“Apple’s long-rumored tablet has ruffled feathers and turned heads. With a familiar interface, Apple’s momentum, iTunes integration, and a price that the even non-geek can easily fall in love with, it has all the makings of a hit. But deep inside lies something even more revolutionary,” Nicholas Bonsack reports for Macworld.
“At the heart of the iPad lies a tiny sliver of silicon. A game changer within a game changer. That’s Apple’s A4, a system-on-a-chip (SoC) that reportedly combines a low-power CPU, a graphics processing unit (GPU), and other hardware, much of which is still confidential,” Bonsack reports. “What we do know is that it finds an almost ideal balance between battery life and speed, such that the iPad can animate and zip about at a pace that iPhone 3GS users could only dream of.”
Bonsack reports, “With the A4, Apple still maintains its long-standing relationship with ARM while delivering on performance, with a design that no competitor can use in its own products. More to the point, the A4 puts a very critical part of Apple’s iPad under its very own control. And that move is unprecedented.”
Read more in the full article here.
Hugh B, that just means it’s time to buy!
Apple, IBM, Motorola. I believe that the story goes thusly: Apple had secretly redesigned a Motorola based chip and got both (Big Blue and Moto) to the table, presented the design and said “WANT, U MAKE, KTHX”. After jaws were picked up from the floor, the chips became part of Macs until Intel. Which was Steve’s FU moment to falling short on a PPC 3GHz barrier break promise. You can’t deliver? Well, OSX has run on Intel since version 0, so keep your slow crap. And the Jobster was never shy on dissing a business-partner on undeliverables. And Quickdraw McGraw-Hill really shot himself in the foot, while we’re at it (falling for the cheapest of all tricks, on PMSNBC no less!) Does he not know what this device means for his business? He might even be more clueless then Michael Dell.
Even if only part of my recollection is true, I see a trend emerging: Apple is quite capable of capturing the essence of something, and pushing design and technology until it is MUCH better than before, so it can fuel Steve’s Reality Distortion Field (pending Apple patent).
It is very easy to see this with certain, past midas-moments: Safari (Konqueror) Final Cut Pro (based on a Macromedia product) Logic, NextStep (duh) and other technologies.
The antithesis needs to be mentioned, Internet Explorer (Spyglass, fabled to be still the driving and crashing rendering engine), DOS (outright stolen technology, omnipresent base until at least XP), the craptacular list could go on.
Apple is not all bright and shiny. They are in the business to make money. And they made almost hillariously stupid decisions. I have none to present, but they are out there. Caution, do not fall for complaints made by Windows users — it’s like asking vegetarians to rate a steak place.
The point, Apple may not get into the chip making game for a while, other than their own iPad. This is the second time that they improved on an existing design… and now they have a chip producing plant to themselves.
Watch out, Dahl wrote this one already.
MDN Magic Word: reasearch… do your own.
Addendum: To clear things up, get your tinfoil ready…
Apple stock does what it has always done since Steve started using his RDF. It shakes the Apple tree, and the stock makes bouncy bouncy. Nothing new here.
AppleTV may seem weak, but like a chess-player, Apple puts several hardware and software goodies out there that may not make sense at first. Why an iPod Touch (aka iPad mini) if you make iPhones? iTunes didn’t just apper to manage your music collection.
There is potential with ATV, and I see it in them being a content provider beyond their usual pay-to-own fare. Why, if they buddied up so well with Elgate a couple of years back, is there no recording device on ATV? Apple Cable TV wouldn’t need an encoder if it streams directly over the net, or wireless from iTunes, controlled by your iPad or iPhone.
I could further conspirotherize that the unpurposed Apple server farm (was it NC?) is quite capable of delivering more than your iDisk accounts.
And what is with the full-stuffed Apple warchest, how many gazillions do they have IN CASH? They could buy up a small european nation, or Adobe (with cash to spare, to buy up Dell) and turn the graphics world on their head. Apple Photoshop, Apple Flash… done right, and without bloat. Wouldn’t that be neat?
Hey, I am just a mac-geek asking questions (hehe)
Chris D.
“Apple flash” is called HTML5.
Very exciting to hear that! However, I’m just wondering how it goes as a “complete hardware/software solution”.