iPad Pro Tidbits: A9X Outperforms MacBook, Apple Pencil is Weighted, T-Mobile Financing and More

[ArtOfWarfare]

So, playing games in iPad Pro is faster than a MacBook Pro?
I give it two/three more years to apple to start rolling out MacBooks with ARM chips

The ARM chips are better in every way, if I'm not mistaken, than Intel's Core M chips that Apple is using in the New Retina 2015 MacBook (whatever you want to call it).

2-3 years seems too conservative. I'm guessing that in 3-4 months, Apple will refresh the entire MacBook line, giving the low end computers ARM and the high end ones will get Intel's Skylake.

 

[soupcan]

You forgot to mention it outperforms the 2015 15" MacBook Pro with the Iris GPU by quite a bit. Might wanna mention it.

 

[aajeevlin]

Since there was apparently no info in any articles about it, I called my local Apple Store this morning to find out if I could get hands-on time with an iPad Pro and Apple Pencil. The woman who answered told me yes ("they're available today"), though she sounded like she wasn't paying attention to me. I showed up at the store and a dude with wooden earrings told me there weren't any on the floor till tomorrow. "There was definitely a miscommunication on one side or the other; sorry man" he said, after I said "I explicitly asked if I could get hands-on time with one". Yeah, miscommunication on their end, not mine. Sigh.

I'll probably get some hate for saying this, but the Apple store employee isn't what they used to be. Many years ago, you work there, you know the product and you love the product. These days, you just get folks who has gone through some official training (probably works there because it sounds better than working somewhere else). I bet that many people on Macrumors will outperform many of the people currently working in the Apple store.

 

[2457282]

If anyone checks my prior post on this topic, I have been a firm believer that the ARM technology is the way of the future for Apple. I totally see them investing more into iOS and the ARM chip. They still need more work on iOS to make this a complete alternative to a MACwhatever or a PC. I think you could give this to 50% of the current Mac/PC users and this would be enough. but iOS still needs to support multi-windows a little better (2 is not enough for a PRO) and it needs pro class software. MS suite is almost there (although I would never pay the subscription fee). The iWorks and Photo Apps are nowhere near Pro. But if Apple invest this next year in making iOS and their software apps pro class, then I would be ready to jump on this bandwagon.

 

[amirite]

And I would pay it...

But I wonder if he actually said diluted, and they misquoted him.

banking on this

 

[Benjamin Frost]

These charts seem more useful:

Also, the Onscreen GFXBench tests also seem more useful than the Offscreen ones shown in the article above. I care more about rendering in it's native resolution than rendering in 1080.

Yes, these charts are more realistic.

The Pro beats the Air 2 by 6 frames; okay, but not amazing. I think we'll need to wait for the Pro 2 to really see it pulling ahead.

 

[RebornProphet]

Does anyone have the basic Single and Multi Core scores from a Geekbench 3 test?

 

[v0lume4]

Mr Cook had some sharp words for competitors. Despite saying that Apple's relationship with Microsoft as "really good", he described the software giant's new Surface Book laptop as "deluded".

"It's a product that tries too hard to do too much," he said. "It's trying to be a tablet and a notebook and it really succeeds at being neither. It's sort of deluded."

Wow. I've seen the iPad Pro labelled by Apple as "desktop class," and described by Tim as, "the only computer some people will ever need."

To mirror Tim's same diction, "The iPad Pro is trying to be a laptop and really doesn't succeed at it. It comes short."

Now, I don't think the iPad Pro is bad. And congratulations to all of you that get it, truly. It simply angers me to see someone be so arrogant as to call the Surface Book "deluded" after seeing the way the iPad Pro is described by the executives at Apple.

 

[TheLondonFella]

Surface Book is deluded? Tim, you'd sell a lot more of these iPad Pros if users were able to run OS X on it and pair a mouse with it. Better yet, let the iPad Pro run OS X and also run iOS apps. Best of both worlds, but then Apple would probably charge $1,299 minimum for it.

Stop moaning!

If this, if that ...

The iPad Pro is going to be a superb device, and I'm looking forward to receiving mine on Friday (shipped!).

Love it, or leave it.

 

[JackANSI]

Is this really "wow look how great the iPad pro is" or is it...

(more truthfully, IMO) "Look at the low-end hardware they deemed fit for the MBP"

 

[zaphon]

You forgot to mention it outperforms the 2015 15" MacBook Pro with the Iris GPU by quite a bit. Might wanna mention it.

That's great, but how does it compare to my 2015 15" MacBook Pro with AMD R9 M370X??? It's funny they left that off the charts.

 

[TMRJIJ]

Surface Book is deluded? Tim, you'd sell a lot more of these iPad Pros if users were able to run OS X on it and pair a mouse with it. Better yet, let the iPad Pro run OS X and also run iOS apps. Best of both worlds, but then Apple would probably charge $1,299 minimum for it.

How about no. OS X is NOT for touch input. Also mouses defeat the purpose of a touch screen.
They made a good small step with iOS 9 multitasking and iCloud Drive app, but we'll just have wait for iOS 10 to improve from that.

 

[soupcan]

The ARM chips are better in every way, if I'm not mistaken, than Intel's Core M chips that Apple is using in the New Retina 2015 MacBook (whatever you want to call it).

2-3 years seems too conservative. I'm guessing that in 3-4 months, Apple will refresh the entire MacBook line, giving the low end computers ARM and the high end ones will get Intel's Skylake.

And then no developer is going to write software for OS X anymore. ARM and x86 are completely different in every way, shape and form and also keep in mind x86-based Macs are still around.

It's more likely Apple will design their own x86 chips rather than moving everything to ARM-based SoCs.

 

[GhostRaider]

You should all be aware that Apple's A processors will one day power Macs. The MacBook will be the first to implement this new processor, hence the motherboard size is similar to that of an iPad.

If you don't believe that, you need to get your eyes checked because Apple wants to do everything on their own. They don't like being dependent on someone else.

 

[bladerunner2000]

Unbelievable that the ATV4 didn't got the A9X

Probably because you dont need it. What would be the point of putting a faster chip inside if all you need to do is playback a movie?

 

[soupcan]

That's great, but how does it compare to my 2015 15" MacBook Pro with AMD R9 M370X??? It's funny they left that off the charts.

Of course the R9 will smoke the A9X's GPU (whatever it is). That's like comparing apples to space ships, they're not even in the same category.

 

[Flow39]

I'll probably get some hate for saying this, but the Apple store employee isn't what they used to be. Many years ago, you work there, you know the product and you love the product. These days, you just get folks who has gone through some official training (probably works there because it sounds better than working somewhere else). I bet that many people on Macrumors will outperform many of the people currently working in the Apple store.

I've seen it at my local store. The employees there have no technical knowledge. Half the time they don't even know what CPU a computer has or how much RAM it packs. A majority of the employees can't talk tech, but a select few can.

 

[btrach144]

decrease the price by $100 and then maybe I would be interested. Even with the EPP, it's still a very pricey product. Actually, the EPP discount seemed very low compared to other Apple products but maybe I'm imaging things.

 

[TXCherokee]

The most ironic thing about all that graphical power is that it will never be fully utilised by the time it's superseded by the Pro 2. As is the case for most modern iOS devices. There won't be an app that can't run on that thing or even stretch it for years.

This isn't ironic. This is by design. The iPad Pro is aimed at a group of customers (enterprise, education, etc.) who can make great use of a super powerful large screened tablet AND will not put up with having their investments rendered outdated in a year or two.

Those of us in this forum may upgrade to the latest and greatest, but most buyers want their stuff to just last.

 

[oneMadRssn]

What the actual F***

Those numbers are insane for an Arm Chip

Overall I agreed - though it looks like they were insane last year with the A8X as well.

However - ARM has nothing to do with that GPU, which is designed by Imagination Technologies. It is their PowerVR series. On the A9, it is the PowerVR Series 7XT GT7600. Probably something similar on the A9X.

I think this says more about how behind Intel is on their GPUs.

As the CPU charts show, Intel is still fairly far ahead in terms of CPU power, though not at the crazy power efficiency of ARM. That is where ARM is insane - speed per unit of energy usage.

 

[RebornProphet]

So the Pro has a multi core score of 5498 while the Air 2 comes in at 4489. That's ... quite underwhelming. I thought it would be a far bigger gap than that.

 

[Flow39]

It simply angers me to see someone be so arrogant as to call the Surface Book "deluded" after seeing the way the iPad Pro is described by the executives at Apple.

It made me fairly irritated when I heard this earlier. I stopped and thought to myself, "Apple, why are you making arrogant comments? The SB is a really cool product and has far more potential to replace a computer than the iPad Pro."

Apple better cut the arrogant comments, because it will only hurt their public image after a short time.

 

[TXCherokee]

No they probably wouldn't. Apple still sells lots more iPads than Macs. Face it. As much as I like the Mac, OS X is a niche and always will be. It is better for Apple to build up iOS since that is where the vast majority of its revenue comes from. Creating a Windows 8-style OS X would be a disaster and Tim Cook knows it. An Intel iPad Pro would either have poor battery life or be gimped with a Core M or an ARM trying to support older software in emulation.

^This. A lot of folks in this forum are not the customer for the iPad Pro. Pro does not mean (only) software developer or IT professional. It means doctor, real estate agent, sports coach, anyone who is a PROfessional and can benefit from a powerful touch screen light weight tablet.

 

[tebruno99]

Oooh, now a lot of things are starting to make sense.

Apple has been crippling their entire Mac product line by shipping low end GPU. Its really easy to make the iPad Pro appear to be so powerful when Apple has reduced the GPU power of their entire product line to the equiv of 2011 paper weights.

 

[firewood]

That's a good point. If we could compare the two running the exact same OS, it would provide a much more fair comparison.

If you are a programmer who could look at the kernel APIs, you will realize they are exactly the same 64-bit OS, just with different UI frameworks, security layers, and user apps on top. And arm64 is the newer more advanced instruction set.