A8X's prospects in light of A9X being dual core?

[Cakefish]

What does it mean for the tri-core A8X now that the A9X has been revealed to be a monstrous dual-core CPU? Will iOS app developers properly code their apps for the three cores or has the iPad Pro completely scuppered iPad Air 2's future prospects? Will any app take advantage of more than two threads?

Will the A8X get a second wind if the A10/A10X turn out to be tri-cores or quad-cores next year?

How will A8X fare in light of remaining the only CPU in iOS history to have more than two CPU cores?

 

[Gav2k]

The a8x runs a lower clock that's the key point.

 

[flux73]

How does the number of cores affect how you use the iPad?

 

[Atomic Walrus]

You're either writing for multi-threading or you're single core bound, generally not going to write code specifically for a certain number of physical CPUs. I don't see it making much difference

 

[Cakefish]

Hopefully you're right. I'd hate for the A9X to negatively impact the performance of apps on Air 2 just because they start ignoring that third CPU core.

 

[NT1440]

Hopefully you're right. I'd hate for the A9X to negatively impact the performance of apps on Air 2 just because they start ignoring that third CPU core.

I'm pretty sure Xcode does most of the heavy lifting in terms of accounting for cores but I could be wrong.

 

[Andres Cantu]

I was thinking the same thing: developers will probably ignore the third-core for now and it might make a "comeback" if the A10/A10X are tri-core designs.

Apple probably could have found a way for the iPad Pro to have three cores, but I wouldn't be surprised if they held that core back for the A10X in order to increase the multi-core performance next year.