However, I have been thinking about the high res iPad 2 and in some ways it makes sense. [/quote[
Dont think about it, apple isnt goign to give this too you. Perhaps with ipad 3
One thing it would do is keep game developers from getting too far ahead of the iPad and iphone 4 technology, and keep them 'alive' and relevant for longer (making Apple heaps more money, because the millions of people with last generation hardware can still buy the latest and greatest games). Because of the resolution doubling, the extra power in the iPad 2 would largely go to driving the higher resolution of the games. In this way, you can have a game designed to run perfectly on the iPad 1 / iphone 4, and then have it run even better on the iPad 2, AND at double the resolution. They could even enable a few extra rendering effects and whatnot for the iPad 2 if they want.
Doube the reolution means 4 times as much pixels wich would mean close to 3 times more demanding. Just doubling the ipad cpu and gpu would mean it would be able to drive the increase in resolution.
Its also not that easy all textures and gui would need to be redesigned to fit 4 different resolutions: old iphone 3gs res, iphone 4, ipad 1 and ipad 2 . and perhaps pretty soon atv2 .
It would be so much faster than the iPad 1 / iphone 4 that it would make them obsolete too quickly, and any games coming out to take advantage of this super high end hardware would not run on the only 1-generation old iPad 1 and iphone 4.
It would be a gradual increase, apps would have to be rewritten no doubt to handle the dual core setup.
Also iphone 1/3 = arm11 architecture cpu @400MHZ = about 500 DMIPS
iphone 3gs = arm cortex A8 @ 600MHZ = 1200 DMIPS
iphone 4 = arm cortex A8 @ 1000 MHZ = 2000 DMIPS
New dual core Cortex A9 = up to 2 x 1000 MHZ or 2 x 2500 DMIPS
The increase wouldnt be all that much fornon optimised apps, a lot less then the upgrade between 3g and 3gs .
The potential would be there but not used for the vast mayorite of apps.
So the really depressing thing that follows from this arguement is that if the resolution is NOT doubled, we will probably not see the same high end specs we were hoping for because A) it will not be needed, and B) it will put too much of a gap between the current generation and the last. In the past we have been used to incremental bumps in CPU speed from 400 mhz to 600, then to 800, etc... as well as slow increases in GPU speed.
Of course the competition is already releasing dual core CPU's in tablets. If apple doesnt follow it wil start to run behind in a market it is currently dominating.
The CPU is avaible,and according to some cheaper, I see little reason NOT to use it.
Now for the iPad 2 we're talking about going to a new CPU architecture (A8 to A9) which in it's self will give an increase in performance, and then we're adding 2 cores and MORE than doubling the performance overall.
Same here:
MBX lite(iphone 1/3)= about 2 Mpolys/s, 200 Mpx/s
SGX535 (iphone 3gs/4) = 28 M polys/s, 500Mpx/s@200 MHz
Thats more then doubled the GPU power, almost 3 times as powerfull.
SGX543 (=rumored new ipad GPU core) = 35M polygons/s @200 MHz single core . A dual core might give you 3 times the power .
We can talk about the thing apple did in the past with the 3GS to 4, and iphone 3G to 3GS, but the fact is that never has Apple or the entire industry been in this same position with the same explosion in mobile computing power in such a short period of time.We aren't going from 600 mHz to 800 mHz, we're going from 1000 mHz to 2000 mHz (essentially with the dual core phones).
The thing is: people arent going to notice it that much because the performance is already quit high.
Desktop cpu have this problem for years: they are so powerfull that low to mid end covers 99% of the market. Since cortex A8 we are seeing the same with smartphone/tablet cpu's : they are so powerfull they can do most tasks without problems or lag.
If you want to look at apples previous release trends and use them to predict the iPad 2 release, look no further than the 3GS / iPad overlap. We went from a 600 mHz CPU with 256 megs of ram on the 3GS, to a 1000 mhz processor with the same GPU and same ram on the iPad, BUT with a MUCH higher resolution (remember the 3GS did not have a retina display).
Neither does the ipad have retina, its barey any better then the iphone 3gs just bigger.
For the rest: same GPU, same RAM, increase in CPU(wich was largely taken up with the increased needs of the gui)
The jump from 3g to 3gs is still bigger.
Now we're talking about a big increase in GPU speed (even if only single core GPU), a more than DOUBLING of CPU speed (dual core A9 based), and a double of ram. WHY couldn't this machine handle a doubling of resolution,
The question is not if it could handle the increase, the question is can apple keep it affordable ?
A that big increase is going to drive hardware prices trough the roof. The only reason I see apple doing is if they want to crush android competition beforeit gets started.
And knowing apple I dont think that is there goal. They much rather keep margins high and specs relative average.
