Nothing moves the memory market quicker than FUD - Andrew Norwood, Dataquest
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Time for Apple rivals to chance their ARM
THE UNVEILING of Apple's Ipad pushed up shares in two British companies on the assumption that their technology was used in the device, namely Imagination and ARM.
Its integrated graphics engine is believed to be based on a design from Imagination Technology, in which Apple has a 9.5 per cent stake. Of wider significance is the near certainty, given that the Ipad can run most Iphone software, that its Apple-designed system-on-a-chip (SoC) uses a processor core based on chips designed by ARM - or at least one using the ARM instruction set.
ARM was being very coy about this after the launch, refusing to confirm or deny that its technology was used. What is certain is that a lot of other companies have been developing tablets using ARM-based SoCs and they have been waiting to see what Apple comes up with. Now they know what they are up against - and is it really such a hard act to beat?
Steve Jobs did his usual superlative salesman number, giving the impression that all good things come only from Apple. For the record, Apple is hardly the originator here. Acorn did an experimental electronic tablet newspaper in the early nineties; Natsemi dedicated an entire stand to what it called webpads, identical in concept to the Ipad, a decade ago at Comdex. Microsoft has been plugging tablets for almost as long.
The Ipad's ten-hour battery life is about par for an ARM device, particularly one weighing 680g. We cannot yet gauge the performance of the Apple SoC but it has some strong competition in Qualcomm's Snapdragon, Nvidia's Tegra2, Freescale's iMX series, and TI's OMAP family - all ARM based. Apple could have an edge in that it has tailored its SoC to a particular device rather than to a generic one; we will not know until we have products to compare.
The IPad is a brilliant design, as you would expect from Apple, but also typically shows symptoms of form overriding function. There is no on-board USB port, only a proprietary connector for a docking station; it comes with a USB adapter, but you will have to remember to carry that around with you. And there is no wired network port, so you are stuck with capricious 3G if you hit a hotel with no WiFi - assuming you have paid $130 extra for the model with 3G.
The Apple press release stresses the fact that the battery should retain 80 percent of its capacity after 1,000 recharge cycles, but omits to say whether it has be replaced by an expensive transplant requiring a skilled surgeon like some other devices from the company.
So there seems little on the hardware front that Ipad rivals could not match or improve on. Apple's big advantage lies in the software base, services and market momentum it can carry over from its smaller devices. Whether a jumped-up Iphone interface will work in a larger format remains to be seen, though there seems no reason why it shouldn't when people are doing the kind of task the Iphone does well.
As Steve Jobs pointed out at the launch, people are not going to lug around a larger device if it does nothing they can't do on a smaller one. The bigger screen is better for browsing, reading, and viewing still and moving images but these activities can be done on an Iphone, albeit less comfortably. With current screen technology, e-readers with their bi-stable displays are better for prolonged reading and can be bought for half the price of the Ipad.
The large format becomes an imperative if it enables a device to function as a working platform, or more generally as one on which you can express yourself freely without being hampered by the technology. For people like myself, who believe that the tablet will develop into the definitive early 21st computing device (though not necessarily now), this is what qualifies a design as mature.
The Iphone, a delivery platform with rudimentary input, does not qualify. The Ipad does, by virtue of what looks like a fairly usable soft keyboard and an optional combined keyboard/dock. It hardly looks like something you would want to write War and Peace on, but we shall have to see.
It should be judged against the best design for a working tablet to date, which came from Microsoft more than half a decade ago and was epitomised by the Samsung Q1 in 2006. This was constrained by the technology of the day, with less powerful and more thirsty hardware, and it lacked Apple's innovative multi-touch interface. But it weighed only 780g, and could do just about everything the Ipad can do, plus handwriting recognition with support for speech recognition. You could do serious work on it.
Wintel, with more frugal Atom processors and an even greater software base than Apple, still cannot be ruled out of the tablet race. But ARM-based tablets are more exciting because they offer a chance to break from the mindset of 20th-century computing.
MSI is ready to launch a Tegra-based model that will probably run the Google-backed Android operating system; Acer is also said to have an ARM-based product in the pipeline. More tablets will be on show at next month's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, as samples and reference designs if not as shipping products.
They might lack the glamour and momentum of Apple products but there is no reason the Ipad cannot be beaten on features and price. Apple's walled garden approach, trying to lock users and content providers into its online sales machine, could finally backfire in face of more open competition, allowing the Ipad hype to boost the sales of rival machines.
Although Apple had tried a tablet once before with the ill-fated Newton more than a decade ago and abandoned the product after it didn't catch on, it might be right in returning to the format only lately, because only now is the technology and infrastructure up to doing the job half-way properly. The big question, ironically, is whether Apple has brought out the Ipad too early. The enabling technology, from large components like displays down to details like screen texture, still has a long way to go before the tablet format can fully live up to its promise. µ
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Commenting this: "Steve Jobs did his usual superlative salesman number, giving the impression that all good things come only from Apple. For the record, Apple is hardly the originator here. "
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So yes, Apple *is* the originator.
He would better check Apple Newton history, which starts in 1987 as latest and with the product which released as Newton being the smallest "tablet" of three variants Apple prepared to 1993.
And that was a tablet, indeed. Newton was quite a big 1.5 pound non-pocketable product.
Most of the other companies(including M$) failed because they were not clever enough implementing the technology. Despite the editors comments I am sure that iPad will be a bigger revolution in the IT industry than iPhone.
I personally was looking for a iPad with GPS as well as a phone capability via a Bluetooth headset.
I'd carry around the iPad in my briefcase with only the phone system on and when I received a call, I whip out the iPad and look up my Work documents and maybe look on the Internet whilst on the phone.
The GPS would guide me in a new city via the Bluetooth headset.
OK, I can this with a phone and a iPad. But I want one gadget not 2!
A little disappointed.
But if the iPhone is anything to go by in 6 months time a bigger or better iPad called the iSlate may be released with these features?
Lenovo already has answered that issue with its hybrid notebook that also has a undockable tablet.
http://shop.lenovo.com/us/landing_pages/products/new-product-showcase
Create a cover for the Ipad that can open like a notebook, or pivit around to the back, or is removable. Make the cover very thin, and put in a sensor so it can be used like a keyboard so you can use it in that mode. Give it bluetooth so it can be used as a keyboard even with it removed.
It is very unlikely to be arm mali as the gpu, I've no idea what the thinking here is , but the initial articles quoted mali-55 , which is underpowered compared to what the iPad specs have shown.
It also would cause major problems with current iphone apps due to them being written with PVR tech in mind. Mainly the compressed textures...
see it here: http://www.windowsfordevices.com/c/a/Windows-For-Devices-Articles/Windowspowered-mobile-tablets-webpads-UMPCs-and-MIDs/
Problem is, the Press is awestruck by the limited functionality and monopolistic-ally controlled environment that comes wrapped in a smooth apple labeled package
Heres a question, how much "design" did they really do, and what software package did they use? I bet their "designers" had to use a windows based circuit design package.
I think naming this thing an iPad was a smart move on the part of Jobs. After all, those now mocking and ridiculing it are having a hard time coming up with a more ridiculous name (OK, there is iTampon...).
With all the ridicule, I think competitors will have time to come up with something with a lot more features and an actual reflective display before anyone actually risks buying one of these "iPad" things and appearing in public.
Giving the public a wake-up call like this IS in a way "the most important thing" Steve Jobs has done.
I am struck by the 'newton failure' meme. All the newton owners I know kept them working long long beyond their shelf life. It was a market failure, only if you judge it in specific ways. as a device, it did what it did as well as any other product of its time, and better than many.
I never had one, and I don't envy those who did, but I also didn't see it as a failure.
It is amazing how much ink is being spilled on this oversized ipod touch. In a couple of quarters, we will know whether this is the next iphone, or whether this is the next apple tv. Personally, I wouldn't bother to buy one--I would much rather buy a netbook (which, for the record, I very much hate). For me, there just isn't enough that this ipod-big is bringing to the table. I only use iphone applications (which include the likes of Fandango and NPR news) because safari on the tinie-tiny screen of iphone sucks. If I had a bigger scree, I would much rather use a full browser.
The MSFT/HPQ tablet might be ok--we'll see.
Those words seem a bit odd since Apple is restricting software as normal. I can understand this on the iPhone and such, but on something designed as an internet browsing device first is very lacking. No Flash (and likely no Silverlight)... That means no online games, no Youtube, no Netflix... They likely will restrict tools and such for popular sites like Facebook. They will likely keep restricting apps from competitors like Google. They want you to get all games from iStore and likely all other installations are blocked. Same with media. Also it seems they are using a new memory standard... not good.
Here's my take on the article:
To experience "first-hand" the delights of typing on a touch screen, just use an area of any table. If you can type something the length of the above piece, then perhaps *you* could use it for notes, but I guarantee that not even the
rabid could do even one chapter of "War and Peace". -- Now try that on the surface of a large book while holding it at a comfortable viewing angle. I do not see that as feasible: if you do, I doubt that you have typed much. -- But assume
writing is out in our new modern century: "touch" on a hard surface is still horrible for any *prolonged* use.
A major *lack* of the IPad is no way to stand it up (except the dock which ruins portability), as no easel is built in.
You cannot stand it on a table and sit back to watch, nor even use it on your lap in an airplane seat unless you hunch
over it, cannot prop it on the tray without a friction surface to keep it in place. Looks as though one would be
forced to keep a hand on it the whole time. That will soon become tiring. Lying in bed with it propped on knees will also suffer from lack of friction, as will most sitting positions.
With inherent flaws, I doubt that tablets will ever be the "next big thing".
Now, for a *gadget*, Apple should put in *everything* even if adds to bulk and weight: HDTV tuner, phone, aim-able camera, GPS, *AND* a protective cover for the LCD that folds entirely back and doubles as easel in both orientations
(holding replaceable battery too, not least for balance). They *should* even ignore price in favor of features that
would compel those on the leading edge to consider it a MUST. I doubt that filling an invented "gap" in product line even suits mercenary motives as would a more netbook type combining touch AND spiffy *new* features. -- Even the author here gives it only "not quite yet".
@Atreya
While I think the iPad is far from perfect, I do not think there are 'better' devices out there. This product is being positioned as an amalgam of 2 or three different products in one. I don't see anything else even close to its function.
You could argue that the kindle or e-ink readers are better at the 'ebook' category, and you can argue that a netbook might be better at browsing (although I don't think this is true).
In short, I don't see any other company that has a product that can deliver *all* of the things the iPad is trying to deliver.
It'll come down to the software in the end, when the rest of the device is more than adequate hardware wise. And that's assuming the cheap OEM product actually looks nice and is cheaper than the Apple - MSI's $500 offering for later this year just isn't comparable unless it has the IPS display, the built in software, the App/Music/Book Store with thousands of optimised applications, etc.
And Apple does seem to have the software side tied up, with ribbon and a bow.
Sometimes it takes them time to get there - iPhone OS 1 was rather bare boned, but the iPad is 3.2, presumably 4 later this year, and benefits from the three years of refinements the OS has had.
In the mean time Microsoft has gone from WinMob 6.1 to WinMob 6.5 - basically a new launcher application, with WinMob7 dead to the world. I think that's a case of Microsoft being poor at upgrades though.
Palm's Pre, Nokia's Maemo/Ovi, Google's Android - they're all making vast leaps and bounds too. We'll see
The Inq is the first publication to refuse to do Apple's marketing for them. Ipad not iPad, Iphone, not iPhone. Nice.
Although I did spot a few mentions of Apple products in this article which don't conform to the new style guide.
I am surprised at how tame the criticism for the iPad has been from this publication. Usually the Inq is quite hostile to Apple. This time, I think its the opposite. It's not critical enough.
Am I mistaken in thinking that better products already exist? And these products have not found traction with the general public. What is the iPad doing differently to existing 'slate' products that makes it any more compelling?
http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/28/apples-a4-is-an-arm-based-system-on-a-chip-a-la-tegra-2/