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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- Thursday, January 28, 2010 - link
Just another revenue stream by zonkie, 17 hours agoWhat Apple is doing with the iPad is pretty smart.LOL
asH
zonkie - Friday, January 29, 2010 - link
It's smart because they've created another item that makes you purchase things you wouldn't normally AND you have to do it from them.ltcommanderdata - Thursday, January 28, 2010 - link
http://www.brightsideofnews.com/News.aspx?id=1117&...">http://www.brightsideofnews.com/News.aspx?id=1117&...It'd be great to find out more about the iPad's GPU. Bright Side of News is reporting that it might be an ARM Mali 50-Series which doesn't make much sense seeing that the Mali-55 is only an OpenGL ES 1.1 part. Given Apple's prior experience and financial backing, a PowerVR SGX chip is most likely, probably the often rumoured SGX 545.
And I wonder how much RAM the iPad has. 512MB seems reasonable, although given the extra room and low RAM prices, 1GB is quite doable.
Anand Lal Shimpi - Thursday, January 28, 2010 - link
I seriously doubt it is the ARM Mali. From what I've heard it's nearly 100% that the iPad uses a PowerVR SGX. Remember Apple owns nearly 10% of Imagination Technologies. To not use one of their cores seems hypocritical :)Take care,
Anand
Mike1111 - Thursday, January 28, 2010 - link
512MB sounds right. Especially since there's no multitasking.ltcommanderdata - Thursday, January 28, 2010 - link
Personally, I think multitasking is still coming with iPhone OS 4.0. With the new accounting rules, hopefully major OS updates will be free for the iPad just like they are with the iPhone.synaesthetic - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - link
I really thought this thing was 80% useless at first.I didn't expect it to have support for rendered soft subtitles, which already killed the device in my eyes as a media player.
But no support for the MKV container format?
No support for h.264 decoding above the median profile? And I'm guessing it won't support AVC encodes with more than 8 or so reference frames, either...
I'm convinced now that the iPad is 100% useless. But of course Apple will sell a bajillion of them.
sprockkets - Thursday, January 28, 2010 - link
Matroska is only used by open source nuts and that's it. The rest of the world uses the official standard mp4 container.The only advantage of HP vs. MP is 8x8 transform and nothing else. It buys you very little in quality/file size. I've tested it myself.
Limitations of # of reference frames should not exist; ie all devices should support the maximum 16 supported by MPEG4-AVC.
Besides, where do people get those nice 1080p mkv files from, eh? At least unlike some other ppl I know in the smaller form factors (that's you Cowon), Apple supports H.264 from top to bottom.
OCedHrt - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - link
I'm very interested in some kind of linux variant OS for this kind of hardware running on the Sony X series. It's the same weight and thickness with a larger screen and faster(?) processor and also has a multi-touch display. Just that it is not in a tablet form.Candide08 - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - link
The Apple tablet does not multi-task. This is a serious flaw.It also does not plat flash on the web another serious flaw.
Add in a lack or removable media and I wonder about the usefulness of this device.
The OS and multi-touch interface are the strong points for this and the iPhone, but need to be developed to really be revolutionary.