- Mar 11, 2000
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What kind of “home creation” work requires something that is only as powerful as a phone, but must be done on a keyboard and large screen, and the keyboard and screen dock station must cost much less than a real laptop for it to make sense?True but this doesn't really fit my experiences / observations at least here with friends and family. Most people aren't interested in tech and writing long forum posts. They usually are mostly fine with a smartphone alone and if they even own a laptop (forget desktops) it's only taken out if one needs to write a document which is rare enough. The power even of the current iPhones i more than enough almost all people need. All they would need is the needed peripherals for "creation" work which happens at home.
So laptops aren't really used in a mobile way besides putting it on the diner table and then storing it in a cupboard and current phones are aleardy good enough for these minor needs.
Only valid point I see is that the laptop in fact is probably easier to deal with than docking and wouldn't really cost much more.
I rather see people not using laptop anymore at all. iPhones are already reasonably powerful. If they share the same OS as a macbook all you really need is a dockingstation to which you can attach a keyboard, screen etc. I'm sure apple will gladly sell you their special $500 docking station.
That’s just it. iPhone SoCs are already fast enough to do the work needed by 90% of families. I know this because my wife has an iPad 7 with its ancient A10 SoC from 2016, matched to an Apple Smart Keyboard effectively transforming it into a laptop. Performance of A10 isn’t exactly fast, but it’s fast enough for most usage, and A14 will be literally 3X as fast. Furthermore, A10 is roughly as fast as my Core m3-7Y32 MacBook. I don’t plan updating it anytime soon for performance reasons. My main reason to upgrade would be for stuff like dual USB-C ports.What kind of “home creation” work requires something that is only as powerful as a phone, but must be done on a keyboard and large screen, and the keyboard and screen dock station must cost much less than a real laptop for it to make sense?
It would be closer to 2 to 2.4X not 3X with the A10 vs A14. In Single Thread we are talking closer to 2X but with the A11 to A14 Apple moved time 4 small cores instead of 2 small core so multithread looks better in all the subsequent A11, A12, A13, A14 chips when comparing the iPhone 7, and the 6th and 7th gen iPads (aka the most recent iPad for $329 until this very week.)Performance of A10 isn’t exactly fast, but it’s fast enough for most usage, and A14 will be literally 3X as fast. Furthermore, A10 is roughly as fast as my Core m3-7Y32 MacBook.
There's probably a reason why they never made it.That’s just it. iPhone SoCs are already fast enough to do the work needed by 90% of families. I know this because my wife has an iPad 7 with its ancient A10 SoC from 2016, matched to an Apple Smart Keyboard effectively transforming it into a laptop. Performance of A10 isn’t exactly fast, but it’s fast enough for most usage, and A14 will be literally 3X as fast. Furthermore, A10 is roughly as fast as my Core m3-7Y32 MacBook. I don’t plan updating it anytime soon for performance reasons. My main reason to upgrade would be for stuff like dual USB-C ports.
That’s why I’ve been saying for so long now that A14 non-X would be perfect for a fanless 12” MacBook.
Apple actually already has applied for patents for such a dock, which docks the iPhone into a laptop, and turns it into a trackpad. I don’t think we’ll see it, but it would be perfect for many students for example if Apple could make it work slickly and for a decent price.
A10 scores about 1425 multi-core in Geekbench 5. If the A14 multi-core is 4068 then that is 4068 / 1425 = 2.85X.It would be closer to 2 to 2.4X not 3X with the A10 vs A14. In Single Thread we are talking closer to 2X but with the A11 to A14 Apple moved time 4 small cores instead of 2 small core so multithread looks better in all the subsequent A11, A12, A13, A14 chips when comparing the iPhone 7, and the 6th and 7th gen iPads (aka the most recent iPad for $329 until this very week.)
PS this post written on a 7th Gen iPad with an A10 and 3 GB of Ram. It is definitely not slow!
To my understanding Geekbench 5 likes cores despite the fact they are big or small cores.A10 scores about 1425 multi-core in Geekbench 5. If the A14 multi-core is 4068 then that is 4068 / 1425 = 2.85X.
I don’t see why the change in core setup matters that much as long as all cores are being used.
BTW, my MacBook Core m3-7Y32 gets around 1550 multi-core. I’ve been telling people a good ballpark baseline for entry level machines in 2020 is around 2000 multi-core, but anything 1200 and above is very usable.
That is appropriate because these later chips like A12 can leverage the small cores to do real work.To my understanding Geekbench 5 likes cores despite the fact they are big or small cores.
I agree A10 is not truly slow, but I definitely think it's lower performance is noticeable for more advanced users even just for basic usage. I knew this in advance but I bought the A10 iPad 7 for my wife anyway, because I got a really good deal on it - my carrier was selling the LTE version for the same price as the WiFi version. I really, really wanted to wait for the A12 iPad, but the timing just didn't work. We are currently paying just CAD$5 (US$3.78) per month for 4 GB data.(I repeat the A10 is not slow, it is a great chip. I just WISH from the bottom of my heart we have a chip that is 3 times the amazingness factor of the A10. I just expect 2.0 to 2.4X depending on single vs multi, and I can be wrong and it may be 2.85X for multi, and it would be astonishing if its 3.0X for multithreaded workloads.)
That is one thing we forget about with speed comparisons.I agree A10 is not truly slow, but I definitely think it's lower performance is noticeable for more advanced users even just for basic usage.
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OTOH, I notice the performance difference because I use an iPad Pro 10.5" with A10X daily, and that does feel faster if compared side by side with the iPad 7 with A10, even for basic usage. But it is a matter of diminishing returns. I barely notice any difference at all for basic usage from my 2017 iPad Pro with A10X compared to a 2018 iPad Pro with A12X. I've tested this side-by-side and it's really hard to notice the difference, despite the fact that A12X has twice the multi-core performance.
Cut the rage bro. The comments above directly address what I am talking about. If Apple wants their margins on hardware, they will stay premium. If they want growth based on service subs, they will grow their base. Maybe there is a happy medium but I see it more as one or the other.
That’s zero snark, 100% seriousness.
And I believe that status quo is more likely than change because Apple as a company is really a massive group of people and change is hard and risky and staying the course and playing to your strengths is less so.
🤷♂️
What is with this “Apple is evil” rhetoric? I am a stockholder. Apple needs to make more profits than they do now so the stock price goes up. End of story. This is not evil, this is reality.
My take on Apples historic success over the last decade is that they don’t chase sales, they trust that their products, their styling and their brand will bring the customers to them. To do what you are suggesting and chase sales in less profitable market segments would be cashing in on their brand and their image, yes. But it seems like it would be a one time deal. A move made out of crisis. You can’t be Walmart brand netbook and Dell and Apple all at the same time. In my view.
I really believe Apple is moving to Apple silicon to minimize their risk (by depending on Intel for year to year improvements to sell product) and to be masters of their own destiny. In order to improve profits. For their stock price.
There's probably a reason why they never made it.
The Magic Keyboard for the iPad is already $300. Add in a screen, better speakers, battery to power the screen (since phone batteries are too small), and you're looking at a $600++ add-on. At this point, you're pretty close to a Macbook Air which does not require docking an iPhone.
This is my point. When you make a good dock for an iPhone, you're pretty darn close to the cost of a laptop.
They are selling a $300 keyboard for a tablet? Wow. Seriously as long as people keep buying that stuff they will keep creeping up the price.
This has surprised me as well, only a small subset of my friends every wanted to go above the $200-$400 bang/buck in the past. Now most of them are eyeing 3080 0.o (and expensive high-refresh-rate monitors on top).OTOH, while those wheels are a total ripoff, I also have never understood why anyone besides a pro or semi-pro gamer would pay $699 for a video card*.
Different priorities I guess.
* To be clear, I’m not talking about workstation cards.
I've been told that people who want to wheel their computers around are really only in the office setting. If you buy the Mac Pro wheels up front, they're $399. They're $699 when you buy them after the fact. I could see a company buying 4 Mac Pros and putting wheels for $399 on one of two of them in case they need to be moved to the conference room for customer demos etc.I wonder what the mix of Mac Pro sales are for people buying for themselves versus companies buying for employee use? I'll bet it is heavily tilted towards the latter.
Just look at all the ways your workplace wastes money, and in much bigger chunks than buying $699 wheels when $199 wheels or maybe cheaper were available if they shopped around.
I'm not really sure what the market is for being able to wheel your computer around (it can't go far with all the cables it will have tethering it to a fairly specific area) so those wheels are probably a very low volume product. Maybe some of Apple's own people using Mac Pros wanted wheels for some reason so they had to make them an option?
Inflation has not caused a 40% price increase from $350 to $500 (350*1.4=490)Inflation is probably a part of that ($500 is sorta the new $350) but still computer-part prices have really creeped up in the last 3-4 years.
P.S. I bought two quad-core Xeon E5345 chips for it for <$20 off eBay, and with those the performance is quite decent. And then I found an 8-core model with two 3.0 GHz quad-core Xeon X5365 chips for about US$75 on Kijiji so I bought that too, and performance is even better. The latter scores about 2250 in Geekbench 5 multi-core, which is about the speed I recommend for an entry level Mac in 2020. Too bad I can't go past 10.11 El Capitan with those old Mac Pros.
I paid US$22 for a 120 GB SSD for OS X, and I already had an old SSD for Windows 10. I won’t go broke with that type of spending.EUG! But Why? 🤣
Even John Siracusa has moved past his old fashioned Cheese Graters. To make those devices usable you need some SSD magic and you are just putting good money after bad for the limiting factor is the processor.
That said the case for them are awesome. Add some nice wood and you can have a good work bench if you need something 21 inches high (which is not the right height for many things.)