iOS4 on the iPad in the fall

[pfcurtis]

I have been wondering, why the delay, and I got a wild idea.
Based on the iPhone 4 specs, the iPad needs an upgrade to be able to run the new iPhone4 apps.
In particular, it needs an increase in Ram to 512MB and it may need the gyroscope for other applications. The minor upgrade to the iPad may be required to facilitate using iOS4.
I am not speculating on adding a camera (although it needs it) and I cannot see them adding the Retina display.
Changing the ram would be easy, and if the gyro was part of the radio/GPS plug in board, that would also be a simple upgrade.
What do you think?

 

[Duvi]

iOS4 is coming to current iPads. None of those
upgrades (RAM, gyroscope and retina display)
can be added through a software update.

So I'm almost certain (99.9%) that the delay
is for other reasons. The 3GS has the same
amount of ram as the iPad, but the iPad has
the a4 processor (1Ghz). So my guess is
that they are testing it with with the lower
RAM, but higher processor like the i4 has.

 

[pfcurtis]

Duvi, I did not suggest that the display would be upgraded. I was saying that upgrading a few hardware specs, such as the ram and the gyro, could be made easily. And that could be the reason for the delay while the new components are incorporated into the production lines.
I am well aware that iOS4 runs on the 3gs, but needs the iPhone4 hardware for best performance.
Just after I posted the original message, I saw a rumor, I think on Mac Rumors, that the gyro is going to be added to the iPad sometime in the near future.
These changes would be a minor upgrade and would not make it worthy to be called an iPad2.

 

[Ipheuria]

I'm not following you and I think Duvi might have had the same idea as I did reading your post. Are you saying it's delayed because they are incorporating the hardware into new units or they will incorporate it into already sold units? I think the more likely reason for the delay is because they are trying to fix the iPhone 4 antennae issue. The i4 just sold and to huge number of customers, the iPad numbers are huge but there are no problems so iPad users are happy while i4 antennae issues are all over the media. So they will dedicate all effort and time to fix that before other things. The hardware is easy to add to new units but since there are already 3 million iPads out there trying to put it into existing units would be a disaster I would think. If they do incorporate it into new units I don't think they would release it now because if it stays at the same price point people will be pissed they paid the same money and got less RAM in their unit.

 

[RoIPhon]

The iPad should not need new hardware to cope with iPhone 4 games. As you may have noticed around the internet many people have ran benchmarks and ran tests on the iPhone and iPad, and despite the iPhone 4 RAM upgrade the iPad comes out on top.

Apple never pointed out that the iPhone 4 was actually utilizing the full 1Ghz power of the A4 chip. In fact a post made here at tipb shows that for the iPhone 4 to be achieving the battery life apple states it has and to keep it thermally cool it would have to be kept back between 800-850Mhz.

This would explain the double RAM, to make up for lost processing speed. You may be saying that the tests would come out different if the iPad was running 4.0, but 3.2 already has most of the features of 4.0, other than the obvious multitasking etc.

 

[omegadivine]

Yeah I am pretty sure the iPad processor is actually using more power then the iPhone 4's under clocked a4. Also i don't see this happening in anyway because it's unlike apple to add extra hardware to a device already out, yeah the next iPad will probably have all of those and maybe even more but remember 3G to 3GS was almost no big difference (ram and processor) and it was released as a new phone. Also i have ios4 on my 3GS and it runs smooth I really can't complain about speed or anything so I don't really see that as being an issue for the iPad

 

[CJPennypacker]

Still the iPad could really use an upgrade, especailly a USB port.

 

[omegadivine]

Yeah USB port wouldn't hurt though the camera connection kit for iPad does give you a USB port. It doesn't have full functionally (no hdd's or flash drives) but it does allow some USB keyboards and not sure what else, I am hoping to get one an see what it will and won't recognize.

 

[Joey4422]

huh, thats real interesting Omega. I never knew that, lemme know what you find out.

 

[derrythe]

my assumption is more along the lines of being nice to the developers. Many apps for the iphone have needed updates for iOS4 functionality. Considering that the ipad has only been around a few months, I'm guessing that Apple wants to give developers time to release products before updating the OS and making the developers release compatibility updates so soon. Releasing the iPad and overhauling its OS right away may have had the effect of causing many developers to wait to release their apps, which would be bad for the iPad.

 

[omegadivine]

huh, thats real interesting Omega. I never knew that, lemme know what you find out.

Yeah it's just hard to find them, apple is backordered on them heh. Ship time minimum is 3 weeks