If Apple is killing with a 10" iPad why are other PC manufacturers bringing out a bunch of 7" pads?

Factual Questions
21

I don’t follow the smartphone market much at all, but I read general technology news feeds all the time. Articles in which reviewers rip open new Apple gadgets and talk about the internals I usually hear stuff like “Apple’s such and such CPU” and then “which is the equivalent of a Samsung something or other.” Basically meaning that yes, Apple does have companies like Samsung make a special line of processors “just” for Apple. You can’t get a Samsung A4 processor unless you’re Apple, but Samsung also makes a processor called the S5PC110 which is apparently identical to the A4 in every way. It doesn’t really seem to hold water to me that Apple is inventing new hardware. Apple’s creativity is in how it links that hardware together into a coherent whole, they aren’t an Intel or a Samsung. Most likely when something like the A4 is developed, where there isn’t an existing market for it you had Apple going to Samsung and saying, “hey we want a processor that can do this, for a new gadget we’re making.” Then Samsung puts its engineers on it, so it seems disingenuous to claim Apple is inventing all kinds of new hardware when the chips are being made by another company.

This article also talks about how a die-by-die comparison was done of the A4 (the Apple specific processor manufactured by Samsung) and the S5PC110 (the processor Samsung is apparently using in its own smartphones) and they are identical.

22

Here is an article that I think explains the situation a little better, and helped clear up some of my misconceptions about what Apple does.

23

Supposedly the upcoming Android 3.0 supports a higher screen resolution than its predecessors (up to 1280x760). That should make larger screen sizes more palatable.

24

(Sorry for triple posting.)

Something I think needs to be mentioned about the HP Slate is that it isn’t even in the same market as the iPad. There was talk back at the CES that the Slate was going to be a consumer tablet designed to compete in the market created by the iPad. With its release it looks like HP went entirely in a different direction, I’m not sure it’s even easy/possible to buy the thing outside of the enterprise/business level now.

It looks like HP is marketing them as a platform to run customized applications that essentially hijack the device and make it a “single purpose” gadget. Think Point of Sale software (which is ran on commodity PCs/Windows most of the time, but the software just hijacks the whole system and runs in full screen mode so that it feels like a more specialized device for the purpose at hand.) I don’t know how big the market is for “custom healthcare” software in a tablet form factor and all that, but that’s apparently where HP is going with it.

It is really weird HP changed directions, because at the CES the Slate was clearly being pushed as consumer electronics. My “guess” is that the Slate was being developed back before HP bought Palm, and Windows was the only option HP saw for a tablet OS (maybe Android hadn’t caught on yet? I’m not sure on this thing’s timeline.) As things got further along HP probably didn’t like the idea of a Windows 7 tablet for consumers (for the very real reason that Windows 7 sucks for the tablet form factor), so instead of scrapping the whole product they rebranded it for customized business applications.

I wouldn’t be shocked to perhaps see HP release a PalmOS based tablet for the consumer market, since HP seems to have purchased Palm mostly because of its OS development team and not because of its smartphone lineup.

25

[Moderator Note]

While you’re evidently joking, this sort of derogatory remark is not appropriate for GQ. No warning issued, but don’t do this again.

Colibri
General Questions Moderator

26

The article you linked to contradicts you.

The A4 uses a processor core designed by Intrinsity, which Apple bought in April 2010, but not before the core was licensed to Samsung. The A4 is therefore similar but not identical to some other Samsung products. Apple did not “invent” any new technology for the A4, but it is still a custom part designed by Apple exactly for their devices, that no one else has access to. Surely there was some back-and-forth between Apple and Samsung engineers, but Samsung did not design the A4 for Apple, they just manufacture it.

Apple does not manufacture anything in-house. They develop the manufacturing techniques but pay someone else to actually buy the tools and crank out the devices.

Apple has purchased several companies over the past few years that design mobile processors and related technology (e.g. P.A. Semi, Intrinsity). All indications are that the A4 is just the beginning.

27

I think that more speaks to the differences in management, on the one hand you have a device that was designed by commitee , with inputs from focus groups and feedback from existing customers, designed to do everything imaginable, or marketed to do everything imaginable.

While the “I” world is ruled by one person who does not care what we want, its his vision and his engineers move heaven and earth to build that device. If we like it bonus, more money for him, if we don’t then tough shit.

Declan

28

There is a number of slate like GPS units on the market that run WinCE in the backgrounds, people are hacking these to put CE in the foreground and run their apz. Its a strange market you buy your software then look for advice to run it.If the screen is bright I can see a good market for the HP slate

29

it’s a stock ARMv7 core with the SoC components they need for their applications. They’re assembling an ARM SoC that is entirely unremarkable. ARM Ltd. licenses the architecture to whoever wants to pay for a license. there’s nothing special about it.

it’s “lighter and more compact” because it doesn’t have to fit in a standard 2.5" or 1.8" chassis. it’s still an off-the-shelf SSD controller and off-the-shelf NAND flash chips. If you think Apple’s great because they can design a fucking printed circuit board, then hoo boy.

30

In this case, it’s not that they can, it’s that they did. It’s easy for you to point at things Apple is doing well and say “Well, anyone could do that!” So why aren’t they?

31

Just to note almost all smart phones use an ARMv7 as the processor.

ARM sells a lot of things. I don’t know what apple bought from ARM but I doubt they bought a designed ARM subsection of the chip. They probably licensed the ARM instruction set and designed a chip that used it. That is what lot of the companies that make phone chips do.

32

I read on one of the news sites - I can’t find it now - that companies are abandoning Windows 7 for tablets because it’s too power-hungry.

As for the 7" form factor, isn’t that paperback book size? Something you can slip into a jacket pocket?

33

because it’s less expensive to let someone else do it for you. this is especially important when you don’t have an army of captive sycophants waiting for the chance to line up overnight to give you money every time you dole out a new product.

34

The trade edition paperback I have in front of me right now measures 7.75 inches on the diagonal. It is none too big, so that loss of three quarters of an inch is significant, especially when you realize modern books are printed at 300 dpi plus, while screen resolution is maybe 100 dpi.
While 10 inch screen is barely enough to give you a tolerable imitation of two pages from a paperback, when you get down to 7 inches, you’ll be pushing to make one page look decent.
Now if someone were to come out with a 7" diagonal touch screen at 300 dpi, that was significantly lighter than the hefty iPad, they might be on to a winner.

35

Fine. It might be less expensive, but using an off-the-shelf hard drive leads to an inferior product - heavier and more bulky than Apple’s design.

In any case, paying someone else to design a part for you is only cheaper if you don’t have the expertise to do it in-house, since you have to pay for your contractor’s profit margin. Apple has spent the past 10 years building up expertise to design all this stuff in-house, and it has apparently succeeded, since no one can make something that achieves price-and-feature parity with the iOS devices.

Even the MacBook Air - name one competitive product that is as thin, as light, and with such long battery life. If you don’t care about thin and light and battery life, perhaps the MacBook Air isn’t worth the money to you - but there is really nothing else out there that beats it if portability is a priority.

36

The iPad is expensive and really isn’t all that useful a device. I have one and it’s not really practical for anything.

One thing is that it’s too heavy to be a decent ebook reader (and the screen has far too much glare). A 7" takes care of that problem.

37

You obviously didn’t read my post :(.

As I said, the article helped clear up some misconceptions I had.

However if you had even read the Ars Technica article in depth then you’d realize that it goes against the grain of what you’re saying.

Ars says things like:

If you read the article in depth what you will take away isn’t that Apple really did anything revolutionary with the A4. Actually it differs from the Samsung chip in that Apple looked at the base technology and stripped away certain aspects of it that weren’t necessary for running the iPhone, which theoretically had the effect of “addition by subtraction.” Since Apple had a tightly designed device and they knew exactly how it would be used, they were able to cut away at the base processor to make one exactly suited to what they were looking for, calling it a unique or revolutionary chip design that gives Apple competitive advantage is just patently false.

Apple’s competitive advantage is not their electrical engineering level design of computer circuits, sorry but there’s no real debate there. Apple is a consumer electronics company, they aren’t Intel and they aren’t distinguished by their processor. People bought into the iPhone because of iOS, yeah, it was responsive and snappy but there ever since roughly the second generation iPhone there have been much beefier phones out there. Usually in the $150-200 (with contract) range, so price isn’t a gigantic differentiator for the iPhone either.

The truth of the first part of your statement reveals the incorrect second part. The purchase of P.A. Semi and Intrinsity is indeed seen by the industry as signs that Apple wants to step away from its current approach and do more in house design and revolutionary development of hardware. What everyone has said though is that the A4 is not the result of that. Prior to its release the A4 was rumored to have been developed in house by P.A. Semi, but it was then found out it wasn’t really anything special, in fact the Ars article I link to goes on to say as much and also explains that the industry is still waiting to see what Apple does with hardware design since obviously they want to be more involved than they were with the A4.

38

In regards to the “Apple Tax” I think that is undeniable for Macintosh computers.

The only thing in the past 5-6 years that a Macintosh has given you, as a consumer, that you couldn’t get for less from another vendor is the OS X operating system. For some people that is make or break and it is worth the price difference, the rest of it is just marketing, though. Sure, Apple has better reliability rates than Dell, but Apple, Dell, and HP aren’t the only PC manufacturers (and I’m definitely using the term PC to cover Macs, because honestly they’ve always been Personal Computers and now that they run on Intel chips and can run Windows it’s dumb to keep the illusion that Macs aren’t PCs.)

So yeah, there is definitely a tax on Macs in the form of you paying a vastly increased price for commodity computer hardware, the only thing that a Mac gives you that you couldn’t get somewhere else is OS X and the Apple cases (obviously I’m talking within the bounds of what is legal, you can run hacked version of OS X on third party machines.)

For iPhones, iPods, and iPads, I don’t really see there being an Apple tax. For the iPhone, it’s expensive but I’ve not seen any smartphone that isn’t. Pretty much any name smartphone you get from a major carrier in the U.S. like AT&T, Verizon, or Sprint will retail for $500+, but customers typically won’t pay more than $100-200 + contract for them.

iPad is a bit pricey but if you tick off its feature list, I actually don’t see anything else in that segment that gives you all those features. What else in the tablet form factor gives you a screen of that quality/size, 3G connectivity and etc? Most of the competition has rolled out with smaller screens or lack of 3G connectivity so right now I think it’s hard to argue you’re paying an Apple tax because you really can’t get an equivalent device to the iPad anywhere else.

The last time I priced an iPod, it wasn’t significantly more expensive than Sony’s MP3 player and was about the same as Microsoft’s Zune HD (I imagine Zune HD’s are much cheaper now, though, relatively.) Neither the Walkman MP3 player or the Zune had the application capability of the iPod touch.

39

Ah, yes. You know, the reason Apple is as successful as they are is because their competitors spent years dismissing Apple’s success and devoted user base as being driven by marketing, as if they were the Monster Cable of the technology industry, and never paid attention to the real factors that have always made Apple successful.

40

This is often repeated without any citation. Apple does not make any inexpensive computers, but that does not mean that the computers they do make are overpriced. Feature-for-feature (and you have to include battery life, weight and size as features when talking about laptops), they are rarely more than 10% more expensive than the competition. And as with the iPad, there is rarely any genuine competition with Apple in the notebook market. The screen quality and build quality of my MacBook Pro beat any other laptop on the market right now. You can find other laptops with faster processors, faster graphics cards, or other geegaws, but they are usually huge plasticky bricks with noisy fans that dump out heat like an oven and creak when you open the screen.