It's getting hard to not upgrade to the 10.5 inch version coming from an iPad Air 2. Not only am I getting all of the new features of the current Pro, but add to that the pencil and keyboard support coupled with iOS 11 coming....yeah I might have to have a chat with my wife lol.
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A10X is a MONSTER
- Thread starter gobikerider
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Well **** that's a good point but they've also drastically increased the performance with the A10X can they do all of that with 10 hour battery life that seems crazy considering they only increased the battery by ~3 watts on each model
Not without cost. They also increased the battery capacity from 25Wh to 43Wh which came with a 50g weight gain.
Afaik, they didn't increase battery capacity this time around, so the battery savings would have to come from power efficiencies going from A9X to A10X.
So Apple engineering is truly magical then I'm completely over estimating the power needed to drive 120hz display I guess.
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This time around it looks like they only needed to increase the battery 3 watt hours
In fairness, Apple tends to be conservative with their battery life estimates so that gives them leeway.
Average battery life (screen on time) I've gotten while websurfing and reading, typically low brightness:
- iPad 2: ~12 hours
- iPad 3: ~12 hours
- iPad 4: ~16+ hours
- iPad Air: ~12 hours
- iPad Air 2: ~10 hours
- iPad Pro 9.7: ~10 hours
- iPad 9.7 (2017): ~16+ hours
Except the entirely different architecture of the chip ARM vs x64
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iOS 11 just made a huge leap and iOS 12 will only further that.
On the surface it seems like you need a doubling of power, but it's also a question of what needs to double. The GPU needs to double how often it rasterizes the layers. But for the most part, everything on screen should already be available to the GPU, and doesn't incur a CPU hit. What does incur the CPU hit is drawing new content that isn't already in layers.
Scrolling is a good example of both. Scroll a little bit, and the odds are good that the CPU has already drawn all the content, so the scroll is just leaning on the GPU to redraw the existing layers in new places. Scroll a lot, and then the CPU has to work to fill in the gaps where content wasn't yet drawn. This is when scrolling stops being smooth, if too much work has to be done.
But also, if you are scrolling, you don't pay much of a CPU penalty for going to 120Hz from 60Hz. There's a bit of work the CPU does by doubling how many refreshes it does per second, but you don't really draw new content any more frequently. If the scroll is 500 pixels per second, for example, that is what tells me how much drawing I need to do. Even if you double the refresh, you are still scrolling at 500 pixels per second, and done correctly, you can break down the work that would have been done in a single refresh at 60Hz across two 120Hz refreshes to keep it smooth.
But the general rule here I think is this: If something wasn't smooth before, this won't make it any better. If it was smooth before, it has the chance to get even better. I suspect we will see a lot of apps floating between 60 and 120Hz for a while on the new hardware, that were handling 60Hz nicely now.
Wonder how hot this thing will run. No back case being offered by Apple for these ones is curious.
Assume it would be equal
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Apple has a custom chip in it for the display separately so I'm not sure if it will affect the main processor much if any
So back to tri-core? All this definitely re-affirms my disappointment with how stingy they were on performance with the 9.7" pro.
To be clear, im actually fine with its performance, but it seems whenever they give new devices more power, they somehow manage to re-jig the OS to require the newest devices power to do basic stuff like typing without a massive input delay. Sure add bells and whistles that only the latest models can do, but I generally end up replacing devices because I can't bloody type on them anymore. There has to be a way they can update their OS without breaking basic touchscreen responsiveness that even the 300mhz original iPhone mustered back in the day.
To be clear, im actually fine with its performance, but it seems whenever they give new devices more power, they somehow manage to re-jig the OS to require the newest devices power to do basic stuff like typing without a massive input delay. Sure add bells and whistles that only the latest models can do, but I generally end up replacing devices because I can't bloody type on them anymore. There has to be a way they can update their OS without breaking basic touchscreen responsiveness that even the 300mhz original iPhone mustered back in the day.
And this shows where Apple is innovating. Too bad most people, even here, only think changing the looks of your phone every 6 months as innovation.
Doable if they don't add new features that eat up CPU and GPU cycles and cause additional overhead. No new UI, no background apps, no multitasking, no third party keyboards, etc. In which case, they might as well not have updated.
I dunno... I will say I've never used Lightroom, but I've been playing around with affinity since it came out and I'd have trouble saying it taxes the 9.7 inch. I mean, I could make the case that it does, but only when it's loading something or running one of a handful of filters. Actual use of the program is buttery smooth though. And the thing is, I've had affinity on my 2016 mbp for a while now and those are the same times it's slow on there. I get what you're saying, everything isn't instant, but I'd hardly say it taxes the 9.7 inch pro.
Actually, by woking with big files and multiple layer i have been able to make it run VERY slow (and unstable).
But don't take me wrong, it's remarkable how fast it is. On my MBA it's unusable for use cases that are totaly fine on the 12.9 iPad. I mean, that's great! And it's great that this tablet is finally being squeezed a little bit, because for the most part of its existance this has not been the case, and I'm so glad things seem to be changing. I hope Apple doesn't fall asleep again on software. iOS11 is great but 11.x/ 12 have to finish the job (multi users support, optional trackpad support, better text selection, support for external volumes and keyboard shortcuts in "Files").
The A11 is going to be generations ahead of its competition.
Really need to wait to see what A11 is if Apple delivers
#1. An Apple Designed GPU
#2. Tiered battery design
#3. A11 should be Dual Core but Die Shrink and L3 cache. By that logic A11X will have L3 Cache and probably Run full blown OSX. If that's What Apple has up their sleeves for next Year.
I am holding off until I see the 10.5 Pro in person and side by side to my 9.7"
Synthetic benchmark numbers are pretty meaningless until Same Apps just can't run. If something is .5 sec faster first world problems. Anything serious like Photoshop or CAD, fires up the 12 Core GPU and I have yet to see anything stress the A9X or even any App which is designed and Optimized for the A10X. Developers Target the broadest userbase for optimization and that is 2 Core CPU and. 12 Core GPU.
The A11 will clearly focus on augmented reality and maybe VR for the handset, so a different "power" than the a10x pushes.
The Pro should hold its own with regards to the horsepower for the creative side for a couple years, especially with 4gb.
Outside of maybe ForceTouch and the IP7 click less button and water resistance, Apple has pushed out a bigger update overall than expected, and don't see any usage case for an Pro 9.7, even when it drops in price in clearance.
Waiting for it to land in stores, hopefully over this weekend.
The Pro should hold its own with regards to the horsepower for the creative side for a couple years, especially with 4gb.
Outside of maybe ForceTouch and the IP7 click less button and water resistance, Apple has pushed out a bigger update overall than expected, and don't see any usage case for an Pro 9.7, even when it drops in price in clearance.
Waiting for it to land in stores, hopefully over this weekend.
You are naive if you think Apple has not gotten this up and running in a lab somewhere.
Seeing as iOS is a variant of macOS anyway, it's not a stretch of the imagination.
that wasn't my point more so than the fact that all software would need to be recoded to work on arm. Yet developers would need to retain all the full Mac OS capability. It's not a small thing and would take years for evrything to transistion. Makes much more since for Apple to continue to rely on Intel for the computers
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No not even close you realize the A10X is in like a 10w tdp vs 165w for those i9 chips.
The A series chips are SoCs, so include the GPU on the die. And the CPU/GPU are responsible for animations being smooth or not. Not timing chips/etc driving the LCD itself.
Okay I wasn't sure how much impact the timing chip and what not had on it, I knew the processor is SOC