Bloomberg: "Strong possibility" of M4 debuting on May 7 with new iPad Pro
macrumors.com
macrumors.com
I think my iPad is an excellent thin client, however — but a Pro device should be more than just a thin client for me, imo.
Some things that would be a huge improvement for me:
1. Ability to do development locally
2. Virtualization (might circumvent the need to do local dev)
3. Install/build local applications
Apple seems determined to never allow anything outside of the App Store on i[Pad]OS, and with iPadOS being over four years old and still feeling like a giant iPhone, I don’t think I could recommend anyone should buy an iPad as a power user device.
If you buy one still, don't forget to turn it off completely, or you will find it someday, the battery completely drained and you realize it must have been months. Not good for battery health.
Maybe for technical work your statement is true, but for artistic work an iPad with Procreate/Dreams is absolutely a viable primary workstation.
It's file management, app limitations and interoperability which kill usefulness.
I got the first iPad (2016?) with pencil, for 400€, I think. It still does completely fulfill my needs for brainstorming. For anything else, the app ecosystem and locked down system are useless.
I also wish there were better more inventive apps.
Not saying you are wrong to want to use it for development, just curious why!
You can even have better ergonomics with a detachable screen. Basically a desktop setup with laptop mobility.
Nope. I'd argue developers are actually the best served professionals by iPads, simply because a terminal-drive workflow via SSH is at least possible.
I've written about the situation of creative apps not gaining traction on iPads (Procreate being the main exception) https://blog.robenkleene.com/2019/08/07/apples-app-stores-ha...
This has been the one thing that has kept my iPad useful! I use Blink (grandfathered into their Legacy Pro plan) and it’s a very clean experience. I can’t help but feel like it’s a fragile experience having to rely on an app from the app store for my iPad to be useful — that Apple or the Developer could remove at any time. Maybe it would feel less fragile if Apple provided an official i[Pad]OS Terminal/SSH client.
Unless Mark Gurman has a record of making reliable predictions about Apple, I wouldn't give this much credence.
1. N3B TSMC node used by M3 is reportedly low yielding. Apple likely wants to move away from it asap and move to N3E, which is the higher yielding node.
2. Rumors are that M3 Ultra is not planned due to low yields. M3 Max die shot does not have UltraFusion silicon. This supports the first theory.
3. Apple base the M chips on the A series cores. A18 Pro has already finished in design because Apple always starts making A series chips in Spring before a Fall debut. Therefore, A18 Pro is already in production using N3E node. Given enough early planning, it isn't surprising that M4 can be released early.
4. Reportedly, Apple plans to focus on GenAI at WWDC. They're also behind in GenAI. In order to catch up, they need to be aggressive. M4 is likely to have a big improvement in inference speed via the NPU and/or GPU.
[2] https://social.treehouse.systems/@marcan/112238385679496096
Where can I read up on that and what's state of the art in consumer GenAI chips?
Also thanks, all great points!
He does have a great record.
You use a Wacom for some things, but the iPad has the gigantic advantage that your image is directly underneath your Pencil. And, of course, that you can take it with you.
The iPad isn't a substitute for a workstation. But it's a huge complement -- both for creating things visually, as well as managing/showcasing all your media on the go. Professional artists are often going to a lot of meetings with different clients or team members around the city.
I would say the vast majority of artists do not travel and do not need to draw mid-meeting. Certainly there are exceptions but they are just that, exceptions.
I would say the vast majority of artists do have client meetings, whether they're employed full-time or freelance.
And artists need to work on the go just like the rest of us. Whether it's a dad trying to do 30 min of video editing in his car while he waits for daycare to get out, or somebody in the city doing an hour of website design in a cafe while they wait for their next meeting.
I'm baffled by your assertion that artists don't use iPads or shouldn't need them. It's just not the case, if you work with professional artists.
I will say that it's a major disconnect in our experience that you would say the majority of artists are directly client facing.
What company/industry is buying their artists iPads?
When I saw what one of my ex was using (bio chemist growing various stuff and testing treatments to rare sickle cell anemia that pharma didn't care about due to low patient count), it was very subpar and inefficient but she was happy with it and got results nevertheless eventually. Some of her work I could make more efficient by 10x, some by 50x maybe, but ie she as hardcore unix person just plainly refused to use MS Excel and all its statistics power, to pick a random example (there were quite a few).
Not saying this is your case of course, but oh boy do small screens, limited browsers, limited power and storage speed etc. do have negative effect on work itself, mental flow, staying focused etc. There is a reason not only we IT guys want powerful machines and massive screens, it ain't just chasing shiny higher numbers.
However, the app ecosystem is lacking in terms of interoperability, feature completeness within one app and export/import capabilities, and there is nothing you can do about it in iPadOS. File management is pure pain unless you fully bought into Apple already.
It's very nice for brainstorming and making transient personal illustrations while learning and working through technical problems, but you won't get the feel and certainty of a physical notebook as an institution for persistent notes.
The iPad is way too expensive for what it has to offer, in practice.
That said, without its artificial limitations it would be the last computing device you'll ever need. It could be everything.
Disagree on permanence. My notes are useful for much longer when they can be electronically sorted, searched, backed up, and when they take up no additional space in my backpack.
For me the main benefits of the tablet are:
- Copy/paste/drag. Pretty helpful when you manipulate long expressions, or want to condense a bunch of scratch work.
- Relatedly: easy erase. When I used real paper, pencil was too low contrast, and “erasable pen” never worked well. So I used a real pen and just crossed tons of stuff out; ugly.
- Keep a decade of notes with me wherever I go. (And cloud backed up so I won’t lose them.)
- Infinite zoom and no page boundaries. Seems silly, but it’s really nice to write as big as I want without worrying about running out of room on the page.
- Text search of handwritten notes. Works surprisingly well.
- Easily switch to different colors. 99% of the time I only use 2 or 3, but I find it helpful to visual distinguish the main argument/computation from “side commentary”.
Pro == more capable
And the iPad Pro is more capable than any other iPad.
It's always been meant for professional artists. Whether graphic artists, music producers, video editors, 3D artists, or what have you.
So it's strange to me that you treat "artwork" as an exception.
These are very much pro. That they're extremely functional for art is the whole point.
I'd argue that iPads being great for "art" is false. They have one killer app for one narrow specialized area (Procreate/illustration) but they aren't widely used as a main device professionally outside of that context (they are often used as a satellite device). They have adequate support for hobbyist level video editing/audio production/photography. They have minimal to non-existent support for motion graphics or anything related to 3D. Calling a device like this "extremely functional for art" I don't think is a defensible statement (unless it's specifically scoped to illustration).
I've written about my analysis of creative of apps on iOS devices here https://blog.robenkleene.com/2019/08/07/apples-app-stores-ha...
(according to Tom's guide). I wonder if it will still be on-chip.
> One display up to 4K at 144Hz over HDMI
The other M series have HDMI with similar speeds as long as it isn’t driving 8K.
Thunderbolt seems to be limited to 6K and 60Hz, but HDMI isn’t similarly limited (well, it can only do 60Hz with 8K). Hopefully there will be a thunderbolt successor they fixed the problem.
People have stopped caring about consumer chips because they have been "good enough" for a long time.
Hardware is getting exciting again. We need significantly more compute, memory bandwidth, and memory capacity. There are huge bottlenecks everywhere.
Meaning,
- iPad get their own unique chip
- MacPro, unique chip
- etc
And this iPad rumor is just the first Apple Silicon unique product chip.
Remember that it costs tens/hundreds of millions to tape out a chip.
Changing the configuration of the chip is unnecessary. iPhones, iPads, and Macs use roughly the same balance of compute. The thing that does need to change is how many cores in each compute device, but they already do this with A17 vs. M3 vs. M3 Pro/Max/Ultra. That already segregates the product lines a bit: iPads aren't getting anything bigger than an M3/M4, Mac Pros aren't getting anything smaller than an M3 Max, etc.
[0] e.g. production devices vs. Apple internal devkits vs. that weird Security Research Device they released a few years ago to compete with Corellium
The M3 Pro is the only chip that has 6E cores.
Both the M3 base and M3 Max only have 4E cores.
The toolbox ROM was a great hack in 1984 though.