To be honest, I wish my iPad's chip was slower! I can't do anything other than watch videos and use drawing programs on an iPad, why does it need a big expensive power hungry and environmentally impactful CPU when one 1/10 the speed would do?
If I could actually do something with an iPad there would be a different discussion, but the operating system is so incredibly gimped that the most demanding task it's really suited for is .. decoding video.
> Why does it need a big expensive power hungry and environmentally impactful CPU when one 1/10 the speed would do?
Well, it's not. Every process shrink improves power efficiency. For watching videos, you're sipping power on the M4. For drawing...well if you want low latency while drawing, which generally speaking, people do, you...want the processor and display to ramp up to compensate and carry strokes as fast as possible?
Obviously if your main concern is the environment, you shouldn't upgrade and you should hold onto your existing model(s) until they die.
From what I can tell, the 2020 iPad has perfectly fine latency while drawing, and Apple hasn't been advertising lower latencies for each generation; I think they pretty much got the latency thing nailed down. Surely you could make something with the peak performance of an A12Z use less power on average than an M4?
As for the environmental impact, whether I buy or don't buy this iPad (I won't, don't worry, my 2020 one still works), millions of people will. I don't mind people buying powerful machines when the software can make use of the performance, but for iPad OS..?
The M4 is built on the newest, best, most expensive process node (right?). They've got to amortize out those costs, and then they could work on something cheaper and less powerful. I agree that they probably won't, and that's a shame. But still, the M4 is most likely one of the best options for the best use of this new process node.
>To be honest, I wish my iPad's chip was slower! I can't do anything other than watch videos and use drawing programs on an iPad, why does it need a big expensive power hungry and environmentally impactful CPU when one 1/10 the speed would do?
A faster SoC can finish the task with better "work done/watt". Thus, it's more environmentally friendly. Unless you're referring to the resources dedicated to advancing computers such as the food engineers eat and the electricity chip fabs require.
A faster and more power hungry SoC can finish the task with better work done per joule if it is fast enough to offset the extra power consumption. It is my understanding that this is often not the case. See e.g efficiency cores compared to performance cores in these heterogeneous design; the E cores can get more done per joule AFAIU. If my understanding is correct, then removing the P cores from the M4 chip would let it get more work done per joule.
Regardless, the environmental impact I'm thinking about isn't mainly power consumption.
I don't know the details of iOS's scheduler or how it decides which tasks should go on which kind of core, but the idea is to put tasks which benefit from high performance on the P-cores, right?
I'm under the impression that this CPU is faster AND more efficient, so if you do equivalent tasks on the M4 vs an older processor, the M4 should be less power hungry, not more. Someone correct me if this is wrong!
It's more power efficient than the M3, sure, but surely it could've been even more power efficient if it had worse performance simply from having fewer transistors to switch? It would certainly be more environmentally friendly at the very least!
The most environmentally friendly thing to do is to keep your A12Z for as long as you can, ignoring the annual updates. And when the time comes that you must do a replacement, get the most up to date replacement that meets your needs. Change your mindset - you are not required to buy this one, or the next one.
Of course, I'm not buying this one or any other until something breaks. After all, my current A12Z is way too powerful for iPadOS. It just pains me to see amazing feats of hardware engineering like these iPads with M4 be completely squandered by a software stack which doesn't facilitate more demanding tasks than decoding video.
Millions of people will be buying these things regardless of what I'm doing.
They are for those tasks, where you do need high performance. Where you would wait for your device instead. A few tasks require all cpu power you can get, so that is what the performance cores are for. But most of the time, it will consume a fraction of that power.
My whole point is that iPadOS is such that there's really nothing useful to do with that performance. No task an iPad can do requires CPU power (except for maybe playing games but that'll throttle the M4 to hell and back anyway).
It has 6 efficiency cores. Every single of them is extremely power efficient, but still faster than an iPad 2-3 generations back. So unless you go full throttle, a M4 is going to be by far the most efficient CPU you can have.
If I had to ballpark estimate this, your iPad probably uses less energy per year than a strand of incandescent holiday lights does in a week. Maybe somebody can work out that math.
How do you suggest they make new iPads for people who want them? Someone has to make new CPUs and if you can improve perf/W while you're doing so you might as well.
If I could actually do something with an iPad there would be a different discussion, but the operating system is so incredibly gimped that the most demanding task it's really suited for is .. decoding video.