Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Now that the cat is out of the bag...
- Thread starter xraytech
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I highly doubt the validity of that article that reported they got WebOS running on an iPad and it ran so much better than on a Touchpad, if HP devs could do that then I am sure we would have a full hardware accelerated version of Android ported to the iPad already but admit stands we don't have any kind of port. There are just too many challenges for it to happen as the iPad is chock full of proprietary hardware right down to the CPU so getting a compatible kernel and drivers for all the hardware just isn't possible as they aren't available.
The CPU is custom-made for the iPad, but it's an ARM chip, so anything coded to run on ARM (including webOS) should be able to run on the hardware. Based on what I read about this, they actually ran webOS natively on an iPad, and also ran it through Safari - on both cases it ran faster than on the TouchPad hardware. So you should be able to just make it a web app and run it that way.
As it turns out, the TouchPad was already created when HP bought Palm and webOS - they just grafted the OS onto their existing hardware (which was apparently so underpowered even the webOS team hated it). TNW has some really good articles from inside HP relating to webOS and its demise.
Well for them to get any decent performance they would need hardware based graphics acceleration so they would need the drivers for that, just look at the (lack of) progress the android guys are making on that front on the iPhone 3G to see how much of a challenge that is and there are some very talented hackers that have worked on that.
Technically the Qualcomm Snapdragon Series3 APQ8060 1.2ghz Dual Core from a purely CPU respect is probably about the same as the Ipad2's A5 in purely CPU operations. I'm not sure if the APQ8060 is still using Cortex A8's or A9s now.
I suspect that WebOS has a huge lean on GPU hardware acceleration where the Qualcomm chip isn't nearly as powerful (Adreno 220 vs PowerVR SGX543MP2). Adreno GPUs are still far behind PowerVR's horsepower.
Fact is, at this point in the tablet game, Apple did it right with the iPad2 to keep it a decent pace ahead of the current chip competition. It currently features the fastest SOC (CPU + GPU) setup in a tablet. Some people will argue and say the Tegra2 can outperform the iPad2's GPU but I haven't seen any real evidence of this.
Tegra3 will be another story by the end of the year.. where it should perform about 25% faster in graphics over current iPad2 (which will be nearly 1 year old by then).. Leaving iPad3 open to taking over again if Apple chooses to.
What's surprising is Apple's choice to push forward with such powerful components where they tend to be BEHIND THE CURVE of other chip makes. Good move on Apple. But they might remain using the A5 for iPad3 and there might be a single year where Tegra3 is in the limelight as fastest SOC.
I suspect that WebOS has a huge lean on GPU hardware acceleration where the Qualcomm chip isn't nearly as powerful (Adreno 220 vs PowerVR SGX543MP2). Adreno GPUs are still far behind PowerVR's horsepower.
Fact is, at this point in the tablet game, Apple did it right with the iPad2 to keep it a decent pace ahead of the current chip competition. It currently features the fastest SOC (CPU + GPU) setup in a tablet. Some people will argue and say the Tegra2 can outperform the iPad2's GPU but I haven't seen any real evidence of this.
Tegra3 will be another story by the end of the year.. where it should perform about 25% faster in graphics over current iPad2 (which will be nearly 1 year old by then).. Leaving iPad3 open to taking over again if Apple chooses to.
What's surprising is Apple's choice to push forward with such powerful components where they tend to be BEHIND THE CURVE of other chip makes. Good move on Apple. But they might remain using the A5 for iPad3 and there might be a single year where Tegra3 is in the limelight as fastest SOC.
Drivers matter more for usability than for CPU speed.
I bet WebOS ran easily on the iPad, however it likely:
1. Had a battery life of 25 minutes, and runs at 75 degrees C
2. Camera, volume, and home buttons don't work. Had to hook up a bluetooth keyboard for input or something similar.
3. No graphics acceleration
4. No modem chip / gps functionality.
Hence it runs, and it runs faster on the iPad, but nobody would ever release it and expect someone to use it..