Possible Details on Apple's ARM-based 'A4' Chip?

[cmaier]

When developing in a commercial environment it is common to end up targeting one platform if that is where most of your customers are. Windows NT was plenty cross platform and originally was available for MIPS, PPC, x86 and Alpha processors but the MIPS and PPC versions were dropped quite early on in 4.0 and only Alpha and x86 survived when Win2K was being developed. Alpha was dropped prior to the release of Win2K because the vast majority of customers were using x86 so it wasn't deemed sensible to support other platforms. It does add required resources to make sure a large project is cross platform. Where I work we support Linux, Windows and OS X with our software on x86 and PPC and both 32 and 64 bit. This does add significantly to our testing but enough of our customers use the non-Windows versions that it is worth our while.

As I said though, only idiots don't at least maintain a port. Apple inherited NextStep which was very cross platform and they kept the x86 port alive through all releases up to Tiger when they came out and said they were switching to x86. I wonder if MS will continue to even maintain the Itanium port for much longer? Maybe they have an ARM port of Windows 7 in hiding just in case these ARM netbooks really hit it off and they need to force Linux off them?

Unfortunately MS never quite figured out how to do fat binaries.

When I was at Exponential we ran both mac os (8? can't remember) and NT on the power pc we made. NT was MUCH faster than mac os at the time. That's probably not relevant, but I thought it was interesting.

 

[Frazzle]

You can get a 12" asus netbook with the nvidia ion platform, a dual core atom processor, 2 gigs of ram, and over 200 gigs of space for the same price as the lowest end iPad. That actually is quite a powerful netbook and can game, run photoshop, high deffinition video, and tons of other stuff VERY well. Also it has VGA, HDMI outputs, usb ports, card readers, etc...

Great. So then you basically have a small laptop with an equally small screen and an underpowered CPU. Wonderful.

Throw OSX on that bad bad and you basically have a macbook with a slower processor (dual core atom instead of core 2 duo).

No, you have a hacked geek machine that breaks with every OS X update. If you don't run OS X, you simply have Windows (or Linux) on a small screen. Great, if that's what you're after.

You fanboys keep on comparing the ipad to the netbooks that were first released a couple of years ago. With the ion platform and dual core atom processors in newer models the game has changed a lot. They are no longer underpowered computers that can barely run video.

And you netbook-lovers keep thinking that an iPad is (or should be) a small laptop. It's not. Maybe you should look at the slide again where the iPad was positioned as something between a smartphone and a laptop. The netbooks you describe may be called 'netbook', they're just underpowered laptops.

...there will have a ton of ipad specific software made and THAT will make or break the ipad. We won't know for a year or so until we see what developers can come up with for the iPad to know if it will flop or not.

Do you actually own an iPhone or an iPod Touch? If so, you could use your own imagination to think about what some apps could do/be if they had a really fast platform and a large screen. I'm excited when I flick through the apps on my iPhone. They will rock on the iPad.

 

[GnillGnoll]

You can get a 12" asus netbook with the nvidia ion platform, a dual core atom processor, 2 gigs of ram, and over 200 gigs of space for the same price as the lowest end iPad. That actually is quite a powerful netbook and can game, run photoshop, high deffinition video, and tons of other stuff VERY well. Also it has VGA, HDMI outputs, usb ports, card readers, etc...

This is all very true. However, to state the obvious, it also isn't a tablet. It is twice as heavy, 2.6 times as thick. It doesn't have a touchscreen or an accelerometer. It's simply not designed for handheld use.

And most importantly, it has absolutely no prospect of ever having a significant software library written specifically with its capabilities and shortcomings in mind. It will mostly run generic Windows software, designed for generic Windows PCs. As you say, software will make or break the iPad. Looking at the App store I'd say there is little to be worried about.

In short: A netbook is a PC – the iPad is a console.

 

[mccoma]

Untruth??

You guys have obviously no idea about big apps. Yeah, it's fairly easy to port some basic command line tools between different architectures. And in theory, if you make sure, you don't use dirty little tricks and platform dependent code and libs, and your GUI framework doesn't either, most applications SHOULD be pretty portable. In practice, they aren't. It took bloody ages until most big applications were fully ported to PowerPC, and it took exactly the same time until everyone had a x86 port of their big software.
So either you are all geniuses and the big software companies only employ "idiots" (like someone said here) or you simply underestimate the task BIG TIME.

no, I moved big apps across architectures, and I also believe that big companies employee good people.

What I am saying is that architecture of the chip is not as nasty as the change in APIs. The biggest problem with the PowerPC -> Intel transition was the fun with Carbon. Cocoa apps had a pretty easy transition. Architecture is not the killer, changes in API will cause the most time.

 

[mccoma]

I remember Adobe was/is using Carbon C/C++ for their GUIs, and now for 64bit only Cocoa Obj-C is supported. Rewriting the UI is of course quite some work!

Yeah, that is basically my point. When you have to actually switch API, then you get in the trouble Adobe and Microsoft did. Apple not providing a 64-bit path for Carbon did some damage, but one cannot claim that wasn't the direction Apple was going.

To add, when going from different versions of UNIX you run into the problem of different interpretations of the POSIX "standard". These little variants are a killer.

The really interesting thing is that there was an Adobe Illustrator for NEXTSTEP back in the day.

 

[cmaier]

Yeah, that is basically my point. When you have to actually switch API, then you get in the trouble Adobe and Microsoft did. Apple not providing a 64-bit path for Carbon did some damage, but one cannot claim that wasn't the direction Apple was going.

yes one can claim that, because Apple said they were supporting 64-bit carbon.