Spicedaddy
Platinum Member
- Apr 18, 2002
- 2,305
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I think there's two messages here.
1) Don't stop innovating. I agree here
2) Dual core is overkill. See, here is the point I side with. Before Android came out, we never really cared too much about clock speed. We cared about a smooth UI and that the phone did what we needed to. No one was obsessing about dual triple quad cores or clock speed on iOS, Windows Mobile, Symbian. We acknowledged WM6 was on the slow side.
Then came this fragmented OS named Android that started gobbling resources up. Remember when iOS used 128mb of RAM? That was more than sufficient. Hell 256mb on my iPod Touch is more than sufficient. But 256mb is nothing on my Android phone. So people cry that 512 is not enough and if you don't have 1gb it's a waste.
The fact is Android seems to gobble up resources like no other and now we are on this quest to go all out on our phones. I think this is the whole software vs hardware and innovation thing.
We need new hardware because our software keeps getting bloated. I mean shouldn't it be manageable where 1ghz is enough? I'm not saying stop at 1ghz, but I think the requirements of software on Android are getting too harsh it doesn't make sense. Like the fact that Angry Birds runs slow as a bitch on my Android phone but on my ex's iPod Touch 2G it's smooth as silk tells you that something's wrong.
It's one thing to go brute force dual, quad whatever core you need, but at the same time, I think it should be said that today's single core 1ghz processors should be MORE THAN ENOUGH to run today's software. But alas it isn't. So yes, I do think it's overkill that we're going brute force and upping hardware to match the pace of software that should just simply be refined.
It's kinda like Windows Vista was such a resource hog it turned a lot of people back to XP. Essentially what we did was wait out on XP til 7 came out. In that 3 year timespan, hardware progressed such that while 7 was really similar to Vista + SP2, the hardware caught up that people were ready to make the jump finally. Microsoft acknowledged it fucked up, and maybe something should be said here. iOS runs smoothly on a ARM11 processor, but Android struggles with anything less than 1ghz and 512mb of RAM.
Certain computing tasks require more computing power than is currently available. Example is editing RAW picture files. This is not a task that requires precision like editing in Photoshop but it does require some computing power. Again, there is no RAW editor similar to Lightroom or Aperture that I know of but it is a task that seems suitable to a tablet. Then there is video editing which is doable on a tablet provided an app is programmed with a proper UI suited to tablets and finger control. I'm sure that developers can come up with other tasks.
So that you can look forward to charging your phone twice a day instead of just once.
Battery technology is where "they" should be concentrating on in the mobile market.
Until a tablet or phone has more than 1MP resolution editing a decent sized RAW image would be a waste of time in my view. I have a Canon 1DsM2 with 16.7MP resolution and the only mobile platform I'd consider using to edit is my 18" HP laptop with 1920x1080 resolution. For full on editing you really want the highest resolution calibrated display you can get and a physically large one at that. Now, if the editing is limited to weeding out bad shots etc you can get by with less.
What I'd like for a phone and tablet is a good image viewer that can handle RAW files and do minor editing. PS is overkill and the resource requirements will be too much for phones/tablets for the foreseeable future...
Brian
Well, all signs pointing to at the latest the iPad 3 getting a high res display similar to what's on the iPhone 4. Incidentally one of my major requirements in a tablet would be a high res display similar in DPI to what's on the iPhone 4. I don't think tablets will go much larger than the iPad.
Again the tasks I'm imagining would mostly be slightly adjusting the exposure or fixing white balance and that type of stuff and of course exporting to JPG and uploading to a website would probably be invaluable to a lot of people. Probably exactly the tasks a lot of photographers need on the road. I'm sure that if you can get that, on a 10-12" tablet, and considering the portability and light weight of a tablet, it'd replace your huge and heavy laptop which is likely to not be battery friendly.
The phones are very comparable (if not better) than other single core phones. Please read something relevant before you mislead people.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4144/...tegra-2-review-the-first-dual-core-smartphone
Actually more recent updates have the iPad 2 display rez the same as the current one. Also you're insane to have a requirement as the same DPI as the current iPhone 4 as there would be no mobile processor/gpu powerful enough to drive it as it'd need to be some insane resolution.
http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/02/ipad-2-display-leaked/
That's why my post said iPad 3 and not iPad 2.
A small clarification is needed. In all honesty, I'm not expecting a high rez iPad to have the same DPI as the iPhone 4. It's more along the lines of a higher resolution display similar in concept to their "Retina Display" on the iPhone 4 where it's of such high resolution that at normal viewing distances, most people won't notice the individual pixels.
I haven't kept up with every single Android (or other OS) tablet announcement but I haven't seen one with a higher rez display. Originally the iPad 2 was rumored to have a high rez display but current rumors are that it won't hit until the iPad 3. Some side evidence of one coming eventually to the iPad are certain graphic files in betas of iOS that have double the pixel size of what's in the current iPad.
Comparable but not better. I remember my old dumbphones would last me a week without recharging, my old BB Curve would do 4-5 days easily. My iPhone 4 I have to charge every 2 days, sometimes every day, and that's one of the smartphones with the best battery life.
I don't like this trend. What's next, 3 hour battery life like a laptop?
Remember when Intel and AMD were doing the GHz race? More power consumption until it became insane... Then they started improving power consumption as well as processing ability.