iPad Air 2 Up to 55% Faster Than iPhone 6, Up to 68% Faster Than iPad Air

[UpperQuadrant]

No HDMI...

First off, not many people actually use HDMI with a tablet. Apple has AirPlay so you can put the screen on a TV with a AppleTV box. Wireless for $99, more convenient. Now, if you REALLY, REALLY need HDMI output to connect a HDMI cable, then you can buy an adapter to connect to the Lightning port and do it that way. The cost is $49. http://store.apple.com/us/product/MD826ZM/A/lightning-digital-av-adapter

So, it does do HDMI output, it just requires a minimal cost for an adapter. But the majority of iPad users don't connect with HDMI. For convenience, wireless connection with an AppleTV is preferred for people in the Education and Business market.

 

[Romey-Rome]

How? Its the limits of physics that introduces... The nipple. If the sensor was even bigger,the protuberance would be even bigger.

Things tend to get smaller as time goes by, no?

 

[Count Blah]

No,
Multitasking is a subject used by people such as yourself, who come onto an Apple discussion forum, even though you hate Apple... and need to have something to complain or criticize. Does samsung pay you well?

Check my join date. My first Apple computer was an apple ][+. I currently have 7 macs sitting in my house, 3 get daily use, and one is used in a pinch if my son is going someplace where he might need a laptop. I have to get off my lazy butt to take my G3, G4, and cheese-grader G5 towers to a recycling center. So please spare me the "anti-apple"/Samsung rant.

It's ok to say the emperor has no clothes, when the emperor has no clothes. They are not going to come to your house and beat you up.

 

[HishamAkhtar]

Its always funny how people bring up features that they'll barely use. Just like when the first iPhone came out and people complained you can't copy and paste or you can't type in landscape. Nobody types in landscape. Multi tasking may very well be in the pipeline so especially since we know 8.2 and 8.3 are being worked on as we speak. I for one find multitasking a distraction. I prefer to focus on one project at a time to get the maximum productivity. my 2cents

Are you kidding me? I've had countless times where I tried taking notes off a PowerPoint presentation on my iPad onto another app and it was a horrendous experience.

And it shouldn't matter what you prefer. Users should have a choice in what they like to do with their device.

----------

You can. iOS has had multitasking for years.

Lolz at you calling that multitasking.

 

[Menneisyys2]

In terms of hardware, public expects a new iPad every year, Apple can choose either to improve or to introduce as far as the existing tech is concern. Apple does not release half baked hardware and expect it to sell

iPad 3, anyone?

 

[RebornProphet]

Woah, that multi-core score is tasty.

That's the kind of leap I ezpexted to see from the 5s to 6/6Plus, not a few hundred points.

As I've said in other threads, I've upgraded three years in a row now from the 3 to the 4 to the Air, each time handing down my old iPad to my wife who in turn hands her old iPad down to family members without one.

This year however I'm sticking with my Air and my wife can get the new model first. Her Dad is using an iPad 2 and it's been more or less crippled by iOS 8. I'm sure he'll appreciate her iPad 4.

 

[mad3inch1na]

so this whole next year with this thing you won't see its performance...

No, there are certainly applications that will benefit from 3 cores. Multitasking is just not coming for a while. I'm just saying I think that hardware improvements should come before the software improvements. Now they will have decent machines to do beta testing on, and multitasking will be a fully functioning feature. That is why I buy Apple devices.

 

[RebornProphet]

No, there are certainly applications that will benefit from 3 cores. Multitasking is just not coming for a while. I'm just saying I think that hardware improvements should come before the software improvements. Now they will have decent machines to do beta testing on, and multitasking will be a fully functioning feature. That is why I buy Apple devices.

If it's true that the 12.7" iPad is coming early next year then I wouldn't be surprised to see the Air 2 get the real multitasking via iOS 8.2 or 8.3, which as we know are already out there and being tested by Apple.

I cannot see the 12.7" iPad (if it exists) having much more power under the hood than the Air 2.

 

[Beavix]

All that power, wasted because of a limited operating system designed for phones, not for tablets.

 

[viewing]

OMG that is a thought i hadn't had

 

[donnaw]

This is great and all... But I really need to see some software that takes advantage of this horsepower. We've been at the level of "good enough" for a couple of years now.

But I do believe this is Apple trying to get to a fast enough processor to go ARM on OSX.

Well, you can't get the software until the hardware exists. It will be interesting to see what some imaginative developers come up with now.

 

[blackcrayon]

All that power, wasted because of a limited operating system designed for phones, not for tablets.

Heh. They're already shown real world examples where the additional power will make a difference using apps. And obviously games will benefit. Please let us know which part of the OS will keep iPad applications from using the new powerful CPU and GPU.

 

[Beavix]

Heh. They're already shown real world examples where the additional power will make a difference using apps. And obviously games will benefit. Please let us know which part of the OS will keep iPad applications from using the new powerful CPU and GPU.

I don't care about gaming and fingerpainting on an iPad. If the iPad is only a gaming console now then Apple should let us all know.

I can watch movies, listen to music, browse the internet and edit photos just fine on my iPad 4. I don't need a more powerful one for this.

A faster iPad will not help me write faster in a text editor or add more data into a spreadsheet.

What I do need is a powerful file manager so I can do real work on an iPad. A file manager like Finder should allow apps to interact with each other by importing and exporting files into the file system. The document picker from iOS 8 is a joke.

 

[imola.zhp]

Hmmm...

I wonder what they'll do to the iPhone 6 and mini retina next year?

You get an A8x, you get an A8x, everybody gets an A8x! *insert picture of Oprah*

 

[blackcrayon]

I don't care about gaming and fingerpainting on an iPad. If the iPad is only a gaming console now then Apple should let us all know.

I can watch movies, listen to music, browse the internet and edit photos just fine on my iPad 4. I don't need a more powerful one for this.

A faster iPad will not help me write faster in a text editor or add more data into a spreadsheet.

What I do need is a powerful file manager so I can do real work on an iPad. A file manager like Finder should allow apps to interact with each other by importing and exporting files into the file system. The document picker from iOS 8 is a joke.

The same could be said of any incremental update to any computer that adds lots of performance. It isn't the iPad's fault that you don't do anything that takes CPU power. The fact remains that there are apps that did not run at infinite speed on the iPad Air 1, that will greatly benefit from the additional power in the iPad Air 2 (the video composing app demo'd at the keynote for example).

The purpose of the iPad is to avoid things like traditional file systems. You should probably switch to a different device if that's the most important thing. I think the new iOS 8 file picker is a huge step forward, hell, I can SFTP (and soon SMB, presumably) files to and from my iMac remotely from within any app. That's pretty powerful.

 

[diamond.g]

Woah, that multi-core score is tasty.

That's the kind of leap I ezpexted to see from the 5s to 6/6Plus, not a few hundred points.

As I've said in other threads, I've upgraded three years in a row now from the 3 to the 4 to the Air, each time handing down my old iPad to my wife who in turn hands her old iPad down to family members without one.

This year however I'm sticking with my Air and my wife can get the new model first. Her Dad is using an iPad 2 and it's been more or less crippled by iOS 8. I'm sure he'll appreciate her iPad 4.

I am curious if the iPhone 6/6+ are getting throttled more heavily. I mean how can the single core score be that much higher off a 100Mhz clock difference? Look at the Air 1 vs iPhone 5s for reference.

 

[Hattig]

All that power, wasted because of a limited operating system designed for phones, not for tablets.

iOS isn't limited internally.

The front-end paradigm is currently single full-screen window at the moment.

It isn't inconceivable that Apple will add UI multitasking ability (i.e., split-screen operation) in a future iOS update. It's what form this comes in that is the question. A 4:3 screen could be treated as two 2:3 screens next to each other for example, you drop from @3x to @2x in the rendering, and most apps can cope with different vertical heights.

However difficulty comes if you want different sized screens, or more advanced configurations. Never mind drag-and-drop between open active applications, and similar functionalities that two applications to be open at the same time can offer. I presume that windowed operation is not going to be offered.

----------

I am curious if the iPhone 6/6+ are getting throttled more heavily. I mean how can the single core score be that much higher off a 100Mhz clock difference? Look at the Air 1 vs iPhone 5s for reference.

Yeah, typically in mobile applications processors run in a low speed most of the time (active, not sleep), and only go up to their rated speed when absolutely required. That period of high speed can also only be maintained for a certain amount of time before it's throttled down a bit to keep power consumption/heat under control. It's called Race To Idle and doesn't work well with intensive games and long running benchmarks!

It's likely that the larger chassis of the iPad Air 2 can take a lot more heat than the iPhone 6+, so it can run at its top speed for longer, even though that top speed is higher.

 

[MrX8503]

A lot of you are getting snowed by the very positive headline.

Most generational improvements in the single core benchmark have been on the order of 2x or 100%. This generation is a mere 23% improvement. That's generally what I would consider bad.

Single core performance history

iPhone 4 - 207
iPhone 4S - 215 (but dual core)
iPhone 5 - 710
iPhone 5S - 1400
iPhone 6 - 1609

Single core performance matters a lot more than adding a third core. It's a given that the multi core benchmark is going to do gangbusters with an extra core, but the fact is that most normal apps won't have much of a reason to use a third core. I'm still glad they added the core, but I'd much rather have seen a true generational leap in performance.

Eventually you reach a threshold and slow down. Early reports indicated that the A8 wasn't going to be the leap the A7 was. The early days of Intel Conroe, we saw performance of leaps and bounds. Today the Core iSeries hasn't increased in performance much. That's how it is.

 

[jonnysods]

Ha, makes me hate my iphone 6!

 

[akaimi]

what the user should do with all this power ?

 

[Narcaz]

It has has probably enough power for multi user support and split screen multitasking. Hopefully they are working on it. The hardware is top notch. But the software experience is not so great. It feels like a huge iPhone. More tablet specific features please.

 

[Tech198]

ah... The Need For Speed.

 

[UpperQuadrant]

Hmmm...

I wonder what they'll do to the iPhone 6 and mini retina next year?

You get an A8x, you get an A8x, everybody gets an A8x! *insert picture of Oprah*

Next year, the iPhone 6/6+ will be changed to iPhone 7/7+'s and they'll get an A9 chip. The iPad mini 3's will be called the iPad mini 4 with A8x and the Air 3's will get an A9x chip.

Just speculation on my part. ;-)

 

[rGiskard]

Its always funny how people bring up features that they'll barely use. Just like when the first iPhone came out and people complained you can't copy and paste or you can't type in landscape. Nobody types in landscape. Multi tasking may very well be in the pipeline so especially since we know 8.2 and 8.3 are being worked on as we speak. I for one find multitasking a distraction. I prefer to focus on one project at a time to get the maximum productivity. my 2cents

What if your project involves Pages, Numbers, Safari, and Mail?

Not so uncommon to use more than one App for a "Project", unless you consider a "Project" to be sniffing out good free pr0n (in which case 2GB is not nearly enough for all the tabs you'll need open).

 

[rGiskard]

Single core performance matters a lot more than adding a third core. It's a given that the multi core benchmark is going to do gangbusters with an extra core, but the fact is that most normal apps won't have much of a reason to use a third core. I'm still glad they added the core, but I'd much rather have seen a true generational leap in performance.

Single core performance matters more for current apps and the current iOS.

I don't doubt that developers can think of ways to use extra cores, and once Apple implements some sort of window management, those cores will be used to the hilt.

iOS Apps are in a unique place since Apple rejects ones with bad performance. Traditionally developers have released slow apps and let hardware catch up, but they can't do that with iOS. As a result the apps lag behind hardware performance, as in, they don't exploit it until it's been out for a while.

It's great to see Apple finally add more cores to their ARM SoC. Now in a few years all iDevices will feature quad cores and then the real excitement starts on the app side of the equation.