If I hand you 2 iPads, one 8th gen and one 7th gen, I bet it won't be easy to tell which is which.
Both devices are, visually, exactly the same. In the photo above, for example, the only difference is that one of those iPads has cellular connectivity and the other only has a connection via WiFi. But can you tell which one is "new" and which one is from last year? Surely not.
What do you see Screen, measurements, batteries, sensors, cameras, Touch ID, connectors, radios, compatibility with the Apple Pencil and the Smart Connector, everything is the same; absolutely the same.
Apple knows that the design of the iPad is good, it is simple, it is easy to understand, especially for the entry-level users for whom this device is aimed.
Apple knows that this is a device whose useful life is generally longer than that of other of its devices and protects the investment of those who have acquired previous iPads by maintaining the look & feel of their device for as long as possible (we already talked about perceived obsolescence and how this makes the designs stay current longer and the value of the devices last much longer).
Apple knows that what matters, in many cases, is what's on the inside.
And although on the outside the two iPads are the same, on the inside there is a small -but HUGE- difference.
Let's talk about the SoC
The SoC or System on a Chip, which colloquially but mistakenly called the processor (it is much more than a processor), the "brain" of the device is quite different.
Last year's 7th generation iPad has an A10 Fusion processor while the new 8th generation iPad has an A12 Bionic processor.
What are the differences?
Let's start with the size of the "pill". While the A10 is built on a 16nm architecture, the A12 is based on a 7nm one. That architecture allows the A12 to be 1/3 smaller than the A10 Fusion (83.27 vs 125mm2).
And yet, in that tight space, the A12 has more than twice as many transistors as the A10. While there are 3.3 billion transistors in the A10, the A12 has 6.9 billion.
While the A10 has 4 cores (2 low power and 2 high capacity), the A12 has 6 (2 low power and 4 high capacity). In other words, an increase of 50% (not counting on their speed)
And at AnTuTu we are talking about double the score: 368,880 vs 179,650.
The new iPad is, according to Apple, 2 times faster than Windows laptops, 3 times faster than the most popular Android tablet and 6 times faster than the best-selling Chromebook on the market.
That the A12 Bionic is soooo much faster and more efficient than the A10 Fusion (and that the folks at Apple are extremely good at designing and building their own processors, which is why they made the decision to say goodbye to Intel).
At the graphics management level, the A12 Bionic incorporates a 4-core GPU that is 95% faster than the A10 Fusion's GPU which offers much more dynamic and natural gaming experiences.
Thus, you can run applications like Pixelmator or Photoshop and manipulate them with your finger, Apple Pencil, keyboard or trackpad, use the iPadOS multitasking system and take advantage of Scribble in iPadOS 14.
Much more than just speed
But the issue goes beyond just speed and performance. The A12 Bionic includes a dedicated 8-core “Neural Motor” that can process 5,000,000,000,000 operations per second and allows for a variety of additional and much more powerful uses.
Think about Augmented Reality issues, and how the iPad can take information from the physical world and analyze it in real time. Think of complex computing processes like changing textures in a video or a high-pixel image. The options are many, especially since developers have already had a couple of years to tweak and optimize their applications to the processor (which came first in the iPhone XS).
Date update on 2020-11-10. Date published on 2020-11-10. Category: Computer class Author: Oscar olg Fuente: techcetera.