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

[borgqueenx]

Lol just announce the media event nowwww!
And i would also love a 128gb ipad3. The iphone 4s of mine has enough with 64gb, but no my ipad3 needs more space.

Quad core, i hope you make my apps boot a bit faster and wont let me wait with multitasking for a second or two.

 

[realitycheck69]

I'll get one once it's jailbroken. Simply too many limitations with Apple OS.

 

[Steveo13]

I think that they HAVE to include LTE support. I remember reading somewhere that some companies, such as Verizon, are now NOT allowing any NEW phones/tablets to be sold on their network if they do not support LTE.

 

[mdriftmeyer]

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?



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.

Considering ARM won't see 64 bit CPU designs in consumers hands before 2014 it seems pointless to make a reference to it.

 

[chrmjenkins]

Considering ARM won't see 64 bit CPU designs in consumers hands before 2014 it seems pointless to make a reference to it.

I'm inclined to agree, hence my original skepticism at the idea.

Apple's very design philosophy for iOS is antithetical to the idea of large active memory spaces.

 

[chazwatson]

Touche.i dont think this individual has anything why would you shows us the text edit that can be easily faked instead of the actual device.Boy Genius has an amzing track record when it comes to rumors...

Apple has been known to use case design as a method of tracking leaks. It isn't very wise to show off a prototype design that might not reflect the final product and most certainly will land you in a great deal of trouble.

 

[2IS]

I think that they HAVE to include LTE support. I remember reading somewhere that some companies, such as Verizon, are now NOT allowing any NEW phones/tablets to be sold on their network if they do not support LTE.

Verizon needs the iPad more than the iPad needs verizon. I'm not saying it will or won't have LTE, just saying that Apple has never been one to get bullied into doing something they didn't want to in the first place. If they don't want LTE in the iPad 3, Verizons terms and conditions certainly won't change that.

 

[mrklaw]

more interesting to me for a retina model, is what GPU it has. I don't want games to be a step backwards on this compared to the ipad 2.

 

[gnasher729]

Wow, I guess an iPad 3 is coming sooner or later then. Cool story bro.

Let met think.

Possibility one: Apple will keep selling the iPad 2 for the next hundred years and never introduce a new model.

Possibility two: An iPad 3 is coming sooner or later.

I think you are right.

Why are there so many build strings blurred out? wtf?

Why doe s the kernel build have to be blurred out? I don't believe this at all. and the whole Darwin 11.0.0, ummmm, wouldn't they be using iOS 5.1 AKA Darwin 11.1?

There's the possibility that some Apple employee doesn't want to become an ex-Apple employee. If this screen shot is really, and can be traced back to some engineer, then someone has to do some explaining to do to his employer.

True, if they're not saturating USB 2 yet, then yeah, no point at all.

My MBP writes to an external drive at about 34 MB/sec, and to my iPod at up to 16 MB/sec (haven't measured the iPad). So yes, to increase the speed at all you'd first increase the speed of Flash memory.

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.

On the Macintosh, 64 bit gives you three advantages: The x86 processors have twice as many registers in 64 bit mode which is a major advantage, it allows access to more than a few GB of RAM for a single application (multiple 32 bit apps can already use much more than 4 GB of RAM without problems), and since all 64 bit apps are new, some historical cruft in 32 bit code has been removed in 64 bit code. The ARM processors already have as many registers as x86 in 64 bit mode. iPad apps don't need several GB of RAM. And since the iOS code is all new, iOS uses the same more modern code as the MacOS X 64 bit code.

 

[psonice]

Nobody bothered to analyse what's shown there yet? Or noticed that it shows the memory size but *not* the CPUs?

First, memory: 2nd screenshot, right at the bottom. 244,276 pages free, 839??? in use. A page is 4KB. There's just under 1GB free memory so it has 1GB of RAM.

2nd, CPUs. On the first screenshot it shows 4 chips detected, but they're NAND flash not CPUs - this is the flash storage. Only thing we can learn from that is if there's currently 2 chips on the iPad (I have no idea), which might mean a 128GB option. There's no other mention of the CPU cores.

 

[marcusj0015]

And, why would an Apple dev leak this screenshot? iBoot is closed source...

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Nobody bothered to analyse what's shown there yet? Or noticed that it shows the memory size but *not* the CPUs?

First, memory: 2nd screenshot, right at the bottom. 244,276 pages free, 839??? in use. A page is 4KB. There's just under 1GB free memory so it has 1GB of RAM.

2nd, CPUs. On the first screenshot it shows 4 chips detected, but they're NAND flash not CPUs - this is the flash storage. Only thing we can learn from that is if there's currently 2 chips on the iPad (I have no idea), which might mean a 128GB option. There's no other mention of the CPU cores.

Why would Apple use 4 32GB NANDs when they can simply use two 64GB NANDs?

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On the Macintosh, 64 bit gives you three advantages: The x86 processors have twice as many registers in 64 bit mode which is a major advantage, it allows access to more than a few GB of RAM for a single application (multiple 32 bit apps can already use much more than 4 GB of RAM without problems), and since all 64 bit apps are new, some historical cruft in 32 bit code has been removed in 64 bit code. The ARM processors already have as many registers as x86 in 64 bit mode. iPad apps don't need several GB of RAM. And since the iOS code is all new, iOS uses the same more modern code as the MacOS X 64 bit code.

What about the bit width, and extra bandwidth afforded by x64?

 

[psonice]

Why would Apple use 4 32GB NANDs when they can simply use two 64GB NANDs?

Maybe they did. Maybe each NAND device uses 2 channels or something and appears as 2 devices to the device manager. We don't have iBoot output from an iPad 2 to compare it against (and if we did, it might not show this info in a release build) so who knows?

The memory info is much more interesting to me. That would need fairly deep technical knowledge to fake, implying that it's either real or a really good fake (And if it was fake and was supposed to be supporting the "quad core + LTE" theory, why fake the memory increase but *not* display CPU / network stuff?)

 

[bmwhd]

A broken clock is right twice a day.

Indeed. And this broken clock was also spot on about the launch of the CDMA iphone and the white iphone. Guess I'm lucky that way

 

[NutsNGum]

Indeed. And this broken clock was also spot on about the launch of the CDMA iphone and the white iphone. Guess I'm lucky that way

Care to point in the direction of that post, O' clairvoyant one?