What's so good about it? The looks? At 400% higher price than MHL adapter Apple's device manages to deliver worse performance. Is not it amazing? Even more amazing, some people actually like this
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Apple's Lightning Digital AV Adapter is a Full-Fledged Computer
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What's so good about it? The looks? At 400% higher price than MHL adapter Apple's device manages to deliver worse performance. Is not it amazing? Even more amazing, some people actually like this
That's a nice definition for a "processor".
Actually, the coffee maker has an ARM CPU and a serial port where you can connect a terminal and interact with the Linux OS. It computes the number of draws, monitors the state of the water tank, bean hopper and waste bin. It notifies you when maintenance or cleaning is needed...
That's funny, because it also runs Linux. If you want, you can even replace the OS (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomato_Firmware).
It has an OS, 512 MiB of RAM - even an embedded web server.
Subjective is right - and I think that most people would not consider a device with an embedded microprocessor to be a "full-fledged computer". It certainly contains a "computer"....
If someone decaps the part and sees they it's a stacked die design, then you're very likely right.
... but not at video playback, I'm afraid... you just can't make it mysteriously work at a much higher data rate (to allow for uncompressed HDMI data rates - around 2 Gbps for 1080p60), at least not on current hardware.
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I haven't handled this adapter yet so I don't know if it has two modes:
- receiving the MP4 (mov / m4v) file (that is, an iOS-native video file) as is (verbatim), buffering it and decoding itself, resulting in the best possible video quality
- simple mirroring for everything else, meaning the iPad compresses the video stream and sends it over to the adapter, which, in turn, decompresses it. (Directly programming the TV output is done exactly the same way - while, then, the ATV doesn't actively mirror the screen, there is compression involved. This is why many current multimedia players for iOS manage to utilize almost the entire screen width on the screen but still have inferior framerate and resolution compared to playing back iOS-native files or playing back over (pre-Ligthning) VGA / HDMI adapters)
These two modes are the default on the Apple TV. If Apple was smart enough, they allowed for the former too, not only the latter. However, the former requires at least some storage buffer so that at least a part of the MP4 file can be pre-buffered. Assuming the MP4 file is streaming-optimized, even a 80-100 Mbyte buffer would work, assuming the iPad continues to transfer the file during video playback all the time. With unoptimized files, much larger buffers are needed. (I've published a lot of dedicated optimized vs. unoptimized benchmarks for both the ATV and plain iPads - I can provide you with some links if interested.)
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By the picture they spent no time at all hacking the component out
hehe in their original blog, they reported 'It seems unlikely, doesnt it? So out came the hacksaw.'
I can only help but laugh....Gotta Love Apple !!! Honestly I cant wait until the day comes when I can throw out my stupid cable box and finally interact with my television without having to use a stupid infrared remote control for everything. Keep up the good work Cupertino
Except the raspberry pi is a kit project and barely marketed as a complete consumer product. As for games... Don't even try. Linux is not even in the same universe of simplicity and ease of use as a console or Apple ios device. Obviously superior tech and cheapness isn't enough. Get some standards that work for the majority of consumer uses and the Linux stuff could do much better. But there's little unification in that land. It's not for lack of capability.
From the conjecture in the comments it is rather clear today's average consumer is technically inferior to those of just 10 years ago, never mind 20 years ago.
Not a single conjecture about gate logic, what sort of memory branching is on the chip, etc. Sad.
Not a single conjecture about gate logic, what sort of memory branching is on the chip, etc. Sad.
Computer Engineer definition of a computer:
1. Bus
2. I/O
3. Processor
4. Memory
OS not required.. but likely
1. Bus
2. I/O
3. Processor
4. Memory
OS not required.. but likely
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"Why do this crazy thing at all? All we can figure is that the small number of Lightning pins prevented them from doing raw HDMI period, and the elegance of the adapter trumped the need for traditional video out, so someone had to think seriously out of the box. Or maybe they want get as much functionality out of the iPad as possible to reduce cost and complexity."
Or maybe Apple likes to create new interfaces so that they can drive obsolescence and make more money on new equipment and new complicated cables. Apple has a very long history of doing exactly this. It makes Apple very Not-Green.
Or maybe Apple likes to create new interfaces so that they can drive obsolescence and make more money on new equipment and new complicated cables. Apple has a very long history of doing exactly this. It makes Apple very Not-Green.
That's not lying. Other phones did have a "death grip". It was just not in an important area.
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*Googles Raspberry Pi*
Linux... Probably a pain in the butt.
*Closes window and discounts*
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My sons Android tablet has an HDMI socket on the side of it and streams 1080p superbly. £85 too √ Going to be getting myself a 10' version when the new quad core model is released next month in Hong Kong.
This is a mac RUMORS site, not a mac FAN site. But anyway, false advertizement since it doesn't really put out at 1080.
Raspberry Pi
Give me a break, then you buy a case, then you buy a SD card, then a keyboard. Add shipping cost, after all is said and done you saved maybe $20. Then you get to install AirPlay + XBMC. XBMC works pretty well, I will give you that, but AirPlay? AirPlay will work for about 2-3 songs when streaming Audio, then it crashes because it can't keep the audio synced. Sorry that is not worth saving $20.
Hah, for my purposes the lightning connector is a downgrade to the 30 pin. It would be so lovely if apple would use standard ports though.
I'm absolutely sure it won't be under 140$ (at least now the quad 10" noname Chinese tablets cost that much). And it'll only be XGA - the cheapest Retina model is $250 and it isn't really a speedking (see the reports at XDA-Devs). Then, better go for the Nexus 10 with proper warranty and OS.
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They'll never do that. Imagine: people would purchase $2 standard microHDMI cables instead of Apple's cr@p at at least twenty times the money... Apple would never let THAT. Low-framerare, lowish-res, blocky video playback or mirroring? Doesn't matter, the point is to milk the cow (the customers) as effectively as possible, quality can suffer.
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Some of them did - but certainly to a much less degree. No wonder Apple silently removed their ads "proving" other phones also have the death grip after first denying the entire thing and lying to their customers "you're holding it wrong".
That is cool! It is amazing how much tech they managed to put inside such a small adapter.
Yes and STILL GET A WORSE PICTURE QUALITY .
Typical apple these days .
re: cheap memory
Well, to be fair though, lower density RAM is by far the cheapest because everyone is only interested in the higher capacities these days.
They probably can get ahold of 256MB chips for practically nothing these days, since new laptop owners are saying, "Hey... I need nothing smaller than a couple of 8GB chips to upgrade this thing!" and so forth.
Well, to be fair though, lower density RAM is by far the cheapest because everyone is only interested in the higher capacities these days.
They probably can get ahold of 256MB chips for practically nothing these days, since new laptop owners are saying, "Hey... I need nothing smaller than a couple of 8GB chips to upgrade this thing!" and so forth.