There’s enough to read about the iPad already, let alone what will pop up in the next few months, to fill a library. So I don’t think I need to bother writing a whole article reacting to the iPad itself. On one hand, it’s almost exactly what I was expecting. On the other hand, it does disappoint in some ways, while surprising me pleasantly in others. In any event, my plan hasn’t changed; I will get one as soon as I can get one. The only question is whether or not to bother with the 3G version.
There were some announcements at the event, however, that I think are going to go underreported. Some major aspects of the iPad that are easy to lose amongst all the drool over the iPad itself.
### The A4 that isn’t an Audi
First up, the Apple A4 chip that powers the iPad. This is big news. We’ve known that Apple bought a small mobile chip maker called PA Semi a few years back. We all suspected that Apple would utilize PA Semi’s expertise to make some custom chips eventually. But until now, we’ve never seen Apple power an entire machine with one of those chips.
This is significant for a number of reasons. One of the many things Apple consistently gets credit for is its unique ability to “build the whole widget.” They make the software and the hardware, so they can develop hardware that is specifically tailored to the software. While that has been generally true up until this point, the A4 chip brings that to a whole new level. Whereas Apple has always “designed its own hardware,” it still uses some components from other manufacturers inside those devices. That’s just the way electronics are built. The original iPod was created almost entirely of off-the-shelf parts on the inside. Slowly, Apple changed that by making more and more of the parts itself, thus cutting costs and giving itself more control.
The CPU is the most intimate piece of the hardware. Being able to control how that is made gives you unprecedented control over the machine’s inner workings. It also gives you tremendous independence from other companies who can easily screw you.
Remember back when the clock speed wars were coming to a close, and Apple couldn’t keep up with the Pentium anymore, so it had to educate people about the “Megahertz Myth?” It also started making desktop PowerMacs with dual processors, to make them seem twice as fast. The problem was, those machines were only twice as fast when software was written to take advantage of that extra processor. Most of the time, that second processor sat there doing nothing. Many software developers never bothered rewriting their software to take advantage of the new hardware, because it didn’t have to.
The same thing happened to a lesser extent with dual core processors, though software generally took advantage of those cores more often without needing a re-write. Still, Apple was constantly at the mercy of both Intel and the developers.
With Apple making the chip and the software that runs on it, this problem can be largely avoided. When Apple makes a new advancement in hardware, it will immediately have the software to match it. It can make those changes at the core level of the OS, and within the tightly controlled SDK for the device, so that third-party apps can take advantage of the new hardware without much effort on the developer’s part.
Another great thing about making your own chips; you control who has access to them. If Intel creates a super-fast CPU that has a great power-to-speed ratio, Apple can buy it, but so can everyone else. If Apple creates that chip, no one else has it, unless Apple wants to license it to them. This is an incredible way to ensure that the competition never quite catches up to Apple in hardware capability.
Having your own chip development also gives you great power in the negotiating room with other chip makers. Apple can get Intel to bend to its needs more easily if Intel knows that Apple can eventually quit using Intel altogether. Apple hasn’t forgotten how much it was screwed by Motorola, and then IBM several years ago. It’s not about to cede the same control over its destiny to Intel.
And then there are advantages in in security. Custom-made silicon can be a great shield against hackers. I’ll be curious to see how long it takes someone to “jailbreak” an iPad. My guess is that it will be pretty challenging.
By all accounts, those who used the iPad at that press event had one word for it—fast. It is blazingly fast. The Google Nexus One has a 1 GHz chip, as well. And while it has been described as fast, too, Nexus One can’t hold a candle to the graphics processing going on in some of those games demonstrated yesterday. We know very little at this point about just how good a chip the A4 is, and just how integrated it is with Apple’s software. But if it’s as advanced as it sounds, we could be seeing some amazing products coming out of Apple over the next few years. I expect an iPhone powered by an Apple custom chip soon. The MacBook Pro may take a bit longer, but it will happen, eventually. And once that happens, Apple can take OS X to all sorts of new places, and it can keep pushing the innovation even more than it already has.
In other words, A4 is a HUGE deal. Like much of what was announced at the January 27 event, it was a small peek into a very big future for Apple.
