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WSJ: Thinner iPad and Retina iPad Mini Expected on Tuesday

A7 is already quad 4

JoshAlfie said:
I doesn't make sense to me that the mini will have an A7 processor. It will need to drive 4x the pixels which in my opinion means it will have either the A6X or A7X processor.

Though, I'm leaning towards the A6X because I feel that Apple will want to keep its costs down.

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The X processor has significantly greater graphics processing power. It's needed to run the extra pixels of the Retina display.
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A7 already has the power to drive the Ipad mini

https://www.macrumors.com/2013/09/27/a-closer-look-at-apples-a7-chip-from-the-iphone-5s/
 
iPad Mini Retina - No 64 bit Processor - No Sale

I hoping Apple will make the iPad Mini Retina equal to that of the iPad5! If they short change the CPU; I'm going to past on a new iPad for 2013! I hate to always buy outdate technology just protect another model's high end profitability. Apple should just charge more for the iPad Mini Retina and put in the good stuff instead of crippling the iPad Mini Retina!
 
oliversl said:
"thin film" instead of glass, that does not sound good, not good at all!
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Thin film. Yeah, right. Sounds like a serious case of lost in translation to me.

What this could mean though (and I hope it´s true) is that the iPad 5 has a more advanced Retina display where the actual LCD is sitting even closer to the glass structure and they´ve made some huge step towards reduced screen reflectance like on the iMac. The iPad 3 is really terrrible when you try to read outside, especially in the summer.
 
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VanillaCracker said:
Lol they even confirmed it 2 months ago though. This is just a last minute double-confirmation
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Feels better knowing that the WSJ is confirming this, was a bit worried with the news story the other week suggesting it might not be Retinia after all. I'm just praying the have them for pre-order on Friday, especially if they are going to be constrained for the next few months. Only possible spanner in the works is if they annouce that the iPad 5 is much lighter that previous full sized models. If its significantly ligher than the iPad 3/4, then I would seriously consider the iPad 5.
 
v0lume4 said:
If they both have the same resolution, I'm trying to determine why they both wouldn't have the A7X... The iPad 3 used the A5X because it kinda had to, is that not right?
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They'll need to differentiate the two models, so they'll likely put the more powerful processor in the full size iPad.

And true, the iPad 3 needs the A5X. In fact it probably needs more. Graphics could be smoother and I'm sure the new generation chips are much more power efficient.
 
bbeagle said:
(but nobody ever compares hockey to basketball that way or baseball to cricket with such passion. It's amazing that it's just soccer and football where there is so much passion)
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Because icehockey and basketball are aptly named sports unlike american handlemon. :p
 
Gudi said:
But Retina is much more than a buzzword, its an engineering technique to achive an flawless transition from low-def to high-def screens by the means of pixeldoubling.
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This is a nice quality, but historically Apple has varied resolution between iOS devices as needed, with respect to many factors, not just engineering ones. e.g. iPhone and mini have non-doubled pixel dimensions, 1136x640 and 1024×768, respectively.

However, you might be right! Checking the figures, while a mini with the same resolution as the iPad would have a much higher pixel density of 324ppi vs 264ppi, it's actually a tiny bit less than the iPhone 5S's 326ppi.

So that shoots my argument out of the water! I respectfully concede.
 
Gudi said:
Because icehockey and basketball are aptly named sports unlike american handlemon. :p
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But, but... in American Football each team is GUARANTEED to kick the ball ONCE per game- at each half's opening kickoff. So what if they never kick it the other 59 minutes and 50 seconds? Isn't that enough to call it FOOTball? :)

And if a team ever kicks it, 99% of the time fans are yelling at their team - DON'T KICK IT! Go for it! So, American FOOTball is a sport where fans do NOT want to see their team KICK the ball. :)
 
I seriously wonder what Apple is going to "innovate" on the next iPad (not the mini).

If it's just another "make it .004 ounces lighter and .01 inches thicker and throw in the <yawn> latest CPU" then I'm completely uninterested. Even if the resolution improved, still uninterested.

For me to upgrade from my 3rd gen iPad, there needs to be more innovation than just the stuff-the-latest-specs in it mentality.
 
agsystems said:
A7 already has the power to drive the Ipad mini

https://www.macrumors.com/2013/09/27/a-closer-look-at-apples-a7-chip-from-the-iphone-5s/
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Hmm, not sure about the GPU performance when dealing with an iPad retina display: we're talking about ~2.4M more pixels vs. an iPhone 5

I think everyone is assuming any iPad retina use of the A7 will be a variant with stouter GPU (i.e., A7X like the A6X)

If anything, I could see the rMini using the A6X and the full sized using the A7X - *if* Apple wants to differentiate between the two products on something other than just size (the cMini vs. the full sized product released at the same time differed not only in size, but display, CPU/GPU, RAM).
 
Maybe not?

D.T. said:
Hmm, not sure about the GPU performance when dealing with an iPad retina display: we're talking about ~2.4M more pixels vs. an iPhone 5

I think everyone is assuming any iPad retina use of the A7 will be a variant with stouter GPU (i.e., A7X like the A6X)

If anything, I could see the rMini using the A6X and the full sized using the A7X - *if* Apple wants to differentiate between the two products on something other than just size (the cMini vs. the full sized product released at the same time differed not only in size, but display, CPU/GPU, RAM).
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From Anandtech:
"There’s more graphics horsepower under the hood of the iPhone 5s than there is in the iPad 4. While I don’t doubt the iPad 5 will once again widen that gap, keep in mind that the iPhone 5s has less than 1/4 the number of pixels as the iPad 4. If I were a betting man, I’d say that the A7 was designed not only to drive the 5s’ 1136 x 640 display, but also a higher res panel in another device. Perhaps an iPad mini with Retina "

http://anandtech.com/show/7335/the-iphone-5s-review/7
 
I will love if actually it's marginally thicker. I hate this thinness war. Once you add some plastic case you end up with a pretty thick device again to protect it against the world.

Thinner is not better.

I would rather same thickness, better battery, bettery screen and a more efficient processor to give butter smooth graphics and speed. More flash memory space.

I don't think we're far off the ideal device/tablet now so refinements are better than breaking the usability based on seeking thinness.

You only have to look at the mac book pros 10 steps back to see that device just isn't ready with current flash tech.
 
agsystems said:
From Anandtech:
"There’s more graphics horsepower under the hood of the iPhone 5s than there is in the iPad 4. While I don’t doubt the iPad 5 will once again widen that gap, keep in mind that the iPhone 5s has less than 1/4 the number of pixels as the iPad 4. If I were a betting man, I’d say that the A7 was designed not only to drive the 5s’ 1136 x 640 display, but also a higher res panel in another device. Perhaps an iPad mini with Retina "

http://anandtech.com/show/7335/the-iphone-5s-review/7
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Thanks, that's interesting. I guess it comes down to the level of performance they're looking to get out of the [if it exists] rMini. I figured if they wanted the current gen devices to have the same performance (for example, run Infinity Blade III at native resolution using all effects, at the same framerate), they'd need much more GPU power on the iPads to match the 5S due to the ~720K vs. ~3.1M pixel difference.

If not, that's not a bad design decision, you'd get an rMini that's faster than an iPad 4, using an SOC that's in a bunch of devices (great economy of scale), and that's designed for devices where battery is at a premium (phones). Depending on the whole battery design, they could potentially even tweak the clock of the iPad flavor a touch.

:cool:
 
Rettun1 said:
They'll need to differentiate the two models, so they'll likely put the more powerful processor in the full size iPad.

And true, the iPad 3 needs the A5X. In fact it probably needs more. Graphics could be smoother and I'm sure the new generation chips are much more power efficient.
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Is different sizes not enough to differentiate the difference? Why does Apple not use the same components in both the high end iPad5 and the iPad Mini Retina? They could charge a higher price for it too of course.
 
justjax said:
Feels better knowing that the WSJ is confirming this, was a bit worried with the news story the other week suggesting it might not be Retinia after all. I'm just praying the have them for pre-order on Friday, especially if they are going to be constrained for the next few months. Only possible spanner in the works is if they annouce that the iPad 5 is much lighter that previous full sized models. If its significantly ligher than the iPad 3/4, then I would seriously consider the iPad 5.
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Yeah I know how you feel. I am hoping to get one really quick too in worry they'll sell out. I personally will never take the iPad 5 over the iPad mini (retina only) just because even if they cut the iPad's weight in half it would still be heavier than the iPad mini. Likely the iPad 5 will weigh ~30% less. It'll be quite a bit lighter, but will still not feel like the mini, and it's just too wide for me. Feels too big, I always want to put it down against something. That won't change with the redesigned iPad 5, it will just be more comfortable while holding
 
Z3man said:
Sorry if it's been posted already, but this rumor on cnet says the mini will have touch id but no retina screen, now that would be disappointing.

http://crave.cnet.co.uk/mobiles/ipad...nner-50012547/
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That would be really funky since - as I understand it - TouchID requires the A7 SOC for storage/crypto services, so that would suggest a standard resolution Mini with TouchID and an A7 (seems like SOC overkill for 1024x768).
 
yow. said:
This is a nice quality, but historically Apple has varied resolution between iOS devices as needed, with respect to many factors, not just engineering ones. e.g. iPhone and mini have non-doubled pixel dimensions, 1136x640 and 1024×768, respectively.
Click to expand...
Hmm. Historically iPhone apps have never fitted quite right on iPads. But that might have been purposfully as well. In an Android world where almost everything has a 16:9 aspect ratio, many tablet apps are just scaled up phone apps. But Apple wants iOS developers to take twice the effort and provide two different UIs for iPhones and iPads. With actively showing off the wasted space of iPhone apps on iPads, users and developers have a reason/incentive to use/create specially adapted iPad apps.

At the moment with taller and shorter iPhones there are three different aspect ratios with two non-retina variants to consider for iOS development. In the future only two of them shall remain relevant. One for all iPhones. One for all iPads. In a perfect world every iOS app will be an universal app fitting perfectly on all iDevices, while the user has to pay only once. To achive this, there can not be indefinitely many different resolutions. Two is okay, more are a problem. Some additional work is acceptable.
yow. said:
However, you might be right! Checking the figures, while a mini with the same resolution as the iPad would have a much higher pixel density of 324ppi vs 264ppi, it's actually a tiny bit less than the iPhone 5S's 326ppi.

So that shoots my argument out of the water! I respectfully concede.
Click to expand...
Nothing you said was wrong. :)
 
D.T. said:
That would be really funky since - as I understand it - TouchID requires the A7 SOC for storage/crypto services, so that would suggest a standard resolution Mini with TouchID and an A7 (seems like SOC overkill for 1024x768).
Click to expand...

I think that's nonsense chatter from those analysts who think to have differentiation Apple needs to leave something off the mini. Just like when Gene Munster was speculating that the 5C wouldn't have Siri or a rear camera in order to make it cheap and different from the 5S. If Apple wants to position the 9.7" iPad as the "pro" device then give it new features that would make it more of a pro device. Leaving retina (or touch id as some have speculated) off the mini doesn't make the 9.7" iPad a "pro" device, it just makes the mini a worse device. Especially with iOS 7 which really was made for retina devices.
 
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