IPAD 2 Q&A: The next advance in computing technology.

A friend recently bought an IPAD 2 and I was asking him about the specs on the unit. Because I have no Apple knowledge or experience I had the feeling we were talking apples and oranges! :)


When I had time today to research why I was posing some seemingly difficult questions, here is what I found.

First some background: Advanced readers skip ahead!

The CPU(central processing unit)  is the square thingy on your motherboard, (the electronic thingy in the metal box with the lights on it), the CPU is under the fan on the motherboard. In a PC, you can exchange the CPU for a faster one. You can buy a better fan or cooler, because some of them are water-cooled. Sounds like a scary mix to me but fast processors have always used a lot of power and in any electronic device, power has always meant heat.  


RAM! All PC people are familiar with RAM (random access memory) or soon to be (really ancient memory). We know it, we love it, it's one of the first questions asked after what type processor do you have. RAM is also up-gradable on the PC. It's the little stick thingy you buy and replace the same kind of thingy but the new one has more little black boxes on it. Those little black boxes, just like the CPU, are integrated circuits(IC's).


SHORT HISTORY OF COMPUTING FOR BACKGROUND
I'm showing my age for your benefit here. In the Air Force in the 70s, I was an Avionics Instrument Systems Specialist. I kept all the gauges working for the pilots. Normally I would find which part of the system was broken, usually a black box containing electronics, swapped it with a new one and bring the broken one back to a different shop that fixed them. When we were not busy we would help out the other shop by fixing some of our own black boxes.


I had a manual a stop watch and a computer. The computer was hooked up to the broken instrument or box, plugged in, and then using the manual and stop watch I started a test procedure. The computer was a metal box with switches and lights on the front. I flipped switches and timed how long it would take for a series of lights to turn on and off. This was an early version of what we use in our homes today. 


A computer at it's most basic level is a bunch of switches that are either on or off. You may have heard of binary code. It's 1s and 0s. On or off! A relay is an electrically activated switch. They are still used today in high power and automotive applications. Someone presses a button in a control room. That could be relayed up through larger and larger relays to open the doors on a dam. Something that requires a lot of power and a human would not want to stand there and try to close that switch.  


The vacuum tube was an electronic switch, like a relay but with no moving parts. When power was applied the Eswitch either opened or closed a circuit. Some Eswitches are open (or on) with no power applied, or closed(off) when power was applied. Tubes used a lot of power and were hot like a light bulb. They rather resembled a light bulb with transparent glass and wire filaments that could easily be seen. 


Transistors did the same thing electronically. They were the size of a pencil eraser and made the first portable electronic devices feasible. Since they were smaller and required no wires in the circuitry, they were called solid state. They used much less power, being some of the first battery operated devices. They also generated less heat. Heat is a loss of power. Whenever you can reduce the heat given off in circuitry you can operate on less power. 


In the FAA, until quite recently, RADAR scopes were CRT or (cathode ray tubes). Much like the old televisions they were heavy, bulky and ran hot. Air Conditioning in the room and fans were the cooling devices for this circuitry. If we lost air conditioning we had to shut the scopes off. If you have ever seen the movie "Apollo 13" they struggled to get the capsules power down below 12 amps. My battery powered drill supplies more power than that. They needed that to power a computer that had less computing power than a calculator watch. That helps illustrate how far we have come. Think of a watch battery running that space capsule.


What we use today are digital ICs. There are more than a billion transistors contained in some of the ICs in use today. Each, a tiny little switch, a 1 or a 0, open or closed, on or off.
They are etched into layers of silicon that can only be seen through a microscope.


What does this have to do with the IPAD 2?
The RAM is integrated into the CPU. You can't upgrade it. In fact measuring RAM is really hard to do in this case because it is part of the processor.
It uses a 64bit processor and doesn't have to access the RAM through the motherboard. More speed, less heat(No Fan), less power.(longer battery life)
http://www.arm.com/products/processors/cortex-a/cortex-a9.php
So you can't compare this processor with a PC. You have to run programs and time them and see what they do side by side.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4216/apple-ipad-2-gpu-performance-explored-powervr-sgx543mp2-benchmarked
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4216/apple-ipad-2-gpu-performance-explored-powervr-sgx543mp2-benchmarked/2


The same thing has happened to graphics cards. It's an on board GPU. Some graphics cards even had their own cooling fan.


The hard/FLASH drive is what drives the price of the IPAD 2 in GigaBytes. Starting at $500 for a 16GB solid state hard/FLASH drive. That's right the last of the internal moving parts have been designed out of the modern computing device. No more spinning disk with a stylus like the phonographs of old.
Why such a high price? If you want to be the first kid on the block with the new toy you have to pay for it. http://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-does-it-cost-to-build-the-ipad-2-2011-3


PROS
No moving parts. No cables. Everything is integrated into the motherboard, equals speed! With less heat loss, through wires and cables and moving parts it requires less power and that increases battery life. Less power in turn means even less heat and therefore no cooling fan. 


This is what will be driving technology. Processing power doubles approximately every two years. Eventually every process will be on one IC. Then companies and consumers can decide what balance to shoot for between size and power.


CONS
I have read about problems with the IPAD when in the sun regarding visibility and overheating and shutting down. Anytime you are buying a cutting edge product you will be suffering through the inevitable initial bug problems. This is disposable technology. Nothing can be up-graded. Starting at $499 it's not like chucking the left over McFries. The price will come down as the manufacturing process finds it's stride. It will be made obsolete in 2 years by the next product. Hopefully there is an avenue to recycle these products.


MN