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Apple walks Ars through the iPad Pro’s A12X system on a chip

170 points by lkurusa 8y ago

cromwellian 8y ago
Would have been interesting for Ars to have asked them how their GPU differs from the IMGTec/PVR IP they acquired besides adding more cores, what did they change? They give the impression by saying it’s a custom GPU that it’s a from scatch in-house design but it’s unlikely to be the case.
- sweden 8y ago
  The GPU they were licensing from Imagination was already very tailored to their needs. Apple already had a strong saying in the architecture, in the driver, in the compiler and in the implementation details of the GPU they were buying from them. Moving to a "custom GPU" was basically Apple saying "Ok, thanks, we are taking over from here".
- microcolonel 8y ago
  Idunno, the PVR-based products were pretty awful, drivers were full of system crashing bugs which could be triggered by reasonable shaders (On two separate occasions, I accidentally wrote shaders which would crash iOS and cause it to restart). I haven't touched their recent products, but I suspect they have been working on this stuff for a long time, because I think it'd be pretty hard to put up with that crap for any longer.
samfisher83 8y ago
I would have figured anand would give this interview to anandtech.
- strmpnk 8y ago
  I guess his involvement may have made that look like a conflict of interest? AnandTech already has a reputation Apple favoritism (deserved or not, I can't say).
josephg 8y ago
I wonder how long it will be before Apple releases a laptop with an A-X chip. They’re already shipping their custom T2 chips in their laptops. The compiler toolchain can build great binaries for their A chips. They’ve swapped CPU architecture before and the modern Mach binary format can hold versions of the executable built for different architectures. They will probably need a Rosetta equivalent to emulate x86 for all the applications that are slow to switch. That might be tricky because of the huge surface area of the x86 instruction set. But I think it will only be a matter of time. It might also explain why they have kept the MacBook and MacBook Air product lines - they might want one of them to stay with intel’s cpus and the other to switch to their A* chips going forward. Or maybe they’ll just wait another generation or two and switch CPUs across their whole line in one go.
- GiorgioG 8y ago
  This is what I'm waiting for. I can't find a reason to upgrade to the current line of MacBook (Pro, Air, etc.) Better performance, better battery life than Intel and I will no longer be funding Intel's lazy way.
- jbob2000 8y ago
  I don't see the point of an A-X chip in a laptop. You aren't taking photos on your laptop, why does it need the image signal processor? There's no FaceID (yet, maybe it's coming) on laptops, so we don't need the ML chip. When you strip away all the stuff a laptop doesn't need, you're left with... an x86 chip!
  - oddevan 8y ago
    > There's no FaceID (yet, maybe it's coming) on laptops, so we don't need the ML chip. With Apple's focus on on-device ML, I would guess this will be the first part of the A-series trifecta (CPU, GPU, Neural) to be included on a Mac and exposed to developers. I can imagine a bunch of possibilities for such a chip, not just FaceID.
    - IOT_Apprentice 8y ago
magicalist 8y ago
This is a fine article for what it is, but isn't it really "Apple marketing walks Ars through the iPad Pro’s A12X system on a chip"? (at least I assume Anand wasn't hired as a SoC architect) There's little technical detail that wasn't in the ipad review's benchmarks[1] and previous speculation on using apple chips in desktop machines[2]. Everything new they gave no details on, and the only in-depth answers were hard hitting questions like "you could have made a slow chip, why did you decide to make a fast one instead?" and "why is apple so good at teamwork?" (maybe not the questions that were asked, but they were the questions that were answered :) [1] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/11/2018-ipad-pro-review-whats-a-computer/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/11/2018-ipad-pro-review... [2] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/04/apple-is-exploring-macs-running-its-own-cpus-but-that-dream-is-a-long-way-off/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/04/apple-is-exploring-m...
- izacus 8y ago
  > This is a fine article for what it is, but isn't it really "Apple marketing walks Ars through the iPad Pro’s A12X system on a chip"? (at least I assume Anand wasn't hired as a SoC architect) I wonder how that colors the reviews - if the outlet is too critical about a device, they can quickly lose these special privileges.
- coder543 8y ago
  I haven't had a chance to read the article yet, but Anand Shimpi is hardly "Apple marketing." He was almost certainly hired because of his technical expertise, not for any marketing ability. If I were to speculate, due to his decades of industry experience evaluating hardware platforms, his role in Apple is to provide strategic direction and guidance on how to build the best hardware platforms. I can't think of any other role they would have wanted him for... which could be a failure of imagination on my part. So... no, it's not "Apple marketing". Anand Shimpi is involved!
  - icanhackit 8y ago
    > his role in Apple is to provide strategic direction and guidance That's the feeling I got, as well as perhaps being a human abstraction layer between the engineers and the executives. If you can describe in relatively understandable terms something that is technically difficult to thousands of laypeople (well, that's unfair - Anandtech was for nerds but being a nerd doesn't make you an IC/EE engineer), you'd be an asset to both the corporate and engineering teams. And that translation works both ways - understanding the direction of the company with regards to future products vs what you want to get out of your silicon teams (e.g. when Anand mentions thermal envelopes, that might include an understanding of the limitations stemming from the potential form/design and material of a future product).
carlesfe 8y ago
Apple are paving the way to A-chip laptops, not only by building excellent tech, but also PR-wise. Their last keynote was clearly a gymnastics exercise to ignore Intel CPUs and dismiss laptop performance while later praising their own chips which power a tablet that has no software ready to use that much speed. The fact that one of the most secretive companies executes a PR-stunt by providing an exclusive interview to one of the most respected tech outlets only confirms this strategy. Expect similar movements in the following months. Now, it is only a matter of "when", not "if", Apple will start selling laptops with their chips. As as an aside, this strategy is extremely similar to the one they used when dropping the headphone jack on the iphone: "leak" the news to a respected outlet, perform damage control before the keynote, and test the reaction of the market. When they introduced the headphoneless iphone, that topic was so beaten up that it got much less attention compared to a surprise revelation.
- ianai 8y ago
  That sounds like a truthful explanation of their motives. On the one hand, I definitely welcome challengers to the chip industry. On the other, I remember the Power days. Having non Mac users “talk down” to me about using a different processor was beyond annoying. It adds a quill to the Mac haters. Here’s hoping Apple produces cpus that outperform their competitors like their 2 G/s ssds do. Also makes me not really happy to buy any current hardware of theirs.
  - mattlondon 8y ago
    Got any data on the SSD? I believe that consumer NVMe SSDs are all 2-3,000MB/s or more these days (for sequential reads which I believe is the "standard" benchmark people use for speed (ignoring iops))? E.g. this from 2015 (!): https://www.anandtech.com/show/9396/samsung-sm951-nvme-256gb-pcie-ssd-review https://www.anandtech.com/show/9396/samsung-sm951-nvme-256gb... This from this year: https://www.anandtech.com/show/13438/the-corsair-force-mp510-ssd-review https://www.anandtech.com/show/13438/the-corsair-force-mp510...
    - djrogers 8y ago
GeekyBear 8y ago
I have a feeling that most of the people who frequent this site would be more interested in Anandtech's A12 deep dive that was part of their iPhone XS review than a PR interview on the A12X that is light on performance or power use metrics. CPU: https://www.anandtech.com/show/13392/the-iphone-xs-xs-max-review-unveiling-the-silicon-secrets/4 https://www.anandtech.com/show/13392/the-iphone-xs-xs-max-re... GPU: https://www.anandtech.com/show/13392/the-iphone-xs-xs-max-review-unveiling-the-silicon-secrets/7 https://www.anandtech.com/show/13392/the-iphone-xs-xs-max-re...
camillomiller 8y ago
I was briefed personally by Anand after the introduction event in New York. I guess I can say that now, as it's out that Anand is taking care of this side of the business. It was the most compelling, interesting, clear and well informed briefing on a silicon in my entire career as a tech reporter. Anand is a an A+ player, and Apple has made an incredible hire in his case.
AceJohnny2 8y ago
I found Rob Beschizza's thought [1] about the new iPad Pro insightful: "a very powerful machine, handicapped by iOS having no workflow". Because of the sandboxed nature of iOS, and the current immaturity of the Files app/feature, it's hard and inconsistent how you can exchange files between apps on the iPad. As a result, you're still mostly stuck to using one app to do things in iOS. The workflow is still fragmented. [1] https://boingboing.net/2018/11/06/ipad-pro-deemed-amazing-for-wo.html https://boingboing.net/2018/11/06/ipad-pro-deemed-amazing-fo...
- josteink 8y ago
  So basically the same kind of argument which has plagued all high end Android tablets: Good hardware held back by lacking software. Iow: If you want a pc, get a pc.
  - AceJohnny2 8y ago
    Exactly. Except all the discussion about the hardware power of this iPad is how it's comparable to a PC laptop. But from a software usability standpoint, it's not.
- ozmbie 8y ago
  It doesn't matter if Apple's goal here is to get "desktop class" A-series CPUs manufactured and shipped at scale...as a precursor to an A-series Macbook.
iagooar 8y ago
This is nuts. The iPad Pro is so massively ahead of the game, it's even hard to believe. It is faster than the MBP 2017 and ALMOST as fast as the MBP 2018. We're talking a device that is 5.9mm thick and is battery-powered! Now here's my prediction: Apple does not really want to build an ARM-powered MBP. Instead, they will eventually allow iPads to double boot into iOS and/or MacOS. Call me crazy, but this would be huge. Of course, Apple would still build traditional laptops, maybe even with ARM processors in them, but only as a byproduct of their iPhone / iPad product line.
- threeseed 8y ago
  This will never, ever happen. You can't use OSX with your finger. There are millions of places across the OS and applications where the hit point is too small for a finger. You just need to compare the keys on the iOS keyboard and then compare that to the traffic lights on OSX.
  - iagooar 8y ago
    Mouse support :)
- xvector 8y ago
  Tim Cook himself flat out said they have no intention of ever merging MacOS and iOS or converging the two in any way.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    Yeah, and Apple never turns around in a couple years and does what the CEO said they had no intention of doing. (Big phones, tablet stylus, ...)
  - iagooar 8y ago
    Merging does not equal dual boot. They'd still be separate pieces of software, but the ability to run MacOS on iPad hardware would be huge.
X-Istence 8y ago
I really wish Apple to stick an A-series chip in a MacBook Pro with an Intel co-processor. Best of both worlds. Don't need x86? Don't spin up the Intel chip, doing something that requires x86, spin it on up. This way you get software compatibility with the power sipping of the ARM CPU.
- scarface74 8y ago
  Been there done that. I had a PowerMac 6100/60 with the DOS Compatibility card that had its own sound chip, video controller and optionally RAM. My 6100/60 had 24MB of RAM and the card had 32MB of RAM. Before that, I had an LCII with a ‘//e card. I doubt that modern Apple would ship a hybrid x86/Arm laptop though.
tokyodude 8y ago
Is it really true this A12X is comparable to last year's Macbook Pro? On that Macbook Pro I could run several VMWare sessions running Windows and Linux (have run 3 at the same time in the past). I can run Handbrake encoding videos across cores while still browsing the net in Chrome with 4 windows open each to different profiles each with 5 to 20 tabs. Have 4 terminal windows open, at list one of them serving a dev webpage. Run VSCode and Unity and Visual Studio and other stuff all at once. I've also done things like compile Chrome from source. Run XCode, run 2-3 iOS simulators. I get that an A12X can't do those exact tasks as it's not the same instruction set but could it do the equivalent and get similar perf? That's amazing if true. An iPad Pro weighs 1/4th of my MBP (2014). My MBP's fans spin like crazy when running a high intensity app and the case gets too hot to touch. I'd love to believe a machine that has no fans and doesn't get hot and weighs 1/4 as much could actually have the same or more perf for real but when I actually use an iPad it rarely feels as fast and given it doesn't multitask well there's no way for me to check that perf is really comparable in real world use cases. Anyone have any insight? Is it just because the chip was redesigned to be more efficient it can match or exceed the i7 in my MBP? Should Amazon be filling their AWS racks with A12X based machines that get the same per at much less heat and power? (Yea I know they can't by A12X chips buy still). Don't iPhones and say top Samsung phones generally show similar perf?
- kllrnohj 8y ago
  It is comparable at running geekbench 4, yes. And some web benchmarks seem pretty comparable. But your workload doesn't seem to include those things, so hard to say. Critically A12X is unlikely to have hardware virtualization support, so your use case of VMware would be slow even if it wasn't doing any binary translation. Also your MBP's fans spin because it's trying to achieve higher sustained performance. Typically mobile devices will just instead thermal throttle hard. Like, lose half their performance hard. How well can the iPad Pro sustain its performance? That's a real big question. Re AWS racks: No, they can't. A12X in the server world would be a joke. It'd be competing against things like AMD's Rome which is 64 cores / 128 threads with, and this part is critical, up to 4TB of RAM with 128 PCI-E lanes. Even if the A12X could compete on raw CPU throughput it can't compete on I/O, virtualization, etc... The A12X is also going to be pulling a lot more power than you might expect. It's not that much more power efficient.
suvelx 8y ago
I've been considering getting an iPad w/ Pencil for over a year now as a note-taking and doodling apparatus (too often I'll scribble a system diagram down, realise I've missed a bit, and had to start again thanks to the immutability of pen and paper). But beyond that, I don't think I'd have a use for one. All this power sounds great, but I really don't know what else I'd do with it, beyond surfing an ad-riddled internet on my couch. If any developer has a life-changing daily use case for their iPad, I'd love to hear it.
- Engineering-MD 8y ago
  Content blockers allow for ad free (ish) browsing on iOS. I have found the iPad Pro with pencil an excellent tool for research (reading and annotating papers), and using Pythonista python based programming can be done, although more as a hobby.

170 points by lkurusa 8y ago

Would have been interesting for Ars to have asked them how their GPU differs from the IMGTec/PVR IP they acquired besides adding more cores, what did they change? They give the impression by saying it’s a custom GPU that it’s a from scatch in-house design but it’s unlikely to be the case.

sweden 8y ago
The GPU they were licensing from Imagination was already very tailored to their needs. Apple already had a strong saying in the architecture, in the driver, in the compiler and in the implementation details of the GPU they were buying from them. Moving to a "custom GPU" was basically Apple saying "Ok, thanks, we are taking over from here".
microcolonel 8y ago
Idunno, the PVR-based products were pretty awful, drivers were full of system crashing bugs which could be triggered by reasonable shaders (On two separate occasions, I accidentally wrote shaders which would crash iOS and cause it to restart). I haven't touched their recent products, but I suspect they have been working on this stuff for a long time, because I think it'd be pretty hard to put up with that crap for any longer.

samfisher83 8y ago

I would have figured anand would give this interview to anandtech.

strmpnk 8y ago
I guess his involvement may have made that look like a conflict of interest? AnandTech already has a reputation Apple favoritism (deserved or not, I can't say).

josephg 8y ago

I wonder how long it will be before Apple releases a laptop with an A-X chip. They’re already shipping their custom T2 chips in their laptops. The compiler toolchain can build great binaries for their A chips. They’ve swapped CPU architecture before and the modern Mach binary format can hold versions of the executable built for different architectures. They will probably need a Rosetta equivalent to emulate x86 for all the applications that are slow to switch. That might be tricky because of the huge surface area of the x86 instruction set. But I think it will only be a matter of time. It might also explain why they have kept the MacBook and MacBook Air product lines - they might want one of them to stay with intel’s cpus and the other to switch to their A* chips going forward. Or maybe they’ll just wait another generation or two and switch CPUs across their whole line in one go.

GiorgioG 8y ago
This is what I'm waiting for. I can't find a reason to upgrade to the current line of MacBook (Pro, Air, etc.) Better performance, better battery life than Intel and I will no longer be funding Intel's lazy way.
jbob2000 8y ago
I don't see the point of an A-X chip in a laptop. You aren't taking photos on your laptop, why does it need the image signal processor? There's no FaceID (yet, maybe it's coming) on laptops, so we don't need the ML chip. When you strip away all the stuff a laptop doesn't need, you're left with... an x86 chip!
- oddevan 8y ago
  > There's no FaceID (yet, maybe it's coming) on laptops, so we don't need the ML chip. With Apple's focus on on-device ML, I would guess this will be the first part of the A-series trifecta (CPU, GPU, Neural) to be included on a Mac and exposed to developers. I can imagine a bunch of possibilities for such a chip, not just FaceID.
  - IOT_Apprentice 8y ago

magicalist 8y ago

This is a fine article for what it is, but isn't it really "Apple marketing walks Ars through the iPad Pro’s A12X system on a chip"? (at least I assume Anand wasn't hired as a SoC architect) There's little technical detail that wasn't in the ipad review's benchmarks[1] and previous speculation on using apple chips in desktop machines[2]. Everything new they gave no details on, and the only in-depth answers were hard hitting questions like "you could have made a slow chip, why did you decide to make a fast one instead?" and "why is apple so good at teamwork?" (maybe not the questions that were asked, but they were the questions that were answered :) [1] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/11/2018-ipad-pro-review-whats-a-computer/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/11/2018-ipad-pro-review... [2] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/04/apple-is-exploring-macs-running-its-own-cpus-but-that-dream-is-a-long-way-off/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/04/apple-is-exploring-m...

izacus 8y ago
> This is a fine article for what it is, but isn't it really "Apple marketing walks Ars through the iPad Pro’s A12X system on a chip"? (at least I assume Anand wasn't hired as a SoC architect) I wonder how that colors the reviews - if the outlet is too critical about a device, they can quickly lose these special privileges.
coder543 8y ago
I haven't had a chance to read the article yet, but Anand Shimpi is hardly "Apple marketing." He was almost certainly hired because of his technical expertise, not for any marketing ability. If I were to speculate, due to his decades of industry experience evaluating hardware platforms, his role in Apple is to provide strategic direction and guidance on how to build the best hardware platforms. I can't think of any other role they would have wanted him for... which could be a failure of imagination on my part. So... no, it's not "Apple marketing". Anand Shimpi is involved!
- icanhackit 8y ago
  > his role in Apple is to provide strategic direction and guidance That's the feeling I got, as well as perhaps being a human abstraction layer between the engineers and the executives. If you can describe in relatively understandable terms something that is technically difficult to thousands of laypeople (well, that's unfair - Anandtech was for nerds but being a nerd doesn't make you an IC/EE engineer), you'd be an asset to both the corporate and engineering teams. And that translation works both ways - understanding the direction of the company with regards to future products vs what you want to get out of your silicon teams (e.g. when Anand mentions thermal envelopes, that might include an understanding of the limitations stemming from the potential form/design and material of a future product).

carlesfe 8y ago

Apple are paving the way to A-chip laptops, not only by building excellent tech, but also PR-wise. Their last keynote was clearly a gymnastics exercise to ignore Intel CPUs and dismiss laptop performance while later praising their own chips which power a tablet that has no software ready to use that much speed. The fact that one of the most secretive companies executes a PR-stunt by providing an exclusive interview to one of the most respected tech outlets only confirms this strategy. Expect similar movements in the following months. Now, it is only a matter of "when", not "if", Apple will start selling laptops with their chips. As as an aside, this strategy is extremely similar to the one they used when dropping the headphone jack on the iphone: "leak" the news to a respected outlet, perform damage control before the keynote, and test the reaction of the market. When they introduced the headphoneless iphone, that topic was so beaten up that it got much less attention compared to a surprise revelation.

ianai 8y ago
That sounds like a truthful explanation of their motives. On the one hand, I definitely welcome challengers to the chip industry. On the other, I remember the Power days. Having non Mac users “talk down” to me about using a different processor was beyond annoying. It adds a quill to the Mac haters. Here’s hoping Apple produces cpus that outperform their competitors like their 2 G/s ssds do. Also makes me not really happy to buy any current hardware of theirs.
- mattlondon 8y ago
  Got any data on the SSD? I believe that consumer NVMe SSDs are all 2-3,000MB/s or more these days (for sequential reads which I believe is the "standard" benchmark people use for speed (ignoring iops))? E.g. this from 2015 (!): https://www.anandtech.com/show/9396/samsung-sm951-nvme-256gb-pcie-ssd-review https://www.anandtech.com/show/9396/samsung-sm951-nvme-256gb... This from this year: https://www.anandtech.com/show/13438/the-corsair-force-mp510-ssd-review https://www.anandtech.com/show/13438/the-corsair-force-mp510...
  - djrogers 8y ago

GeekyBear 8y ago

I have a feeling that most of the people who frequent this site would be more interested in Anandtech's A12 deep dive that was part of their iPhone XS review than a PR interview on the A12X that is light on performance or power use metrics. CPU: https://www.anandtech.com/show/13392/the-iphone-xs-xs-max-review-unveiling-the-silicon-secrets/4 https://www.anandtech.com/show/13392/the-iphone-xs-xs-max-re... GPU: https://www.anandtech.com/show/13392/the-iphone-xs-xs-max-review-unveiling-the-silicon-secrets/7 https://www.anandtech.com/show/13392/the-iphone-xs-xs-max-re...

camillomiller 8y ago

I was briefed personally by Anand after the introduction event in New York. I guess I can say that now, as it's out that Anand is taking care of this side of the business. It was the most compelling, interesting, clear and well informed briefing on a silicon in my entire career as a tech reporter. Anand is a an A+ player, and Apple has made an incredible hire in his case.

AceJohnny2 8y ago

I found Rob Beschizza's thought [1] about the new iPad Pro insightful: "a very powerful machine, handicapped by iOS having no workflow". Because of the sandboxed nature of iOS, and the current immaturity of the Files app/feature, it's hard and inconsistent how you can exchange files between apps on the iPad. As a result, you're still mostly stuck to using one app to do things in iOS. The workflow is still fragmented. [1] https://boingboing.net/2018/11/06/ipad-pro-deemed-amazing-for-wo.html https://boingboing.net/2018/11/06/ipad-pro-deemed-amazing-fo...

josteink 8y ago
So basically the same kind of argument which has plagued all high end Android tablets: Good hardware held back by lacking software. Iow: If you want a pc, get a pc.
- AceJohnny2 8y ago
  Exactly. Except all the discussion about the hardware power of this iPad is how it's comparable to a PC laptop. But from a software usability standpoint, it's not.
ozmbie 8y ago
It doesn't matter if Apple's goal here is to get "desktop class" A-series CPUs manufactured and shipped at scale...as a precursor to an A-series Macbook.

iagooar 8y ago

This is nuts. The iPad Pro is so massively ahead of the game, it's even hard to believe. It is faster than the MBP 2017 and ALMOST as fast as the MBP 2018. We're talking a device that is 5.9mm thick and is battery-powered! Now here's my prediction: Apple does not really want to build an ARM-powered MBP. Instead, they will eventually allow iPads to double boot into iOS and/or MacOS. Call me crazy, but this would be huge. Of course, Apple would still build traditional laptops, maybe even with ARM processors in them, but only as a byproduct of their iPhone / iPad product line.

threeseed 8y ago
This will never, ever happen. You can't use OSX with your finger. There are millions of places across the OS and applications where the hit point is too small for a finger. You just need to compare the keys on the iOS keyboard and then compare that to the traffic lights on OSX.
- iagooar 8y ago
  Mouse support :)
xvector 8y ago
Tim Cook himself flat out said they have no intention of ever merging MacOS and iOS or converging the two in any way.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  Yeah, and Apple never turns around in a couple years and does what the CEO said they had no intention of doing. (Big phones, tablet stylus, ...)
- iagooar 8y ago
  Merging does not equal dual boot. They'd still be separate pieces of software, but the ability to run MacOS on iPad hardware would be huge.

X-Istence 8y ago

I really wish Apple to stick an A-series chip in a MacBook Pro with an Intel co-processor. Best of both worlds. Don't need x86? Don't spin up the Intel chip, doing something that requires x86, spin it on up. This way you get software compatibility with the power sipping of the ARM CPU.

scarface74 8y ago
Been there done that. I had a PowerMac 6100/60 with the DOS Compatibility card that had its own sound chip, video controller and optionally RAM. My 6100/60 had 24MB of RAM and the card had 32MB of RAM. Before that, I had an LCII with a ‘//e card. I doubt that modern Apple would ship a hybrid x86/Arm laptop though.

tokyodude 8y ago

Is it really true this A12X is comparable to last year's Macbook Pro? On that Macbook Pro I could run several VMWare sessions running Windows and Linux (have run 3 at the same time in the past). I can run Handbrake encoding videos across cores while still browsing the net in Chrome with 4 windows open each to different profiles each with 5 to 20 tabs. Have 4 terminal windows open, at list one of them serving a dev webpage. Run VSCode and Unity and Visual Studio and other stuff all at once. I've also done things like compile Chrome from source. Run XCode, run 2-3 iOS simulators. I get that an A12X can't do those exact tasks as it's not the same instruction set but could it do the equivalent and get similar perf? That's amazing if true. An iPad Pro weighs 1/4th of my MBP (2014). My MBP's fans spin like crazy when running a high intensity app and the case gets too hot to touch. I'd love to believe a machine that has no fans and doesn't get hot and weighs 1/4 as much could actually have the same or more perf for real but when I actually use an iPad it rarely feels as fast and given it doesn't multitask well there's no way for me to check that perf is really comparable in real world use cases. Anyone have any insight? Is it just because the chip was redesigned to be more efficient it can match or exceed the i7 in my MBP? Should Amazon be filling their AWS racks with A12X based machines that get the same per at much less heat and power? (Yea I know they can't by A12X chips buy still). Don't iPhones and say top Samsung phones generally show similar perf?

kllrnohj 8y ago
It is comparable at running geekbench 4, yes. And some web benchmarks seem pretty comparable. But your workload doesn't seem to include those things, so hard to say. Critically A12X is unlikely to have hardware virtualization support, so your use case of VMware would be slow even if it wasn't doing any binary translation. Also your MBP's fans spin because it's trying to achieve higher sustained performance. Typically mobile devices will just instead thermal throttle hard. Like, lose half their performance hard. How well can the iPad Pro sustain its performance? That's a real big question. Re AWS racks: No, they can't. A12X in the server world would be a joke. It'd be competing against things like AMD's Rome which is 64 cores / 128 threads with, and this part is critical, up to 4TB of RAM with 128 PCI-E lanes. Even if the A12X could compete on raw CPU throughput it can't compete on I/O, virtualization, etc... The A12X is also going to be pulling a lot more power than you might expect. It's not that much more power efficient.

suvelx 8y ago

I've been considering getting an iPad w/ Pencil for over a year now as a note-taking and doodling apparatus (too often I'll scribble a system diagram down, realise I've missed a bit, and had to start again thanks to the immutability of pen and paper). But beyond that, I don't think I'd have a use for one. All this power sounds great, but I really don't know what else I'd do with it, beyond surfing an ad-riddled internet on my couch. If any developer has a life-changing daily use case for their iPad, I'd love to hear it.

Engineering-MD 8y ago
Content blockers allow for ad free (ish) browsing on iOS. I have found the iPad Pro with pencil an excellent tool for research (reading and annotating papers), and using Pythonista python based programming can be done, although more as a hobby.