The iPad 2 may be an “all new design”, but Apple attended the same school as Porsche, making few changes on the surface and lots under the hood.
Does anyone here own a Porsche? No, me neither. However, I have been lucky enough to have driven one and I watch top gear all the time (which clearly makes me an expert in such matters). I can confidently say that since 2003, two “new” Boxster models have been released, and the shell shape, which apparently is better than ever, has not changed. In the same way, the iPad 2 is a complete redesign, and yet nothing has really changed. Though that’s not a bad thing.
What changed on the Boxster is the same that has happened on the iPad, the engine and electrics got a big tweak, and it’s whats under the hood that really matters.
For the iPad, they have a new processor, the heart of the beast. It is (likely to be) a ARM Cortex A9 dual core CPU, meaning it can multi-thread better and reduce power consumption per calculation thanks to architecture improvements. This gives it the same 10 hour battery life as the old model. That means it’s faster too, a bit like every new Porsche is faster than the last. It’s also a bit lighter, thanks to improved manufacturing processes meaning they can get rid of the wall and taper the edges of the device. it’s not a big improvement there, only 60g saved, but the feel of the thing has changed for the better, another thing that Porsche will tell you makes the new model an essential purchase.
Yes, the iPad 2 has new features: the cameras and gyroscope. However, these are sanity factors and the iPad is simply catching up with it’s older siblings. There was nothing unexpected in the announcement, a very nice looking cover and an HDMI connector being welcome but nothing out of the ordinary. This is very much a “tock” product, with the innovation to come in the next version.
Is it worth it?
Is it an essential purchase? Well, like with the Porsche, if you already have one and want a new one, you have more money than sense. But if you don’t, like all Porsches, it’s very, very tempting and will make you the envy of your friends for the next 6 months until the next one comes out
I’ve been experimenting with browsers for the past few days. Ever since Firefox 4b11 blew up (literally couldn’t do anything, even with a re-install) I’ve been playing with other browsers. I’ve been an Opera user since 9.5 and I’ve been very happy – but you can’t help thinking, “is life greener on the other side of the fence? Is Chrome better?” So, I tried to answer that
No, it’s not.
After setting my default browser to Chrome 10 dev channel, I set about finding extensions to match what Opera gives you out of the box. I end up with the speed dial, gesture and colour picker extensions, as well as a funny little flag icon that is supposed to tell me where a server is from, but doesn’t work. Overall, none of these extensions were as good as Opera’s default functionality. The speed dial slowed my computer down more than sped it up and it didn’t have the Ctrl+(num) navigation that I love so much. The gesture plugin was good but not as quick as Opera. The colour picker was fine and matched Dragonfly fine.
Just, in general, browsing seemed slower. Tabs seemed slower to change and page rendering wasn’t as smooth. Font rendering wasn’t as smooth and, although it was GPU accelerated, didn’t feel right.
So, what was better in Chrome? Well, the web inspector has a better UI, but Dragonfly has come on leaps and bounds in terms of performance. Neither of them are as good as Firebug, but web inspector currently trumps Dragonfly. To be honest, that’s about it. The Omni-bar is good but just as good as Opera’s. Weirdly, Chrome works better on my company’s network. I guess software designed for windows just understands NTLM authentication better than browsers designed for Unix.
So, for me it’s back to Opera. Have a go with both yourself, download Opera and Chrome today and see which you like best. Let me know in the comments.
It’s Mobile World Congress 2011 this week, and amongst the throngs of Honeycomb tablets, Nokia and Microsoft square dancing on the showroom floor, there are a few announcements that may not be hugely exciting to the general public, but that the tech community should be giggling with glee about.
I’m talking about this:
Kal-El benchmark, courtesy of Anandtech
This is Nvidia announcing the Kal-El SoC (System on Chip), a 12-core Tegra 2 GPU mixed with a quad-core ARM Cortex A9 CPU, all on one chip. Even better yet, this chip will be seen in tablet computers in 6 months time. That’s an incredibly aggressive timeline considering the brand new Tegra 2 chip is only 9 days old, and yet it’s performance has already been doubled.
The even bigger news that has slipped by, is that that’s not all.
Tegra 2 roadmap, courtesy of Anandtech
Notice the scale on the left hand side. Whilst the new chips are rising in a linear fashion, that’s a logarithmic scale, so every year, these chips will double in power. By 2014, we should have SoCs in mobile computers that are 4 times as fast as a Core i7 CPU and 25 times faster than a Core2 Duo. That’s an amazing amount of computational power in a chip the size of a peanut with a TDP of ~1W.
Modern UIs need this power
So what are we going to do with all this power? Whilst it’ll be like having an XBox 360 in your pocket, games aren’t the only thing that will use this power.
Just take a look at Microsoft’s Beauty of the Web demo site, showing off IE9′s hardware acceleration enabling it to make blizzards with HTML5 web technologies. That’s just the start of what we’ll be able to do with this power. Think how useful Honeycomb’s 3D Google maps will be, and think how it can be used to empower a mobile workforce, being able to take your entire desktop with you and have it work like your desktop pc. It will enable the mobile user to process huge data sets which previously would have been a server job, letting the workforce make complex decisions quickly and on the move.
Of course, don’t expect things to change overnight. The first things to happen will be “true” multi-tasking, then a proliferation of HD video including Skype. It’s taken years for web developers to embrace CSS3 functions, it’ll take another few years to truly embrace canvas, SVG and WebGL.
The future vision is coming
At CES 2009, Microsoft showed off a video for their Office of 2019 concept (below). The hardware announced today will drive this forward and enable developers to make these UIs of the future. I can’t wait to be part of this future
