Correct, and in apple's experience they have noticed that if you lose the stylus you have to buy another one. Shit design is still shit design, and there is no excuse end of story.
While the move from 2 to 3 performance cores is interesting, the bigger news and bonus is going to come from the 3 little cores. They won't help peak performance numbers like the "30% faster" claim is going for, but they may really help battery life.
In my view, we are past the days of gigantic performance improvements in each generation of SoCs in the tablet/mobile space. We are entering the area where performance improvements come with real battery hits as the relentless pace of die shrinks has absolutely begun to slow noticeably.
The real question Apple likely asked itself wasn't how much performance they could get in the product, but where is the sweet spot. This easily could have been a 4+4 design. Competitors have already shipped 4+4 designs... but is that worth the battery cost? Is it worth the die size? Are people really using that in an iPad package?
That wouldn't happen... what will they change in the next release? Carefully planned, marketed, released times cale to ensure max $$$$. This is business after all and you wouldn't want to give the consumer anything that might stop that flow.
Apple's CPUs are much wider (6-issue), so it makes much less sense to move into a 4+4 big.LITTLE configuration. Being wider, they are also more power hungry, so power consumption would go through the roof. The 3+3 design will most likely used in the next iPhone as well, unless they go for a 2+3 one (3 little cores) to save power. Α10X should also be clocked lower than A10 and A9X, probably around ~2Ghz.
The more cores there are, the weaker they are. There's just only so much room on the chip. It's why Apple's cores have been about twice as powerful as the same gen designs from other vendors.
I imagine, this time round, Apple found benefits from three cores - or, as with the A8X, when they also had three cores, going to a new process hindered them from doing bigger cores, and next gen they'll go back to 2 cores again.
I don't think it's likely that space forced the switching between 2 and 3 cores; my guess is it's more a process of learning and exploration. Remember that (a) these SoCs are designed some years in advance of when they ship, and who knows how late in the process the number of cores has to be decided (b) the cores are basically tiny compared to the die as a whole. The entire CPU complex takes up like 15% of the die, compared to ~50% for the GPU.
It probably seemed plausible in the past that two cores was appropriate for iPad software, but that that calculation has changed as iOS has grown up, now allowing two apps (plus PiP) to have UI simultaneously, with three apps (plus PiP) in iOS 11. My guess is that three cores for iPad is the new standard going forward, not an aberration. (The A8X was, I suspect, a compromise resulting from some disagreement --- some saying "let's try it and see, and we'll learn a few things about going beyond a dual-core system", some saying "it's a waste of area"; with the A9X the argument for learning was no longer valid; but by A10X the value of the extra cores, given the direction of iPad software, had proven itself.)
We can compare with desktops where the most recent study a few years ago suggested that for most purposes the appropriate number of cores was three (up from two about ten years before that...) Intel dual-core with hyper-threading kinda matches that, hence that's what we see as the standard issue CPU in most consumer computers.
The reason given as to why Apple went to 3 cores for the A8x was because of a new process where Apple didn't want to go to a new, more complex architecture, and didn't want to bulk the cores up too much, so they went to 3 cores instead. I imagine the same is true here.
A choice was to have 2 more complex, and bigger cores, or three refined cores that were about the same size as last year's (where they went back to 2 cores), using up the space of the smaller process. 3 bigger, more powerful cores wouldn't fit.
Whether these cores take up 15% doesn't matter, everything on the chip has it's place, and space. If they were to go to 3 more powerful cores, they could have needed 20%, or more, and they didn't have it.
Space is not an issue, but power (or rather the resulting heat) is. These devices have a fixed power budget. Designers can spend it across 1 core or 4 or whatever.
Personally I don't think there's significance in the core count.
It depends. Apple's 2 core chips have always (since the A6) been well ahead for single core performance, but multicore performance has been behind. With the A8x and now this, it's ahead in both areas.
When I'm talking about area, I'm talking about whether Apple went with 2 even bigger cores vs three somewhat smaller cores, which they seem to have done, vs 3 larger cores. What we don't know, since some testing on the new iPad has come out, is the efficiency tradeoff. We're seeing a 30% increase in single core, as Apple stated, but a whopping 80% increase in multicore. That's significant.
This is probably 10nm, despite what some here think, though I could be wrong. So Apple had to decide where they went. Often they increase efficiency, as they did last year, along with increased performance. It will be interesting to see where they went with this.
The 3 cores mimics the iPad Air 2 SoC, which they probably realized is beneficial when running multiple apps simultaneously as iOS 11 allows. I doubt you would need 4 cores for anything.
But might be because they are still stuck on 16nm like A9X, where the third core was omited for a better GPU. I think if A10X is 10nm they would invest more into more GPU cores too considering the big density gains. Now 16nm got better yelds, better perf more cores. And is that 30% a total increase or a single core one ? Because I don't think they would go back in IPC now with huricane. If it's a 30 percent more single core plus aditional core, the CPU upgrade actually seems much more impressive than the GPU one...
But still is that 40% more from original 12,9 Pro or 9,7" ? Both have identical performance or its been again scalled for different resolutions ?
What about power consumption ? Both having bigger batteries is a plus.
Conclusion is that we need 10nm for a bigger jump, we see a nice compariom between super early finfet (A9X) and a late one (A10X). And I think all 10nm at TSMC is consumed by new iPhones getting a big boost in perf possibly even bigger than iPad Pro.
Well that's pretty beastly really. 5% higher clockspeed, so IPC goes up significantly again. Probably the same core in the next iPhone, but in a 2+2 configuration. Likely 10nm.
The original source of "A10X=10nm" seems to be the (somewhat unreliable) Digitimes. It gained plausibility given the delay in shipping the new iPads, and seemed reasonable ---if Apple were willing to dual-source the A9 to both TSMC and Samsung, maybe they were willing to perform a similar sort of "dual-target-process" trick for TSMC's 16nm and 10nm? It also gained plausibility in that the timelines lined up with when TSMC said 10nm would be ready.
But if you look at the news stories, it was never widely agreed upon, or widely sourced. (Compare to the large-scale agreement by everyone that A11 recently entered manufacturing on TSMC 10nm).
I think the most reasonable interpretation is that we all let our hopes excite us too much! And that the delay in iPad Pros from say October or so till now reflects not a delay to get the A10X on 10nm, but a delay for other reasons. (Perhaps sourcing the screens, which are definitely above average... Perhaps just a deliberate decision by Apple to try to shift what revenue they can from the pile-up quarter of Q4 each year when new iPhones come out into something more evenly spread?)
30% faster single core...with only 5% more clocks. That amazing so I can imagine how you are disappointed? Even so, it also has 1 core more. So it is 82% faster in multi core benchmarks... again, pretty amazing.
Thirty percent faster is about in line with what Apple usually does; two years of 40% faster each year gives a doubling of performance which looks nice on keynote slidedecks.
Apple does seems to be reaching the same limits Intel and ARM are though -- there's not much room left in the microarchitectures and ISAs for improvement, and production process improvements are now slow and pricey to develop.
There's ZERO evidence for the claim that "Apple does seems to be reaching the same limits Intel and ARM are though" (and to link ARM in the same bracket as Apple and Intel is ludicrous).
Apple has maintained a 15% IPC increase through the A7 to A8 to A9 to A10 transitions. Presumably at some point this ends, but there's no evidence so far that we've hit that point.
I could suggest, today, two obvious, feasible improvements that would each buy another 15% for 2018 then 2019. (Use long-term-parking [prediction of which loads and their dependent instructions will miss to RAM, and pro-actively delay them --- this effectively doubles the size of your instruction window without all the hassles that attend other KIP mechanism; then use value prediction and a SMART run-ahead engine to generate excess MLP when your instruction window still fills up). There are other ideas out there that remain untapped for, for example, reducing energy usage, ranging from the mild improvements (a more sophisticated loop-buffer mechanism that can handle at least one or two branches within a loop) to substantial design rethinks (aggressive, HW-controlled, migration of execution between the low-power and the performance core based on metrics like memory miss-rate and branch misprediction rate). Hell it's unclear if Apple's so-far even doing the sort of sophisticated frequency boosting based on entire-device (CPUs + GPUs) thermal load that we see in Intel's most recent TurboBoost revisions. (This may be one reason --- just one --- why Apple want to switch to their own GPU...)
What we have seen is that Apple seems to prefer not releasing an innovation in their HW until they're sure it's fully baked. (So we got apparently no interest in low-power companion cores --- until we got a doozy of a release with the A10, which seems vastly more sophisticated and better designed than big.LITTLE. [HW controller doing the switching rather than the OS, much tighter cache sharing like Dynamiq rather than the very expensive separate clusters of traditional big.LITTLE.]) It's possible that when they release their equivalent of TurboBoost it will be the same sort of thing, as fully formed as what Intel offers today, taking into account full device thermal inertia and all heat sources, rather than the various slowly improving iterations that Intel released successively over the past ten years or so.
In addition, dropping all support for 32 bits releases some room on the silicon for other uses. We're also seeing Apple come up with new chips (almost every year) for enhanced functionality, which also releases the CPU core from those tasks. While that may not show on tests, it will improve throughput in real world use.
Mind you, I care not about IPC nor frequency, only their product: performance. More specifically: performance per Watt.
Given that Apple normally announce YoY performance increases of 40% but this is only 30%, my point stands. Apple are finding it harder to increase performance each year, just like ARM, just like Intel.
Well, it's likely, that for whatever reason, and I've argued one, that they decided to give up silicon space to 3 cores rather than 2, and so the smaller core increase is due to that, rather than to,any slowing down of Apple's ability to increase per core performance more than they did. We saw the same thing with the A8x. This year, multicore performance increased by over 80%, which is huge. Fewer bigger cores would have resulted in higher performance per core, but a smaller multicore performance increase of perhaps 40%.
They may have felt that the increase in multicore was more important this year, possibly because of their new AR push we saw during their WWDC.
No they didn't. Apple has been very consistent with EVERY SoC release. What they refer to as an x% improvement in the CPU is ALWAYS the single-threaded improvement.
The (GB4) speedup for 3x cores is around 2.4x. This might look disappointing but it's actually about what you'd expect. The 2 core speedup (A10) is around 1.6x. Intel gets similarly disappointing numbers, just under 2x for two cores with HT, just under 4x for four cores with HT. In all cases the memory subsystems and on-chip communications system (the NoC), and perhaps the thermal load, are designed well, but not *maxxed-out*, for the target workload. So certain types of loads (pure computations, not generating lots of heat, not requiring too much memory traffic, LLVM for example), get to scale well while other workloads overload something. That's engineering --- you optimized for the common case and accept that there are cases for which you haven't provided enough resources.
IMHO, the best upgrade here is the 120hz screen. I've been anticipating this on smartphones for a while now. Faster refresh rates should be a higher priority than higher resolution screens (>1080p).
The rest looks like an iPad. Apple is still charging way too much for these (128GB version at least, a stylus, and a keyboard is well above $1K)... You're better off getting the new Surface Pro if you're into sketching, and everything else. Surfaces, and other new Windows 10 2in1s, are a much better deal; they can actually replace a laptop (for those interested), they're much more powerful, have better input/output, faster storage (expandable), more versatile, and have much, MUCH longer lifespan.
I don't recommend anything more expensive than the new, regular, iPads at ~$300, unless someone needs a color accurate portable "screen" to share photos/videos with clients, which, btw, a Surface excels at too.
>IMHO, the best upgrade here is the 120hz screen. I've been anticipating this on smartphones for a while now. Faster refresh rates should be a higher priority than higher resolution screens (>1080p).
Faster response screens have little benefit for tablets besides
1) Reducing Output Latency with the pencil, note this is not a real input latency (but instead output) but perceived input latency for the screen now updates faster while the previous models had 120 hz sampling for the pencil but not the panel.
2) Reducing perceived output / input latency for finger input which is really not that big of deal like it is with the pencil where you are trying to do far more granularity than you are using with fingers and finger touch targets.
But for content besides human ipad interaction the higher response rate has little to no benefits.
Question OLED phones have been around forever, what is the hertz rating of the screens (such as the samsung galaxy series) they are doing with the OS interaction since it is extremely easy to do higher hertz rates with OLED but harder to do with LCD type screens such as IPS?
You'll have to get used to the higher refresh rate screen then go back to the slower one to actually tell the difference. Similar to how you'll probably be ok with 30hz until you try 60hz. I believe finger interaction, especially, benefits greatly in perceived performance and input accuracy.
Sure, OLED is totally capable of that and far beyond, but the limit is more likely in power constants of the panel itself and the controller(s).
Maybe until variable, more granular, refresh rate becomes mainstream and ISPs/DPs/DCs are upgraded accordingly. Akin to AMD and NVidea's offerings.
I agree. I have a 144Hz monitor at home and can tell everything else I interact with on a day to day basis has inferior response time. Just how smoothly the mouse moves on the desktop at 144Hz is a simple giveaway.
What I am not a big fan of is the adaptive refresh down to 24/48Hz. That drives me crazy on laptops where Intel iGPU's use lower refresh rates to save battery power. It is totally noticeable even for web-browsing and makes it feel like you are surfing on a 15 year old PC.
How smoothly they can pull off the dynamic refresh transition is going to be the key. I can't imagine it's going to be transparent going from 24Hz to 120Hz. There will be initial lag.
Overall, a pretty good refresh I guess. The storage capacity bump, new panel, new SoC and HOPEFULLY RAM upgrade in the 10" model aren't bad for 12-18 month revisions.
Of course, the original iPad Pro's were already the best tablets out there so who are they competing against? You can't say Surface because it is just an entirely different market, and you can't say Samsung because it seems they have pretty much thrown in the towel with tablets.
It seems unlikely that they will drop to 24Hz just to save power. That seems unlike Apple. The 24Hz variable rate is there to play (full-screen) movies, not for anything else.
They can change the refresh rate in one cycle. There shouldn't be a lag in that. It will be interesting to see how the slower rates work out, but on my original iPad Pro 12.9", which I'm typing on now, we get 30Hz when reading a book or magazine, and I imagine, other times as well. I've never noticed any flicker, or other odd visual disturbance from that.im pretty sure Apple has worked this out. They tend to not offer these new hardware features without wring them out for a couple of years first.
@melgross The original 12.9" and the first 9.7" Pros both use a variable refresh rate up to, and including 60Hz. Not much is known about Apple's TCON (timing controller) and it's proprietary inner-workings but it does 'slow down' when viewing static images, reading a book, as mentioned or even surfing/reading relatively non-dynamic text rich web pages. That said, even reading a book in iBooks, it'll flip to 60 cycles as soon as you flip (animation) a page. Play a game, watch a video back at 60fps, etc. I think most of the flagship phones have been able to hit 60fps in most on screen 1080p benches but look back at articles and the reviews on smartphones and tablets here on anandtech.com I'm floored by both the performance increase and the suppposed display performance and camera upgrades! I remember reading both AT and DisplayMate's reviews of the two and specifically the newer 9.7" -- And their improved display performance along with camera parity with the iPhone (or near... I believe this new one is close to exact as the iPhone 7's). The increase in display performance is amazing considering the reviews of the original iPad Pro 12.9", its successor - iPad Pro 9.7" and most recently, iPhone 7 and Galaxy S8's displays besting previous records --- for this one to be that much better is cool!
"... The iPad Pro 9.7 display is a Truly Impressive major enhancement on the iPad Air 2... and even on the recent iPad Pro 12.9 and iPad mini 4... and even every other mobile LCD display that we have ever tested... and note that I hand out compliments on displays very carefully. Here’s why...
The iPad Pro 9.7 has two standard Color Gamuts, the new DCI-P3 Wide Color Gamut that is used in 4K UHD TVs and Digital Cinema, and also the traditional smaller sRGB / Rec.709 Color Gamut that is used for producing virtually all current consumer content for digital cameras, TVs, the internet, and computers, including photos, videos, and movies. What’s more, on the iPad Pro 9.7 both Gamuts have been implemented with color accuracy that is visually indistinguishable from perfect. That’s impressive..."
Also another benefit is for judder free 24 fps video. But wonder why other android tablet have not done the same before. MediaTek Helio P10 have 120Hz display support back in 2015 :(
That's not correct either. Higher brightness, for example allows true HDR to be viewed, which can't be done on OLED properly, because of the lower brightness. The higher refresh rate does translate to smoother action throughout the useage of the device, and it's pretty obvious.
Even with finger motion a higher refresh rate has positive effects. You get lag there as well.
Refresh rate hikes with OLED is just as hard as with anything else. It can be harder, depending on how they're running the OLED.
Too bad the Surface Pro hardware is junk and Windows is a mess with very poor developer support, spyware and all the rest. Which is why they aren't selling.. Guess which of these sell better and will continue to do so.
Sorry, but the Surface Pro sucks for anything close to color work, or even for b/w. It's just got an sRGB screen, and no color management. So if you're using, say, Photoshop, just as with Windows generally, where there's no color management systemwide, once you're out of the managed app, you're lost.
You can't show a profiled image, graphic, or anything else outside of managed apps, unless it's sRGB, without ruining the appearance of the image. It's why, while you can do it, this is all so difficult on Windows.
The lastest Surface Pro borrows the manual color space switching that the Surface Studio has. It's not a complete solution like macos/ios but still better than the situation you describe.
It's not great. Microsoft doesn't care because that's a user base for them of under 1%. There was a lot of screaming for Microsoft to come out with color management for Windows throughout the 1990's. When they finally did, it was so buggy, you couldn't use it. It's still very buggy, which it's there, but turned off. Use at your own risk, literally.
Manual color space switching sucks. You can't show an sRGB and a DCI-P3 file at the same time on the screen, for example. Android has no color management either, and assumes everything is sRGB too. Samsung lets you manually switch color spaces on the Galaxy S devices this year too, and it also works poorly.
You really do need systemwide color management. I ran a major commercial color lab in NYC for many years. You can't imagine the problems we had with Windows color managed files.
Samsung has been allowing switching for some years now. Anyway, color management is supposed to come to Windows. It's hard work for them somehow. Maybe it's something that should've been done early in NT development.
Seriously? It took you guys more than 24 hours to write this article after posting the blog? Weren't you guys going to hire more people...last November? Where's that gone? Why are reviews of mainstream stuff (1050, 1050Ti, S8)?
You do realize Apple updated the iPad three months ago, and that there's a $329 version, right? Your complaints sound like someone who barely follows this market and is trying to throw out something to complain about, not someone who's actually interested in the topic.
Now the iPad mini, that IS a legitimate complaint. Not sure what's happening there. I think there's a legitimate market for small factor iPads distinct from large iPhones (basically for kids and teenagers with small fingers, good eyes, and no need for the costs of a cellular plan), and I'm amazed that this was not updated at the same time as the "Air 3"/"iPad 2017" was not released. Is Apple's thinking that, at $329, people are going to buy the big one anyway, even for kids and teens, rather than the smaller one? That the market for iPads whose ONLY real point of distinction is their smaller size disappears once the price of the larger device goes low enough?
I honestly don't know. As someone whose aged eyes would never consider the iPad mini, I can certainly see the logic in this claim, but I also see the logic in a claim that the iPad mini fits more easily into your backpack (or even baggy shorts) than a full iPad, and the smaller size is VALUABLE, not just cheaper, if you have the better eyes.
Are the larger, better screen, faster CPU, and (probably) extra RAM worth the cost for ME (who reads LOTS of technical PDFs, and who hates screen judder when watching movies)? Absolutely! For you, maybe not --- which is why Apple gives you an alternative...
I tend to agree. However since the situation between IMG and Apple hasn’t been settled yet, it’s hard to believe that IMG will license the latest PowerVR Furian to Apple. That is for obvious reasons: IMG doesn’t want to disclose any new IP architecture to Apple since the latter is moving away from IMG in the next 15-24 months. This means the future A11 will either have a latest variation of Series 7XT in a Apple customized way (and I don’t think it can be any better than current A10, unless they increase number of GPU cores) or they will have their new Apple GPU.
Definitely not too expensive for what they are. The Surface Pro is definitely too expensive for what they are.
The core counts have a technical bent to them, and not a marketing bent. The went to 3 cores for the A8x because of a new process. The went back to more powerful cores for the A9, on the same process, and 2 cores. Now, a new process again, and 3 cores again. They might go back to 2 cores next year, unless they find 3 cores to be of some benefit.
But going to 4 cores as with other manufacturers is certainly marketing, particularly when they use Big/Little cores all at once, and claim 8 cores, which is ridiculous. There are good reasons why Apple's SoC is so far anead of every other SoC.
The Surface Pro is actually a good deal. Hybrids have always charged more simply for the form factor. This dates back tot he swivel design of convertible notebooks.
The Surface is just a flat Windows computer. It doesn't work like a real tablet. You still need a stylus for everything, and you really do need the keyboard. The software is regular Desktop Windows software. If that's what you want, then great, but as a tablet, it's terrible. Windows is just not a good OS for tablets, it really does need a much larger screen for that.
And because it is what it is, it's too expensive. The $799 model isn't very usable - it's in the line so that Microsoft can say:Starts at $799. But you almost never see it tested, because performance is bad.
So the realistic cheapest really usable model is $999, and yes, for most Windows things, you need the $129 to $149 keyboard. So we're talking over $1,100 entry price. That's way too much for an entry price tablet. It's also one big reason why Microsoft has never sold more than a small number each year despite Microsoft partisans stating how well itas doing. They never sold more than Bout 3.5 million a year, and that number may be too high. Now sales dropped over 25%, so they can't claim sales are growing while iPad sales are shrinking.
This very site had a good review on the fanless SP4. The cooling system especially received praise as the SP4 reaches throttle threshold much later after the Macbook 12 which it is in fact a much, much poorer deal than the Surface. Weak on performance, weak on cooling, weak on connectivity, weak on input.
Interface is surprisingly workable with fingers, tablet mode works pretty well. Store apps are slowly starting to improve.
Ironically, due to developers adhering to guidelines on macos, Apple would face a smaller struggle to create a tablet interface where it would scale the average app GUI. It would be much easier for Apple to "tablet-ify" macos.
I am certain you have never used the core m powered SP 4 or you wouldnt have made this ridiculous assertion.
The Core M version is still faster than anything running in any version of the Ipad. It easily breezes through anything you can throw at it apart from GPU heavy tasks like heavy PC games. It handles the likes of photpshop with aplomb.
People tend to forget that the Core Ms are essentially the battery and heat optimized versions of their i series cousins, which means they are far ahead in actual computing capability than any ARM core, including the excellent AX series cores (not talking about meaningless cross platform geekbench scores).
The SP4 Core m is an excellent value for money proposition and blows the mobile os powered ipads out of the water in most respects. The claims that tablet mode on W10 is crappy as hell is more bs by people who havent recently used a capable W10 device.
So the marketing department had them "drop" the number of cores on a device they sold for ~2 years... In order to raise them for the next model? That makes so little sense that I hope you're joking.
I understand that as an extension of last gen iPad Pro "dynamic refresh rate" which if I remeber corectly was 60Hz with a capability to go down to 30 when static. And maybe it could do that when playing back a low fps video at 30fps and maybe it could go manage it dynamically in between 60/30 I am not sure with that.
So we have 120 Hz max and 24 Hz low. And more dynamic. Lower low is better as it saves like tens of millions of refreshes each second compared to last gen. As I saw on the slide it can choose to be 48 Hz possibly getting adapted to the framerate of the videos being played back and it goes to 120Hz when scrolling, drawing. Is that an actual V-sync limit increase that apps can exploit - so games can run at twice the fps, or is just kind of a temporal overclock that happens for short time in specific situations. ?
I mean pushing some high end game at 5 million pixels, on not so much more efficient GPU and at much higher fps... Battery is dead.
I was pointing that you got many pixels on every frame and even that 6fps decrease in static images might be significant on he larger iPad Pro. Like you need tens of millions less pixels to refresh each second - you save power.
But those hundreds of millions more refreshes you need to go to 120 Hz is another story that might get quite inneficient.
Has it been confirmed that the new displays are still IPS? Apple's website and press releases do not mention "IPS" anywhere, as they do for the standard 9.7" iPad. A 120Hz IPS panel should be difficult and very expensive to manufacture, and I have a strong suspicion that these new high refresh rate displays are TN.
Would be nice if someone from AT staff could reach out to Apple for clarification.
It could still very well be IPS or AHVA. But what I find really suspicious is the lack of any terminology on Apple's specs and marketing materials. Apple usually advertises these things, and has been very vocal about display technologies in the past.
There is no possibility that these could be TN screens. TN screens have a very limited color gamut. There is no way you can produce a DCI-P3 TN screen.
IMO Apple missed an opportunity with the bigger pro.
I guess the bigger ipad pro isn't seen to have enough volume worthy of a chassis redesign. Given their reduction of the bezel on the smaller pro, one assumes it would have been possible to do the same on the larger one. Sticking to the same screen size would have reduced the overall package and the weight, allow it to evolve externally as well as internally.
It's possible that with all the new computer refreshes they introduced now, they didn't have the ability to do this one too, and that maybe we'll see one next year, or possibly, they're working on a bigger screen size the way they enlarged the Pro 9.7 to the new Pro 10.5.
Probably not, but at least they upgraded it in every other way. And I'm sure some people will appreciate being able to re-use any accessories that fit the old one :) (can't be said for the smaller Pro).
What I really hate with recent updates to iPads and iPhones is how Apple jacks up the base price by $50 each time. Basically I can't justify those prices to myself. They're too poor value for money, and I hate waving around $700 on a patio or in airport lounge etc.
I'm sure there was a time when prices in cash terms stayed the same year-to-year -- or even fell.
Mind you I'm sure Apple can only get away with this became they design very good products and have very little competition beyond the Galaxy S phones.
If only Google and Microsoft would knuckle down to producing good, supported, vfm hardware year in year out. Both flirted with doing so with Nexus and Surface (non-pro) but both seem to have abandoned that strategy, producing expensive orphan products like Pixel C and Pro 4/5.
So you don't think that going from a 9.7 to a 10.5 higher resolution screen, double the storage, double the RAM, four speakers from two, two much higher quality cameras, etc., isn't worth an extra $50?
Handles dropped scrolling frames more elegantly. Rather than a previously 16ms jump, it will just present the frame when ready rather than adhering to fixed refresh rates.
Whatever people say, modern IOS devices definitely do still skip some frames. This should all but eliminate that feeling.
to tell the truth, apple do not have nothing new to show This Ipad looks like first gen of ipad air, and doesn's have any revolutional function to convince me to buy The same is with macbook pro. I was expected eg oled display or sth like infinity edge from Dell. We have the same body with a little bit more compute power, nothing more.
It actually looks just like the original iPad- in that it is rectangular object with a touch screen and a home button. If this is "nothing new to show" then really, no one is *ever* introducing anything "new" by your standard.
I know this review is meaningless because I'm really not comparing "Apples" to "Apples" (pun intended), but I have to say I'm quite impressed with the performance (but I should expect this since I replaced my old iPad 2 (A5 chip) with the new iPad Pro 10.5" 256GB and 4GB RAM). Playing World of Tanks on the new iPad Pro is awesome. I can actually see grass blades, tree leaves, and an extreme amount of detail now on the different maps (previously most map details were kind of a blur). The 120Hz refresh rate makes the game display smooth as butter. Also, the wireless networking has improved and I no longer experience any lag. My game play with this iPad Pro has improved to the point where I'm now being called out by opponents as being a cheater.
I didn't buy this iPad Pro just as an expensive gaming device. I downloaded Codea to try and do App development on this iPad. Not only was able to create a test app and run it on the iPad, but it allowed me to export to Xcode format. I was able to then take this Xcode and compile it on a friends Mac with an XCode IDE and compile it. I then put the app back on my iPad and it ran perfectly. In my opinion, Apple really needs to release a version of the Xcode IDE for the iPad pro.
By the way, the Apple keyboard was perfectly fine for code development, but it is missing one critical item, a touch pad. It is kind of a pain to always reach up and touch the screen to position the cursor in the position you want it in.
With mouse support or a trackpad on the Smart Keyboard, the iPad would be a phenomenal device. I'm used to reaching up and touching the screen now, so give it time. It's not ideal, but I know I'd know such device as thin and portable and powerful as what you have!
will we ever see a review for these iPad Pros? previous reviews have all been well worth the wait, but with the implementation of iOS 11, i'd love to know your thoughts on how/if it changes the iPad.
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speculatrix - Tuesday, June 6, 2017 - link
Still no slot to store the stylus?British Gentleman - Wednesday, June 7, 2017 - link
Only a man would say thatManch - Wednesday, June 7, 2017 - link
Lesbians would disagreemelgross - Wednesday, June 7, 2017 - link
Nothing like experience, right?Sarah Terra - Thursday, June 8, 2017 - link
Correct, and in apple's experience they have noticed that if you lose the stylus you have to buy another one. Shit design is still shit design, and there is no excuse end of story.Sarah Terra - Thursday, June 8, 2017 - link
No slot, but you can buy a "holder" for 29 dollars lolosxandwindows - Tuesday, June 6, 2017 - link
This is a step in the right direction. And I mite get this as a backup in case my current laptop fails.The a10X is only 30% faster? Disappointing.
Cygni - Tuesday, June 6, 2017 - link
While the move from 2 to 3 performance cores is interesting, the bigger news and bonus is going to come from the 3 little cores. They won't help peak performance numbers like the "30% faster" claim is going for, but they may really help battery life.In my view, we are past the days of gigantic performance improvements in each generation of SoCs in the tablet/mobile space. We are entering the area where performance improvements come with real battery hits as the relentless pace of die shrinks has absolutely begun to slow noticeably.
The real question Apple likely asked itself wasn't how much performance they could get in the product, but where is the sweet spot. This easily could have been a 4+4 design. Competitors have already shipped 4+4 designs... but is that worth the battery cost? Is it worth the die size? Are people really using that in an iPad package?
damianrobertjones - Wednesday, June 7, 2017 - link
That wouldn't happen... what will they change in the next release? Carefully planned, marketed, released times cale to ensure max $$$$. This is business after all and you wouldn't want to give the consumer anything that might stop that flow.Santoval - Wednesday, June 7, 2017 - link
Apple's CPUs are much wider (6-issue), so it makes much less sense to move into a 4+4 big.LITTLE configuration. Being wider, they are also more power hungry, so power consumption would go through the roof. The 3+3 design will most likely used in the next iPhone as well, unless they go for a 2+3 one (3 little cores) to save power. Α10X should also be clocked lower than A10 and A9X, probably around ~2Ghz.melgross - Wednesday, June 7, 2017 - link
The more cores there are, the weaker they are. There's just only so much room on the chip. It's why Apple's cores have been about twice as powerful as the same gen designs from other vendors.I imagine, this time round, Apple found benefits from three cores - or, as with the A8X, when they also had three cores, going to a new process hindered them from doing bigger cores, and next gen they'll go back to 2 cores again.
name99 - Wednesday, June 7, 2017 - link
I don't think it's likely that space forced the switching between 2 and 3 cores; my guess is it's more a process of learning and exploration.Remember that
(a) these SoCs are designed some years in advance of when they ship, and who knows how late in the process the number of cores has to be decided
(b) the cores are basically tiny compared to the die as a whole. The entire CPU complex takes up like 15% of the die, compared to ~50% for the GPU.
It probably seemed plausible in the past that two cores was appropriate for iPad software, but that that calculation has changed as iOS has grown up, now allowing two apps (plus PiP) to have UI simultaneously, with three apps (plus PiP) in iOS 11. My guess is that three cores for iPad is the new standard going forward, not an aberration. (The A8X was, I suspect, a compromise resulting from some disagreement --- some saying "let's try it and see, and we'll learn a few things about going beyond a dual-core system", some saying "it's a waste of area"; with the A9X the argument for learning was no longer valid; but by A10X the value of the extra cores, given the direction of iPad software, had proven itself.)
We can compare with desktops where the most recent study a few years ago suggested that for most purposes the appropriate number of cores was three (up from two about ten years before that...) Intel dual-core with hyper-threading kinda matches that, hence that's what we see as the standard issue CPU in most consumer computers.
melgross - Wednesday, June 7, 2017 - link
The reason given as to why Apple went to 3 cores for the A8x was because of a new process where Apple didn't want to go to a new, more complex architecture, and didn't want to bulk the cores up too much, so they went to 3 cores instead. I imagine the same is true here.A choice was to have 2 more complex, and bigger cores, or three refined cores that were about the same size as last year's (where they went back to 2 cores), using up the space of the smaller process. 3 bigger, more powerful cores wouldn't fit.
Whether these cores take up 15% doesn't matter, everything on the chip has it's place, and space. If they were to go to 3 more powerful cores, they could have needed 20%, or more, and they didn't have it.
Meteor2 - Wednesday, June 7, 2017 - link
Space is not an issue, but power (or rather the resulting heat) is. These devices have a fixed power budget. Designers can spend it across 1 core or 4 or whatever.Personally I don't think there's significance in the core count.
melgross - Thursday, June 8, 2017 - link
It depends. Apple's 2 core chips have always (since the A6) been well ahead for single core performance, but multicore performance has been behind. With the A8x and now this, it's ahead in both areas.When I'm talking about area, I'm talking about whether Apple went with 2 even bigger cores vs three somewhat smaller cores, which they seem to have done, vs 3 larger cores. What we don't know, since some testing on the new iPad has come out, is the efficiency tradeoff. We're seeing a 30% increase in single core, as Apple stated, but a whopping 80% increase in multicore. That's significant.
This is probably 10nm, despite what some here think, though I could be wrong. So Apple had to decide where they went. Often they increase efficiency, as they did last year, along with increased performance. It will be interesting to see where they went with this.
sonicmerlin - Sunday, June 11, 2017 - link
The 3 cores mimics the iPad Air 2 SoC, which they probably realized is beneficial when running multiple apps simultaneously as iOS 11 allows. I doubt you would need 4 cores for anything.damianrobertjones - Wednesday, June 7, 2017 - link
You might need to see if there are any mites outside!GC2:CS - Wednesday, June 7, 2017 - link
Well yeah after 18 months I expected more.But might be because they are still stuck on 16nm like A9X, where the third core was omited for a better GPU. I think if A10X is 10nm they would invest more into more GPU cores too considering the big density gains.
Now 16nm got better yelds, better perf more cores.
And is that 30% a total increase or a single core one ? Because I don't think they would go back in IPC now with huricane.
If it's a 30 percent more single core plus aditional core, the CPU upgrade actually seems much more impressive than the GPU one...
But still is that 40% more from original 12,9 Pro or 9,7" ? Both have identical performance or its been again scalled for different resolutions ?
What about power consumption ? Both having bigger batteries is a plus.
Conclusion is that we need 10nm for a bigger jump, we see a nice compariom between super early finfet (A9X) and a late one (A10X). And I think all 10nm at TSMC is consumed by new iPhones getting a big boost in perf possibly even bigger than iPad Pro.
asendra - Wednesday, June 7, 2017 - link
30% single core. 80% more multi core.http://browser.geekbench.com/v4/cpu/compare/303638...
psychobriggsy - Wednesday, June 7, 2017 - link
Well that's pretty beastly really. 5% higher clockspeed, so IPC goes up significantly again. Probably the same core in the next iPhone, but in a 2+2 configuration. Likely 10nm.lucam - Thursday, June 8, 2017 - link
Wow! Bloody hell!lefty2 - Wednesday, June 7, 2017 - link
What makes you think it's not 10nm? No one has confirmed if it was 16nm or 10nmname99 - Wednesday, June 7, 2017 - link
The original source of "A10X=10nm" seems to be the (somewhat unreliable) Digitimes.It gained plausibility given the delay in shipping the new iPads, and seemed reasonable ---if Apple were willing to dual-source the A9 to both TSMC and Samsung, maybe they were willing to perform a similar sort of "dual-target-process" trick for TSMC's 16nm and 10nm? It also gained plausibility in that the timelines lined up with when TSMC said 10nm would be ready.
But if you look at the news stories, it was never widely agreed upon, or widely sourced. (Compare to the large-scale agreement by everyone that A11 recently entered manufacturing on TSMC 10nm).
I think the most reasonable interpretation is that we all let our hopes excite us too much! And that the delay in iPad Pros from say October or so till now reflects not a delay to get the A10X on 10nm, but a delay for other reasons. (Perhaps sourcing the screens, which are definitely above average... Perhaps just a deliberate decision by Apple to try to shift what revenue they can from the pile-up quarter of Q4 each year when new iPhones come out into something more evenly spread?)
asendra - Wednesday, June 7, 2017 - link
30% faster single core...with only 5% more clocks. That amazing so I can imagine how you are disappointed?Even so, it also has 1 core more. So it is 82% faster in multi core benchmarks... again, pretty amazing.
http://browser.geekbench.com/v4/cpu/compare/303638...
Meteor2 - Wednesday, June 7, 2017 - link
Thirty percent faster is about in line with what Apple usually does; two years of 40% faster each year gives a doubling of performance which looks nice on keynote slidedecks.Apple does seems to be reaching the same limits Intel and ARM are though -- there's not much room left in the microarchitectures and ISAs for improvement, and production process improvements are now slow and pricey to develop.
name99 - Wednesday, June 7, 2017 - link
There's ZERO evidence for the claim that "Apple does seems to be reaching the same limits Intel and ARM are though" (and to link ARM in the same bracket as Apple and Intel is ludicrous).Apple has maintained a 15% IPC increase through the A7 to A8 to A9 to A10 transitions. Presumably at some point this ends, but there's no evidence so far that we've hit that point.
I could suggest, today, two obvious, feasible improvements that would each buy another 15% for 2018 then 2019. (Use long-term-parking [prediction of which loads and their dependent instructions will miss to RAM, and pro-actively delay them --- this effectively doubles the size of your instruction window without all the hassles that attend other KIP mechanism; then use value prediction and a SMART run-ahead engine to generate excess MLP when your instruction window still fills up).
There are other ideas out there that remain untapped for, for example, reducing energy usage, ranging from the mild improvements (a more sophisticated loop-buffer mechanism that can handle at least one or two branches within a loop) to substantial design rethinks (aggressive, HW-controlled, migration of execution between the low-power and the performance core based on metrics like memory miss-rate and branch misprediction rate).
Hell it's unclear if Apple's so-far even doing the sort of sophisticated frequency boosting based on entire-device (CPUs + GPUs) thermal load that we see in Intel's most recent TurboBoost revisions. (This may be one reason --- just one --- why Apple want to switch to their own GPU...)
What we have seen is that Apple seems to prefer not releasing an innovation in their HW until they're sure it's fully baked. (So we got apparently no interest in low-power companion cores --- until we got a doozy of a release with the A10, which seems vastly more sophisticated and better designed than big.LITTLE. [HW controller doing the switching rather than the OS, much tighter cache sharing like Dynamiq rather than the very expensive separate clusters of traditional big.LITTLE.])
It's possible that when they release their equivalent of TurboBoost it will be the same sort of thing, as fully formed as what Intel offers today, taking into account full device thermal inertia and all heat sources, rather than the various slowly improving iterations that Intel released successively over the past ten years or so.
Meteor2 - Wednesday, June 7, 2017 - link
Mmm, ok, you got me; I was simply going by the annual performance increase dropping from 40% to 30%. Not the most thorough analysis of all time ;).melgross - Wednesday, June 7, 2017 - link
In addition, dropping all support for 32 bits releases some room on the silicon for other uses. We're also seeing Apple come up with new chips (almost every year) for enhanced functionality, which also releases the CPU core from those tasks. While that may not show on tests, it will improve throughput in real world use.Meteor2 - Wednesday, June 7, 2017 - link
Mind you, I care not about IPC nor frequency, only their product: performance. More specifically: performance per Watt.Given that Apple normally announce YoY performance increases of 40% but this is only 30%, my point stands. Apple are finding it harder to increase performance each year, just like ARM, just like Intel.
melgross - Thursday, June 8, 2017 - link
Well, it's likely, that for whatever reason, and I've argued one, that they decided to give up silicon space to 3 cores rather than 2, and so the smaller core increase is due to that, rather than to,any slowing down of Apple's ability to increase per core performance more than they did. We saw the same thing with the A8x. This year, multicore performance increased by over 80%, which is huge. Fewer bigger cores would have resulted in higher performance per core, but a smaller multicore performance increase of perhaps 40%.They may have felt that the increase in multicore was more important this year, possibly because of their new AR push we saw during their WWDC.
tipoo - Wednesday, June 7, 2017 - link
By A8X history, they split the difference between 2C and 3C scaling for their performance estimate. Best case 3C scaling will be better.name99 - Wednesday, June 7, 2017 - link
No they didn't. Apple has been very consistent with EVERY SoC release. What they refer to as an x% improvement in the CPU is ALWAYS the single-threaded improvement.The (GB4) speedup for 3x cores is around 2.4x. This might look disappointing but it's actually about what you'd expect. The 2 core speedup (A10) is around 1.6x. Intel gets similarly disappointing numbers, just under 2x for two cores with HT, just under 4x for four cores with HT.
In all cases the memory subsystems and on-chip communications system (the NoC), and perhaps the thermal load, are designed well, but not *maxxed-out*, for the target workload. So certain types of loads (pure computations, not generating lots of heat, not requiring too much memory traffic, LLVM for example), get to scale well while other workloads overload something. That's engineering --- you optimized for the common case and accept that there are cases for which you haven't provided enough resources.
darwinosx - Wednesday, June 7, 2017 - link
You must be joking....30% faster is disappointing? Get real.lilmoe - Tuesday, June 6, 2017 - link
IMHO, the best upgrade here is the 120hz screen. I've been anticipating this on smartphones for a while now. Faster refresh rates should be a higher priority than higher resolution screens (>1080p).The rest looks like an iPad. Apple is still charging way too much for these (128GB version at least, a stylus, and a keyboard is well above $1K)... You're better off getting the new Surface Pro if you're into sketching, and everything else. Surfaces, and other new Windows 10 2in1s, are a much better deal; they can actually replace a laptop (for those interested), they're much more powerful, have better input/output, faster storage (expandable), more versatile, and have much, MUCH longer lifespan.
I don't recommend anything more expensive than the new, regular, iPads at ~$300, unless someone needs a color accurate portable "screen" to share photos/videos with clients, which, btw, a Surface excels at too.
Roland00Address - Tuesday, June 6, 2017 - link
>IMHO, the best upgrade here is the 120hz screen. I've been anticipating this on smartphones for a while now. Faster refresh rates should be a higher priority than higher resolution screens (>1080p).Faster response screens have little benefit for tablets besides
1) Reducing Output Latency with the pencil, note this is not a real input latency (but instead output) but perceived input latency for the screen now updates faster while the previous models had 120 hz sampling for the pencil but not the panel.
2) Reducing perceived output / input latency for finger input which is really not that big of deal like it is with the pencil where you are trying to do far more granularity than you are using with fingers and finger touch targets.
But for content besides human ipad interaction the higher response rate has little to no benefits.
Question OLED phones have been around forever, what is the hertz rating of the screens (such as the samsung galaxy series) they are doing with the OS interaction since it is extremely easy to do higher hertz rates with OLED but harder to do with LCD type screens such as IPS?
lilmoe - Tuesday, June 6, 2017 - link
You'll have to get used to the higher refresh rate screen then go back to the slower one to actually tell the difference. Similar to how you'll probably be ok with 30hz until you try 60hz. I believe finger interaction, especially, benefits greatly in perceived performance and input accuracy.Sure, OLED is totally capable of that and far beyond, but the limit is more likely in power constants of the panel itself and the controller(s).
Maybe until variable, more granular, refresh rate becomes mainstream and ISPs/DPs/DCs are upgraded accordingly. Akin to AMD and NVidea's offerings.
Samus - Wednesday, June 7, 2017 - link
I agree. I have a 144Hz monitor at home and can tell everything else I interact with on a day to day basis has inferior response time. Just how smoothly the mouse moves on the desktop at 144Hz is a simple giveaway.What I am not a big fan of is the adaptive refresh down to 24/48Hz. That drives me crazy on laptops where Intel iGPU's use lower refresh rates to save battery power. It is totally noticeable even for web-browsing and makes it feel like you are surfing on a 15 year old PC.
How smoothly they can pull off the dynamic refresh transition is going to be the key. I can't imagine it's going to be transparent going from 24Hz to 120Hz. There will be initial lag.
Overall, a pretty good refresh I guess. The storage capacity bump, new panel, new SoC and HOPEFULLY RAM upgrade in the 10" model aren't bad for 12-18 month revisions.
Of course, the original iPad Pro's were already the best tablets out there so who are they competing against? You can't say Surface because it is just an entirely different market, and you can't say Samsung because it seems they have pretty much thrown in the towel with tablets.
name99 - Wednesday, June 7, 2017 - link
It seems unlikely that they will drop to 24Hz just to save power. That seems unlike Apple.The 24Hz variable rate is there to play (full-screen) movies, not for anything else.
melgross - Wednesday, June 7, 2017 - link
They can change the refresh rate in one cycle. There shouldn't be a lag in that. It will be interesting to see how the slower rates work out, but on my original iPad Pro 12.9", which I'm typing on now, we get 30Hz when reading a book or magazine, and I imagine, other times as well. I've never noticed any flicker, or other odd visual disturbance from that.im pretty sure Apple has worked this out. They tend to not offer these new hardware features without wring them out for a couple of years first.akdj - Friday, June 9, 2017 - link
@melgrossThe original 12.9" and the first 9.7" Pros both use a variable refresh rate up to, and including 60Hz. Not much is known about Apple's TCON (timing controller) and it's proprietary inner-workings but it does 'slow down' when viewing static images, reading a book, as mentioned or even surfing/reading relatively non-dynamic text rich web pages.
That said, even reading a book in iBooks, it'll flip to 60 cycles as soon as you flip (animation) a page. Play a game, watch a video back at 60fps, etc. I think most of the flagship phones have been able to hit 60fps in most on screen 1080p benches but look back at articles and the reviews on smartphones and tablets here on anandtech.com
I'm floored by both the performance increase and the suppposed display performance and camera upgrades! I remember reading both AT and DisplayMate's reviews of the two and specifically the newer 9.7" -- And their improved display performance along with camera parity with the iPhone (or near... I believe this new one is close to exact as the iPhone 7's).
The increase in display performance is amazing considering the reviews of the original iPad Pro 12.9", its successor - iPad Pro 9.7" and most recently, iPhone 7 and Galaxy S8's displays besting previous records --- for this one to be that much better is cool!
Here's a link to AT's review/display page link
http://www.anandtech.com/show/9766/the-apple-ipad-...
A quote from DisplayMate
"... The iPad Pro 9.7 display is a Truly Impressive major enhancement on the iPad Air 2... and even on the recent iPad Pro 12.9 and iPad mini 4... and even every other mobile LCD display that we have ever tested... and note that I hand out compliments on displays very carefully. Here’s why...
The iPad Pro 9.7 has two standard Color Gamuts, the new DCI-P3 Wide Color Gamut that is used in 4K UHD TVs and Digital Cinema, and also the traditional smaller sRGB / Rec.709 Color Gamut that is used for producing virtually all current consumer content for digital cameras, TVs, the internet, and computers, including photos, videos, and movies. What’s more, on the iPad Pro 9.7 both Gamuts have been implemented with color accuracy that is visually indistinguishable from perfect. That’s impressive..."
Lolimaster - Wednesday, June 7, 2017 - link
JDI already was demoing 120Hz for smartphones in 2014 after the 1080p craze, still nowhere to be found.Tech-addicted - Wednesday, June 7, 2017 - link
Also another benefit is for judder free 24 fps video. But wonder why other android tablet have not done the same before. MediaTek Helio P10 have 120Hz display support back in 2015 :(Tech-addicted - Wednesday, June 7, 2017 - link
edit : Helio X10 not P10melgross - Wednesday, June 7, 2017 - link
That's not correct either. Higher brightness, for example allows true HDR to be viewed, which can't be done on OLED properly, because of the lower brightness. The higher refresh rate does translate to smoother action throughout the useage of the device, and it's pretty obvious.Even with finger motion a higher refresh rate has positive effects. You get lag there as well.
Refresh rate hikes with OLED is just as hard as with anything else. It can be harder, depending on how they're running the OLED.
darwinosx - Wednesday, June 7, 2017 - link
Too bad the Surface Pro hardware is junk and Windows is a mess with very poor developer support, spyware and all the rest. Which is why they aren't selling..Guess which of these sell better and will continue to do so.
melgross - Wednesday, June 7, 2017 - link
Sorry, but the Surface Pro sucks for anything close to color work, or even for b/w. It's just got an sRGB screen, and no color management. So if you're using, say, Photoshop, just as with Windows generally, where there's no color management systemwide, once you're out of the managed app, you're lost.You can't show a profiled image, graphic, or anything else outside of managed apps, unless it's sRGB, without ruining the appearance of the image. It's why, while you can do it, this is all so difficult on Windows.
id4andrei - Wednesday, June 7, 2017 - link
The lastest Surface Pro borrows the manual color space switching that the Surface Studio has. It's not a complete solution like macos/ios but still better than the situation you describe.melgross - Thursday, June 8, 2017 - link
It's not great. Microsoft doesn't care because that's a user base for them of under 1%. There was a lot of screaming for Microsoft to come out with color management for Windows throughout the 1990's. When they finally did, it was so buggy, you couldn't use it. It's still very buggy, which it's there, but turned off. Use at your own risk, literally.Manual color space switching sucks. You can't show an sRGB and a DCI-P3 file at the same time on the screen, for example. Android has no color management either, and assumes everything is sRGB too. Samsung lets you manually switch color spaces on the Galaxy S devices this year too, and it also works poorly.
You really do need systemwide color management. I ran a major commercial color lab in NYC for many years. You can't imagine the problems we had with Windows color managed files.
id4andrei - Thursday, June 8, 2017 - link
Samsung has been allowing switching for some years now. Anyway, color management is supposed to come to Windows. It's hard work for them somehow. Maybe it's something that should've been done early in NT development.solipsism - Tuesday, June 6, 2017 - link
1) Does the 10.5" iPad Pro come with USB 3.0 support, like the 13" iPad Pro?2) Are these shipping with a cable and PSU that use a USB-C connector on one end?
jeffbui - Tuesday, June 6, 2017 - link
1) Yes2) No, but they did mention if you used a USB-C to lightning cable with a USB-C adapter, it would charge twice as fast.
RaichuPls - Tuesday, June 6, 2017 - link
Seriously? It took you guys more than 24 hours to write this article after posting the blog? Weren't you guys going to hire more people...last November? Where's that gone? Why are reviews of mainstream stuff (1050, 1050Ti, S8)?RaichuPls - Tuesday, June 6, 2017 - link
Where*at80eighty - Tuesday, June 6, 2017 - link
your grievances sound like they should be taken seriously. You should invest a few millions into AT, help them get the freedom they need to deliverMeteor2 - Wednesday, June 7, 2017 - link
This site is one of the more-read ones around, and Raichu's questions are fair.Anandtech always feels like it lacks management and a decent editor more than it needs new authors.
GC2:CS - Wednesday, June 7, 2017 - link
The Mc book Pro update was like an hour before iPad Pro update on the keynote... it's in chronological order :)shabby - Tuesday, June 6, 2017 - link
How is apple justifying the $150 price increase from a few years ago, the screen alone? Please...GC2:CS - Wednesday, June 7, 2017 - link
The screen is way better...But still we need a 499$ iPad after 30 months of nopedates and a new iPad mini as well :(
name99 - Wednesday, June 7, 2017 - link
You do realize Apple updated the iPad three months ago, and that there's a $329 version, right?Your complaints sound like someone who barely follows this market and is trying to throw out something to complain about, not someone who's actually interested in the topic.
Now the iPad mini, that IS a legitimate complaint. Not sure what's happening there.
I think there's a legitimate market for small factor iPads distinct from large iPhones (basically for kids and teenagers with small fingers, good eyes, and no need for the costs of a cellular plan), and I'm amazed that this was not updated at the same time as the "Air 3"/"iPad 2017" was not released. Is Apple's thinking that, at $329, people are going to buy the big one anyway, even for kids and teens, rather than the smaller one? That the market for iPads whose ONLY real point of distinction is their smaller size disappears once the price of the larger device goes low enough?
I honestly don't know. As someone whose aged eyes would never consider the iPad mini, I can certainly see the logic in this claim, but I also see the logic in a claim that the iPad mini fits more easily into your backpack (or even baggy shorts) than a full iPad, and the smaller size is VALUABLE, not just cheaper, if you have the better eyes.
melgross - Wednesday, June 7, 2017 - link
No, we don't NEED a $499 Pro model.What's wrong with some of you people? If you're cheap, then just buy cheap things.
blackcrayon - Thursday, June 8, 2017 - link
Yup and in any case, you probably *will* be able to get new or close to new (i.e. apple refurb) 9.7" iPad Pros for around $499.name99 - Wednesday, June 7, 2017 - link
If you don't like the improvements buy the iPad Air 3...https://www.apple.com/ipad-9.7/
Is this really so hard?
Are the larger, better screen, faster CPU, and (probably) extra RAM worth the cost for ME (who reads LOTS of technical PDFs, and who hates screen judder when watching movies)? Absolutely!
For you, maybe not --- which is why Apple gives you an alternative...
Glaurung - Wednesday, June 7, 2017 - link
The $100 delta between ipad air 2 and 9.7 pro is a pretty standard price bump for a stylus-enabled screen.The 10.5 pro is $50 more than the 9.7 pro, that's the bigger screen.
melgross - Wednesday, June 7, 2017 - link
The pro has a much better, more expensive screen, Four speakers, more RAM, better cameras, and double the storage.That's not enough to require a higher price? If you want a cheap re model, buy the new $329 model.
fred666 - Tuesday, June 6, 2017 - link
wow, 3.5mm jack, did they lack courage this time?mrochester - Wednesday, June 7, 2017 - link
The iPad has loads of room for a 3.5mm jack, the iPhone doesn't....Meteor2 - Wednesday, June 7, 2017 - link
That's just not true.melgross - Wednesday, June 7, 2017 - link
Yes, it is.lucam - Wednesday, June 7, 2017 - link
GPU likely to be the last iteration of some PowerVR solutions.I guess from A11 on Apple will move to his in house GPU.
blackcrayon - Thursday, June 8, 2017 - link
A11 would be great but I was thinking A12 - since the A11 is bound for this year's iPhone it seems a bit early. But who knows.lucam - Thursday, June 8, 2017 - link
I tend to agree. However since the situation between IMG and Apple hasn’t been settled yet, it’s hard to believe that IMG will license the latest PowerVR Furian to Apple. That is for obvious reasons: IMG doesn’t want to disclose any new IP architecture to Apple since the latter is moving away from IMG in the next 15-24 months.This means the future A11 will either have a latest variation of Series 7XT in a Apple customized way (and I don’t think it can be any better than current A10, unless they increase number of GPU cores) or they will have their new Apple GPU.
damianrobertjones - Wednesday, June 7, 2017 - link
I love how Apple dropped the amount of cores for the first pro then, obviously, raised them for the new pro. Marketing baby = $$$$$$Plus far too expensive for what they are.
darwinosx - Wednesday, June 7, 2017 - link
Go buy a pie of junk Samsung tablet then come back and tell us how the iPad is too expensive.melgross - Wednesday, June 7, 2017 - link
Definitely not too expensive for what they are. The Surface Pro is definitely too expensive for what they are.The core counts have a technical bent to them, and not a marketing bent. The went to 3 cores for the A8x because of a new process. The went back to more powerful cores for the A9, on the same process, and 2 cores. Now, a new process again, and 3 cores again. They might go back to 2 cores next year, unless they find 3 cores to be of some benefit.
But going to 4 cores as with other manufacturers is certainly marketing, particularly when they use Big/Little cores all at once, and claim 8 cores, which is ridiculous. There are good reasons why Apple's SoC is so far anead of every other SoC.
id4andrei - Wednesday, June 7, 2017 - link
The Surface Pro is actually a good deal. Hybrids have always charged more simply for the form factor. This dates back tot he swivel design of convertible notebooks.melgross - Thursday, June 8, 2017 - link
The Surface is just a flat Windows computer. It doesn't work like a real tablet. You still need a stylus for everything, and you really do need the keyboard. The software is regular Desktop Windows software. If that's what you want, then great, but as a tablet, it's terrible. Windows is just not a good OS for tablets, it really does need a much larger screen for that.And because it is what it is, it's too expensive. The $799 model isn't very usable - it's in the line so that Microsoft can say:Starts at $799. But you almost never see it tested, because performance is bad.
So the realistic cheapest really usable model is $999, and yes, for most Windows things, you need the $129 to $149 keyboard. So we're talking over $1,100 entry price. That's way too much for an entry price tablet. It's also one big reason why Microsoft has never sold more than a small number each year despite Microsoft partisans stating how well itas doing. They never sold more than Bout 3.5 million a year, and that number may be too high. Now sales dropped over 25%, so they can't claim sales are growing while iPad sales are shrinking.
id4andrei - Thursday, June 8, 2017 - link
This very site had a good review on the fanless SP4. The cooling system especially received praise as the SP4 reaches throttle threshold much later after the Macbook 12 which it is in fact a much, much poorer deal than the Surface. Weak on performance, weak on cooling, weak on connectivity, weak on input.id4andrei - Thursday, June 8, 2017 - link
Interface is surprisingly workable with fingers, tablet mode works pretty well. Store apps are slowly starting to improve.Ironically, due to developers adhering to guidelines on macos, Apple would face a smaller struggle to create a tablet interface where it would scale the average app GUI. It would be much easier for Apple to "tablet-ify" macos.
LiverpoolFC5903 - Monday, June 12, 2017 - link
"The 799 model is not very usable...."I am certain you have never used the core m powered SP 4 or you wouldnt have made this ridiculous assertion.
The Core M version is still faster than anything running in any version of the Ipad. It easily breezes through anything you can throw at it apart from GPU heavy tasks like heavy PC games. It handles the likes of photpshop with aplomb.
People tend to forget that the Core Ms are essentially the battery and heat optimized versions of their i series cousins, which means they are far ahead in actual computing capability than any ARM core, including the excellent AX series cores (not talking about meaningless cross platform geekbench scores).
The SP4 Core m is an excellent value for money proposition and blows the mobile os powered ipads out of the water in most respects. The claims that tablet mode on W10 is crappy as hell is more bs by people who havent recently used a capable W10 device.
blackcrayon - Thursday, June 8, 2017 - link
So the marketing department had them "drop" the number of cores on a device they sold for ~2 years... In order to raise them for the next model? That makes so little sense that I hope you're joking.GC2:CS - Wednesday, June 7, 2017 - link
Ok Pro motion is super interesting.I understand that as an extension of last gen iPad Pro "dynamic refresh rate" which if I remeber corectly was 60Hz with a capability to go down to 30 when static. And maybe it could do that when playing back a low fps video at 30fps and maybe it could go manage it dynamically in between 60/30 I am not sure with that.
So we have 120 Hz max and 24 Hz low. And more dynamic. Lower low is better as it saves like tens of millions of refreshes each second compared to last gen. As I saw on the slide it can choose to be 48 Hz possibly getting adapted to the framerate of the videos being played back and it goes to 120Hz when scrolling, drawing.
Is that an actual V-sync limit increase that apps can exploit - so games can run at twice the fps, or is just kind of a temporal overclock that happens for short time in specific situations. ?
I mean pushing some high end game at 5 million pixels, on not so much more efficient GPU and at much higher fps... Battery is dead.
Spunjji - Wednesday, June 7, 2017 - link
"it saves like tens of millions of refreshes each second"Do you mean clock cycles? Because it saves literally 96 refreshes per second :D
GC2:CS - Wednesday, June 7, 2017 - link
I was pointing that you got many pixels on every frame and even that 6fps decrease in static images might be significant on he larger iPad Pro. Like you need tens of millions less pixels to refresh each second - you save power.But those hundreds of millions more refreshes you need to go to 120 Hz is another story that might get quite inneficient.
Jimios - Wednesday, June 7, 2017 - link
Has it been confirmed that the new displays are still IPS? Apple's website and press releases do not mention "IPS" anywhere, as they do for the standard 9.7" iPad.A 120Hz IPS panel should be difficult and very expensive to manufacture, and I have a strong suspicion that these new high refresh rate displays are TN.
Would be nice if someone from AT staff could reach out to Apple for clarification.
jabjab - Wednesday, June 7, 2017 - link
You are right, if you compare the old specs page for Ipad Air 2https://www.apple.com/ng/ipad-air-2/specs/
with the new Ipad Pro specs
https://www.apple.com/ng/ipad-pro/specs/
the Air 2 mentions "with IPS technology" but the pro makes no mention of it.
Could it be a AHVA panel I think there are AHVA with 120hz available?
Spunjji - Wednesday, June 7, 2017 - link
TN is really, really unlikely based on viewing angles. AHVA is possible, but there are IPS displays that can do 120hz too. Hard to say for sure.Jimios - Wednesday, June 7, 2017 - link
It could still very well be IPS or AHVA. But what I find really suspicious is the lack of any terminology on Apple's specs and marketing materials. Apple usually advertises these things, and has been very vocal about display technologies in the past.tipoo - Wednesday, June 7, 2017 - link
I think there's about 0% chance of Apple putting a TN panel in a Pro. Or any new iPad, they've never been TN back to the first one.
melgross - Wednesday, June 7, 2017 - link
There is no possibility that these could be TN screens. TN screens have a very limited color gamut. There is no way you can produce a DCI-P3 TN screen.Tangey - Wednesday, June 7, 2017 - link
IMO Apple missed an opportunity with the bigger pro.I guess the bigger ipad pro isn't seen to have enough volume worthy of a chassis redesign. Given their reduction of the bezel on the smaller pro, one assumes it would have been possible to do the same on the larger one. Sticking to the same screen size would have reduced the overall package and the weight, allow it to evolve externally as well as internally.
melgross - Wednesday, June 7, 2017 - link
It's possible that with all the new computer refreshes they introduced now, they didn't have the ability to do this one too, and that maybe we'll see one next year, or possibly, they're working on a bigger screen size the way they enlarged the Pro 9.7 to the new Pro 10.5.blackcrayon - Thursday, June 8, 2017 - link
Probably not, but at least they upgraded it in every other way. And I'm sure some people will appreciate being able to re-use any accessories that fit the old one :) (can't be said for the smaller Pro).Meteor2 - Wednesday, June 7, 2017 - link
What I really hate with recent updates to iPads and iPhones is how Apple jacks up the base price by $50 each time. Basically I can't justify those prices to myself. They're too poor value for money, and I hate waving around $700 on a patio or in airport lounge etc.I'm sure there was a time when prices in cash terms stayed the same year-to-year -- or even fell.
Mind you I'm sure Apple can only get away with this became they design very good products and have very little competition beyond the Galaxy S phones.
If only Google and Microsoft would knuckle down to producing good, supported, vfm hardware year in year out. Both flirted with doing so with Nexus and Surface (non-pro) but both seem to have abandoned that strategy, producing expensive orphan products like Pixel C and Pro 4/5.
melgross - Wednesday, June 7, 2017 - link
So you don't think that going from a 9.7 to a 10.5 higher resolution screen, double the storage, double the RAM, four speakers from two, two much higher quality cameras, etc., isn't worth an extra $50?id4andrei - Wednesday, June 7, 2017 - link
Windows on ARM might allow for that possibility. Intel's Core chips are really expensive for the form factor.tipoo - Wednesday, June 7, 2017 - link
4GB RAM confirmed on the 10.5. 8MB L2, hubba hubba.http://browser.geekbench.com/v4/cpu/3036382
Hxx - Wednesday, June 7, 2017 - link
nice. the 10.5 inch ver. is def. the better buyakdj - Friday, June 9, 2017 - link
Why's that?tipoo - Wednesday, June 7, 2017 - link
Is the 120Hz display fully adaptive like Gsync/Freesync, or is it only at fixed rates, 120, 60, 48, etc?Their last one only did 30 or 60.
melgross - Wednesday, June 7, 2017 - link
I don't see why you would need Freesync on a phone or tablettipoo - Saturday, June 10, 2017 - link
Handles dropped scrolling frames more elegantly. Rather than a previously 16ms jump, it will just present the frame when ready rather than adhering to fixed refresh rates.Whatever people say, modern IOS devices definitely do still skip some frames. This should all but eliminate that feeling.
wojtoo - Thursday, June 8, 2017 - link
to tell the truth, apple do not have nothing new to showThis Ipad looks like first gen of ipad air, and doesn's have any revolutional function to convince me to buy
The same is with macbook pro. I was expected eg oled display or sth like infinity edge from Dell.
We have the same body with a little bit more compute power, nothing more.
blackcrayon - Thursday, June 8, 2017 - link
It actually looks just like the original iPad- in that it is rectangular object with a touch screen and a home button. If this is "nothing new to show" then really, no one is *ever* introducing anything "new" by your standard.melgross - Thursday, June 8, 2017 - link
You obviously are trolling.Cepak - Tuesday, June 20, 2017 - link
I know this review is meaningless because I'm really not comparing "Apples" to "Apples" (pun intended), but I have to say I'm quite impressed with the performance (but I should expect this since I replaced my old iPad 2 (A5 chip) with the new iPad Pro 10.5" 256GB and 4GB RAM). Playing World of Tanks on the new iPad Pro is awesome. I can actually see grass blades, tree leaves, and an extreme amount of detail now on the different maps (previously most map details were kind of a blur). The 120Hz refresh rate makes the game display smooth as butter. Also, the wireless networking has improved and I no longer experience any lag. My game play with this iPad Pro has improved to the point where I'm now being called out by opponents as being a cheater.I didn't buy this iPad Pro just as an expensive gaming device. I downloaded Codea to try and do App development on this iPad. Not only was able to create a test app and run it on the iPad, but it allowed me to export to Xcode format. I was able to then take this Xcode and compile it on a friends Mac with an XCode IDE and compile it. I then put the app back on my iPad and it ran perfectly. In my opinion, Apple really needs to release a version of the Xcode IDE for the iPad pro.
By the way, the Apple keyboard was perfectly fine for code development, but it is missing one critical item, a touch pad. It is kind of a pain to always reach up and touch the screen to position the cursor in the position you want it in.
Jodiuh - Wednesday, June 21, 2017 - link
@Cepak:With mouse support or a trackpad on the Smart Keyboard, the iPad would be a phenomenal device. I'm used to reaching up and touching the screen now, so give it time. It's not ideal, but I know I'd know such device as thin and portable and powerful as what you have!
tipoo - Wednesday, June 28, 2017 - link
So...Will that delayed A10 deep dive just get rolled into an A10X one?jld03e - Friday, October 13, 2017 - link
will we ever see a review for these iPad Pros? previous reviews have all been well worth the wait, but with the implementation of iOS 11, i'd love to know your thoughts on how/if it changes the iPad.