Photos of Debug Software Show Alleged Details of iPad 3 with Quad-Core A6 and LTE

[wisty]

That pixellation is insecure. If you blur / pixelate to hide details, Apple *can* decipher it. Maybe not letters, but there's only 10 digets in [0:9], and 2x4 pixels with 6 levels of brightness has 48 possibilities, so they can recover it.

Obviously it depends on how determined they are, but a simple black-out is *much* safer.

 

[Chumburro2U]

Am I going to pay my groceries with an iPad? It is better with the credit card!

I think you are confusing NFC with LTE.

 

[Dorje Sylas]

Not impressed, I could fake that up too. It's a freaking TextEdit document on Lion.

iBoot? Seriously? I hope BGR didn't pay to much for these images, cause they got scammed.

As much as I would like for it to be real I'm going to call fakety fake fake fake, until we get to an actual Apple press event.

 

[caligomez]

Retina Dsiplay, Quad Core chip AND LTE... This thing better pack some serious battey power..

Although I personally wouldn't care if it gets 8 hrs. instead of 10 (on average). For "work on the go", it would still be a very desirable upgrade (from my current iPad 1).

I think it'll be hard to get my hands on one of these within a month of the launch date!

 

[orangebluedevil]

Where is the LTE proof?

Understanding that this is just a rumor, what part of it points to LTE? I don't see any code that points us toward thinking LTE.

 

[spiderman0616]

I don't even care what the new one has in it anymore. I just want it to come out because I sold my iPad 2 two weeks ago to pay for it and I'm now miserable. I feel naked without it.

 

[dagamer34]

There will be no iPad 3. Apple will release the iPad 3.1415926 just to bake our brains.

Edited to say: I don't think it will have USB 3 for the reason that I don't know of any Macs that have USB 3. If you don't have anything to plug the port into, why put in the port.

Apple doesn't have USB 3.0 in it's current lineup of computers because Intel announced over a year ago that the Ivy Bridge chipset would include it "for free". There's no point in engineering to add an extra USB 3.0 chipset that will be removed in the next revision.

The best advantage of adding USB 3.0 support is the ability to charge the iPad slightly faster on standard ports for people who don't have Macs. While 900mA is still a far cry from the 2A you can get from the 10W iPad charger or a Mac USB port (by going above the spec), it's better than the 500 mA USB 2.0 provides.

 

[gri]

Retina Dsiplay, Quad Core chip AND LTE... This thing better pack some serious battey power..

Although I personally wouldn't care if it gets 8 hrs. instead of 10 (on average). For "work on the go", it would still be a very desirable upgrade (from my current iPad 1).

I think it'll be hard to get my hands on one of these within a month of the launch date!

As long as it has the same amazing better life as the iPad 2 and does not reduce it (as they did on the iPhone 4s) I am happy.

 

[Flood123]

Seriously though, a quad core would be pretty nice.

 

[Lesser Evets]

Nothing surprising here. We all know (we who follow the rumors) they iPad3 will have the A6. To release an iPad3 with an A5 would be called an iPad2.

I am curious if this sign of an iPad3 being run around is an indicator of sooner-than-later release to the market; February over March reveal, early March or late February release, etc.

 

[nylonsteel]

re original article

quad core = yummy

a fiesty lil 4 banger would be humming

 

[GunZi]

,what i want most... is RENTINA DISPLAY!!!

 

[mmendoza27]

Not impressed, I could fake that up too. It's a freaking TextEdit document on Lion.

iBoot? Seriously? I hope BGR didn't pay to much for these images, cause they got scammed.

As much as I would like for it to be real I'm going to call fakety fake fake fake, until we get to an actual Apple press event.

I hope you do understand that "iBoot" is the name of the iOS bootrom, which is in charge allowing the device to boot and initialized all the peripherials and some hardware components. They didn't just make this up.

 

[longofest]

A big question in my mind will be whether the A6 will be Cortex A-15 based or A-9 based.

A5 is Cortex A9, as is nVidia's Tegra2 (dual-core) and Tegra3 (quad-core).

All things being equal, Cortex A-15 is 40% faster than Cortex A-9... when you add 2 other dies on as well as I'm sure a faster GPU, the A6 could be one hell of a processor (though still 32-bit, as it is still ARM v7 instruction set based).

 

[chrmjenkins]

Few things

1) There's nothing to substantiate LTE in this article. They are reporting old rumors.

2) The source claims to be in possession of an iPad 3 prototype. Why would we get pictures of code but not the prototype? If they say they have the prototype and are providing code, that's just as incriminating as the prototype.

3) If the processor variant is real, then it does make sense for it to be a quad core A9. They went from ____30 to ____40 between A4 and A5, which saw an architecture change. This one is _____45, suggesting it is similar to the _____40 rather than being a whole new SoC. Perhaps quad core A9 and SGX543MP4 on a 32/28nm process?

A big question in my mind will be whether the A6 will be Cortex A-15 based or A-9 based.

A5 is Cortex A9, as is nVidia's Tegra2 (dual-core) and Tegra3 (quad-core).

All things being equal, Cortex A-15 is 40% faster than Cortex A-9... when you add 2 other dies on as well as I'm sure a faster GPU, the A6 could be one hell of a processor (though still 32-bit, as it is still ARM v7 instruction set based).

There's no reason to push for a change to ARM's 64 bit instruction set. Wider data paths are expensive, especially for mobile devices. They are especially helped by memory that is much faster than it was around 2002 when AMD was introducing their 64 bit architecture. You can get sufficient bandwidth without increasing data bus width. It's just too expensive overall where efficiency is the name of the game.

 

[bmwhd]

You showed us that your uninformed opinion matches up with an unsubstantiated rumor!

LOL. Good one. Of course I'll take that since I obviously can't share how I know. Just remember where you heard it.

 

[longofest]

3) If the processor variant is real, then it does make sense for it to be a quad core A9. They went from ____30 to ____40 between A4 and A5, which saw an architecture change. This one is _____45, suggesting it is similar to the _____40 rather than being a whole new SoC. Perhaps quad core A9 and SGX543MP4 on a 32/28nm process?

Good catch regarding model number. This seems entirely plausible.

 

[tigres]

I would be pleasantly surprised, but we all know apple shoots far from the moon on upgrades, maybe this is for the ip4, who knows.

But- if true, my iPad original is due for an upgrade

 

[longofest]

There's no reason to push for a change to ARM's 64 bit instruction set. Wider data paths are expensive, especially for mobile devices. They are especially helped by memory that is much faster than it was around 2002 when AMD was introducing their 64 bit architecture. You can get sufficient bandwidth without increasing data bus width. It's just too expensive overall where efficiency is the name of the game.

The iPhone certainly doesn't need a 64bit architecture yet, but I wouldn't be quite so fast to agree when it comes to the iPad though.

 

[OddyOh]

There will be no iPad 3. Apple will release the iPad 3.1415926 just to bake our brains.

Edited to say: I don't think it will have USB 3 for the reason that I don't know of any Macs that have USB 3. If you don't have anything to plug the port into, why put in the port.

Because millions of PC users do? I'm mostly Mac, and wouldn't run iTunes in Windows on a dare...that said, anything to speed up syncing! I'm half-wondering if we'll see a iPod-dock to Thunderbolt cable? If they really want this new port to be on everything, they gotta start with their own devices.

 

[PsykX]

As it appears, this is not a retina display, unfortunately. I can literally see the pixels in the picture.

So I believe there are two possibilities:
1) The next-gen iPad won't have a higher resolution display and this info is correct
2) This is a second generation iPad and this debug software is fake

Interesting.

This is not a shot from an iPad. It’s taken from Mac OS X, you can see the corners of the window and the wallpaper around it.

They missed their deadline for the iPad 2. Now they have no choice but to make it retina display, especially because even the upcoming Mac lines are subject to have this upgrade along with 10.7.3 or 10.7.4 supporting HDPI resolutions without debugging tools.

 

[chrmjenkins]

The iPhone certainly doesn't need a 64bit architecture yet, but I wouldn't be quite so fast to agree when it comes to the iPad though.

What will 64 bit offer that the iPad needs?

 

[2IS]

So atleast we know if the iPad 3 is getting LTE, we now know that a redesigned iPhone 5 will also be getting LTE. (It will be redesigned because if you remember, LTE chips will force some design changes that Apple did not want to make at the time)

We dont know any of that actualy.

Apple holdling out on LTE wasn't becuase they were waiting until they were ready to make design compromises, it was becuase they're waiting for the LTE chipsets to mature so they don't have to make design compromises.

 

[chrmjenkins]

We dont know any of that actualy.

Apple holdling out on LTE wasn't becuase they were waiting until they were ready to make design compromises, it was becuase they're waiting for the LTE chipsets to mature so they don't have to make design compromises.

Precisely. All of that simply wouldn't have fit in the 4S enclosure without decreasing the battery size because LTE would have necessitated at least 1 extra chip. So now you've got a chip that is going to cause you to burn more power with a smaller battery. Not a good combo.

 

[RalfTheDog]

Because millions of PC users do? I'm mostly Mac, and wouldn't run iTunes in Windows on a dare...that said, anything to speed up syncing! I'm half-wondering if we'll see a iPod-dock to Thunderbolt cable? If they really want this new port to be on everything, they gotta start with their own devices.

The limiting factor in syncing is more likely to be the speed of the Flash memory, not the port speed.