reader, ebook readers like Ipad only display a single page at a time and currently the refresh rate on page turnover makes reading a very poor substitute for a real book.
itunes - do not use, storage is dirt cheap and I only use lossless formats - sounds better as well.
Storage: needs an SSD.
Output - no HDMI port
So far the only things this will be any use for are
1. reading the newspaper on my morning commute - as it is a better size - but even there how do I do the sudoku and crossworld puzzles in the paper
2. keeping kids quiet on long journeys by watching movies - but the PSP does that and is a lot cheaper
Not impressed. Suggested second gen improvements: HDMI port, SSD capability, expand the formats supported, speed up the processor so that page turnover for Ebooks is instant, 1080p display and that is just off the top of my head
Griswold - Thursday, January 28, 2010 - link
No mention of the lacking flash support? And they call it a surfpad?piroroadkill - Thursday, January 28, 2010 - link
Because there is NOTHING compelling about iPad, the oversized ipod touch.It is so amazingly limited, and so expensive for what you can do, that it literally seems like apple is creating a parody product that is a sure fire way to tell if someone is an absolute dick
piroroadkill - Thursday, January 28, 2010 - link
Maybe I should build out on that comment:No multitasking
No flash/java (Apple™ Full Internet Experience®)
No full OS X, and thusly, no freedom to decide what you want on it, apple decides
Capacative touchscreen (creating the retarded bezel, and removing all use as a sketching tool, which mystifies me, surely Apple goes for creative types, and a sketching tablet would be attractive, ooh, but PINCH TO ZOOM)
No SD port, or indeed, memory expansion of any kind (640k is enough, right)
No replacable battery (Apple's perfect creation would never run out and need charging when you need it most, surely!)
piroroadkill - Thursday, January 28, 2010 - link
If only I could edit. That said, it will sell in the millions and be heralded as amazing, of course, proving once again, you really can sell a turd. A REALLY polished and shiny turdcharles Monneron - Thursday, January 28, 2010 - link
One thing the iPad could excel with is remote desktop display. Jaadu VNC on the iPhone already provides a very decent experience on the iPhone (I can even use the "Spaces" feature on OS X on an iPhone 3G with 3G connection), but the use is ultimately crippled by the small size of the screen, especially when one needs to display a keyboard. With an IPad, such app would really shine.With virtualized machine outputing as VNC servers, it could be a cost effective for corporates compared to laptops, with much better data security (with VPN or SSH tunelling, that IPhone OS offers).
Of course, the same can be said for netbooks, but, ironically, they become too powerful for this usage !
As far as I am concerned, as I always have wireless internet access, I see no point at having a laptop anymore. An IPad, possibly with the keyboard accessory, and a desktop/server at home is sufficient for me.
piroroadkill - Thursday, January 28, 2010 - link
A netbook too powerful?As a consumer do you often think "damn, this is too powerful for my needs, I've just been waiting all this time for a less powerful, more restricted, and more expensive product to come along!"
charles Monneron - Thursday, January 28, 2010 - link
Powerful as in too hot on my lap. The superfluous software layers of a full fledged Windows XP (or worse, windows 7) end up eating cpu power and shorten battery life. When I play a video on my iphone, it stays cool. Read the introduction to the article again !zonkie - Thursday, January 28, 2010 - link
What Apple is doing with the iPad is pretty smart.The iPad isn't really intended to be revolutionary as a computing device. It will be just good enough at enough things that you will justify it's purchase. It's meant to find more ways to sell you Apple stuff. It's not going too be great at anything except giving you the preceived need to buy loads of small ticket items from Apple.
You can read a book on it so you're going to try that out. Money for Apple. You're going to buy that stupid beer drinking app a 2nd time. Money for Apple. You're going to buy apps and music and data plans and it all has to be from Apple.
People buy a netbook and get all the functions the iPad has and mostly for free. Apple is smart because they are finding magical ways to seperate you from your cash under the guise of convenience.