I'll get one too assuming it has the same CPU and resolution as the larger model - unlike with the dumbed-down current Mini. I just couldn't use the latter because of the abysmal screen. (Just ordered a significantly higher-resolution Android tablet - the just-released, nicely-specced and powerful - Hyundai T7s - to have a light, 1280*800 7" tablet I can take everywhere without attacking my eyes.)
I asked EP to answer some of your ipad mini questions ipadisgreat. He seems to prefer his ipad mini over his ipad 3. I kinda wonder what he thinks about reading web text on the ipad mini too. I would have to think that Apple is trying it's best to implement retina into the ipad mini 2, but he weight, heat, and battery issues all will be a factor. I personally would love to see it this october, but kinda wonder if it will be heavier or thicker due to the retina and additional battery. Menn, I don't think the cpus will the be the same on the ipad 5 and ipad mini 2. I kinda figure that future ipad minis will always be one generation behind the full screen ipads cause of the heat, battery, and space issues. At least I hope so, cause I will always probably go full sized, in fact, I would like a 12 inch ipad cause I already carry a backpack or napsack, so it doesn't matter. But my current ipad 3 is way to heavy. About 1/2 the weight would be cool. The article I posted stated that the ipad 5 will be 53% lighter, so that is hopeful, and hopefully they will solve the heatgate problem. I might wait for an ipad 6 now though. 256 gb is the main factor for me, and also, I wanna see if hdmi and joystick use will improve on the ipad 6. I figure the ipad 5 will be more for the new igzo screen, smaller size, and lighter weight. The ipad 6 will probably have 256 gb for sure (hopefully ext hard drive or sd card slot too) and all will probably be more of a performance boost in cpu/gpu. Also, maybe by the ipad 6, apple will take all this hdmi and joystick stuff more seriously, and focus on making an ipad a console too. At least I hope. Menn, do you think there is anyway that apple can salvage hdmi via lightning connector in the future? Hate to think that the ipad 3 may have the best hdmi, that is another factor to wait for an ipad 6 for me. If I bought an ipad 5, I would probably try to sell my ipad 3. But if I buy a 6, I might just hold onto my ipad 3 for the 30 pin hdmi use cause of better graphics.
I almost never put my ipad mini on a table and always have it on both hands coz it's light enough to carry, so i can type quick using two thumbs, on a split keyboard setup.
SD card support will never be added to any iOS device in the way current Android / WP devices do. Noone would, then, purchase the higher-storage models at rhe current Apple tax of $100 / doubling the storage. Nevertheless, you can already use external cards via the CCK if you jailbreak to store large media files there. I've even written a writeup on using symlinks to directly access videos without having to do any copying first: check out http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1464236 if interested. Surely they won't. It's highly unlikely they'd add a HDMI port, even if they know the Lightning port's current HDMI quality / lag is really inferior to that of both the 30-pin one and Android / Windows tablets' dedicated, true (micro-)HDMI ports. BTW, I've also ordered an MHL adapter; I'll also report on how it compares to the Lightning adapter IQ / lag-wise on my Sammy S2.
Surfing on an ipad mini is noticeably non-retina-kinda-blurry... Readable, but needs to be sharper. If your eyes are trained on a retina pad, surfing on a mini will make you cringe as it did me before i got used to it. Im sure retina ipad mini will be great though. Text will be smaller than the ipads of course, but i never hac problems reading them. Just... a little sharpness should make it great.
The last rumour I heard was that insufficient retina iPad Mini screens had delayed production so it will only be introduced next year. I also secretly wish for a 20" iPad Table. If you watched the original table-like video of the Microsoft Surface (not he Windows 8 skateboard that they eventually used the name for) that is what I am getting at. It will be great for board games. Although I am unsure if Apple actually cherishes the lead they have in gaming. The logical solution to dominate gaming would be to expand AppleTV to have an App Store, then allow iDevices and peripherals to connect to it as controllers. That way, connection issue will be bypassed as it is straight HDMI from AppleTV to HDTV. Hmm, that is something I will have to try out. No rush as I have a year to figure this out...
It'd be great if it had a 4K screen and a Wacom pen. I could, at last, switch to fully electronic PDF annotation. (Now, I always print tons of articles / books because I still find manual annotation the best way to as quickly learn and understand subjects as possible.)
BTW, guys, I've posted a lot of info on the "black bars" on external screens, for both end users and programmers, to TA's sister site, MR: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=17233428
Me too, reading ebooks that is. It has proven to be more convenient than having to provide more shelving space. The unforeseen side effect was that I also stopped buying ebooks as they take up too much space on my iPad. So I just borrow them from the library and they delete them when the lending period expires... If you mean that you want to scribble with a stylus when you mentioned manual annotation, then you will probably need a Windows or Android tablet. The tips of the capacitive stylus that iPads can use are really too thick to be able to write easily, especially when scribbling anything tiny... There is another costly way to get iDevice content onto HDTVs, but it is costly. Use the Apple TV. There is a toggle for overscan built in. I notice that it enlarges the image to crop off the time bar on top and about the same amount below, and for me, it is an easy way to share Facebook photos with my family on the telly...
Yup, this is why stated true Wacom support, as is done by the Samsung Note models, would be welcome. That would make it possible to have precision. Thanks for the feedback. I've added a new section ("1.2.3.3 Using AirPlay with the Apple TV") on the AppleTV.
I did a writeup for the new hybrid tipped styluses a while back here http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?t=167721&highlight=Stylus&page=2 These are the styluses I own, actually more now cause I got a ton for free at some conferences. The hybrid is far right. But I too would like to see full stylus support for some kind of accurate stylus. Don't like how Apple has gone anti joystick and anti stylus in the past. With the microsoft surface pro having more a dedicated stylus and also real joysticks, I think Apple too will have to get their heads out of the sand, and support the cause. Just read an interesting article of a stylus made by adobe, looks way cool! http://appadvice.com/appnn/2013/05/adobe-previews-an-ipad-compatible-stylus-and-digital-ruler I probably would buy one if it worked well, would be cool go do some serious handwriting and photo editing with my ipad. Doubt it would be too useful on games though, I find the styluses like the hybrid the best cause of the cushioning rubber effect. But man, I would love to see a cool stylus and joystick one day, then the tablet console would be something that would be taken seriously.
Menneisyys, thanks for all of your valuable input into this thread. I have added a link for you from the HDMI toc (table of contents), called Menneisyys' Blog See here http://forums.toucharcade.com/showpost.php?p=2614492&postcount=2 It links to this post http://forums.toucharcade.com/showpost.php?p=2804496&postcount=316 I was trying to add a lot of your stuff to the toc, but almost all of your posts are good, and also, I thought it might be best just for you to do it so you can have a dedicated page to links, photos, articles, or whatever you want. If it gets too big,then we can add a link to another post and make it page two. It would be a cool way for us to see all of your important threads from your other boards, kinda your own mini blog here. Anyway, if you want to do something on that post, please edit that and put whatever you want on that page. If you want something different like more pictures and stuff, I use IMGUR cause it outputs img links automatically and can resize picts with img tags easily, I use the large thumbnail option in here. You can see examples and some tutorials in the chatrooms toc here. Look at the last pages too to see how we add pictures and animated gifs. http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?t=180815 But only if you want too, if your page looks ok, then I can link it to the chatrooms's toc too, then it will be easy to find for everyone. But only if you want to, if you don't want to, I will delete the links from the toc. Thanks.
Thanks! Will try to update this post all the time. BTW, just received the 2nd gen 30-pin HDMI adapter. Will start shooting tests today.
If it is indeed better than the capacitive pens out there (something as good as a true Wacom radio pen), then, its protocol will surely be cracked and be made compatible with iOS in general. The same happened to, among other things, Gameloft's properietary BT game controller (see BluTrol 3.0, which supports it). Of course, only on JB'n devices.
Some preliminary results: Pros of the 2nd gen adapter a, MUCH faster in everything OpenGL. Just two examples: 1, in the first on-screen T-Rex scene of GLBenchmark 2.7, the exact delays of each frame are as follows in a 6.1.2 iPad 2: Old adapter: 13 6 9 10 9 10 18 9 9 9 18 (see from 04:04 at http://youtu.be/-KPSK2hOln4 ) New adapter: 13 5 1- 9 5 5 4 5 5 4 4 5 5 (see at http://youtu.be/uaSD8V3Pwi4 , starting at 02:07) That is, the new adapter turned out to be at least(!) twice as fast in this VERY demanding test. Note that I've shot the new videos so that the benchmark results are also shown at the end. I've even captured them: 1st gen adapter: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/81986513/052013/hdmi1stvs2nd/iPad%202%20-%201st%20gen%20HDMI%20adapter%20direct%20mirroring%20grab%20-%20GLBenchmark%202.7%20-%20RESULTS.png 2nd gen adapter: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/81986513/052013/hdmi1stvs2nd/iPad%202%20-%202nd%20gen%20HDMI%20adapter%20direct%20mirroring%20grab%20-%20GLBenchmark%202.7%20-%20RESULTS.png 1st gen adapter with DisplayOut at 720p, HQ, no flicker suppression (see below for more info on DisplayOut): https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/81986513/052013/hdmi1stvs2nd/iPad%202%20-%201st%20gen%20HDMI%20adapter%20DisplayOut%20720p%20HQ%20no%20flicker%20supress%20grab%20-%20GLBenchmark%202.7%20-%20RESULTS.png BTW, here's the iPad 3 version (with the new adapter): http://youtu.be/pmXIBGiYCUE It's also much faster than with the 1st gen adapter - but, of course, still much slower than on the iPad 2. b, (The OpenGL-based) After Burner is much faster too. In the iPad 3 1080p30 direct capture at http://youtu.be/AzlkVu4FQjY , the biggest pause took 5 frames that is, about the half of my measurements with the old adapter. These 5 frames, incidentally, are pretty much the same as the biggest pause I've found in Connector's demo video. c, when used as a pass-thru to recharge an iPad, it recharges somewhat faster by about 70 mA, assuming a quality cable and the 2A stock charger. It isn't a drastic difference (advantage), though. Cons Just like the newer Lightning version, it doesn't communicate the current resolution to the display either. The latter, assuming it's capable of Full HD resolution, will ALWAYS think the adapter emits 1080p (A5+) / 720p (A4), no matter what the real resolution is. This is really disadvantageous when, say, you want to directly capture the output of the adapter most HDMI capture units can't capture 1080p signals as fast as 720p (or lower) ones. For example, the Elgato Game Capture HD (the one I have and use) only captures at 30 fps at 1080p, while it can capture at 60 fps at 720p and below. Most iOS games with native (non-mirrored) video output use 720p (or even 480p, see Gameloft's Asphalt 6/7), which means they could be recorded at 60 the iOS-native fps if the adapter didn't emit 1080p as the resolution (and didn't scale up the video to 1080p). What hasn't changed? Non-OpenGL-wise, there is absolutely no difference between the old and new adapters. (Tested with a very demanding 720p60 H.264 video played back in hardware. No more framedrops in the output of the first-gen adapter than in the second-gen one) Here are the two test vids showing this: 1st gen adapter: http://youtu.be/PdMOFqSOIp8 2nd gen adapter: http://youtu.be/wwA554GEj6w Incidentally, I've also tested DisplayOut running on A5+ devices. While it mirrors non-OpenGL stuff just fine, it has major problems with anything OpenGL: it just messes up the order of frames, introducing some major stuttering. http://youtu.be/2NglIMQBK7k
All kinds of new talk about a stylus from Apple for the ipad 5. Kinda exciting. Will be interesting if Apple really reverses its policy on styluses. I sure hope so, and I hope apple comes out with a wireless joystick too soon before christmas. http://www.networkworld.com/news/2013/050813-ipad5-rollup-269570.html http://au.ibtimes.com/articles/464684/20130506/ipad-5-mini-2-rumors-features-specs.htm#.UYsNq8u9KSM http://highlightpress.com/ipad-mini-2-and-ipad-5-to-come-eqipped-with-a-stylus-a-la-galaxy-note-tabs/1152/mrao Qwak Hd on hdmi tv
Guys, I've made some new benchmark demos to find out how the three adapters compare. I've changed the benchmark app at http://marc.blog.atpurpose.com/2009/11/02/counting-fps/ as follows: - I've raised the number of moons (NUMBER_OF_MOONS in pen.h) from 3 to 100 to achieve almost 100% GPU usage - I've added a frame counter global variable and modded the sprintf to include the current frame number in the overlay in fps.c. The modded sources are at https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/81986513/052013/hdmi1stvs2nd/SphereBenchmark%202.zip The videos are as follows: iPad 2 (JB'n, 6.1.2), old HDMI: http://youtu.be/Pe5iO7miu7M iPad 2, new HDMI: http://youtu.be/tVfn-LIbGVk iPad 3 (non-JB'n, 6.1.3), old HDMI: http://youtu.be/BmCTkzJ6ZVY iPad 3, new HDMI: http://youtu.be/eGRlGNB6ZeI iPhone 5 (JB'n, 6.1.2), Lightning (versions: HW: 1.0.0 / FW: 6.1.0): http://youtu.be/GDWFCC8Bmbk The videos are 480p120 ones; that is, they're played back at quarter the speed so that you can properly assess the dropped frames. My remarks: - no delay on the iPad 2/3 videos with either (old / new) 30 pin adapters - about 6 frame delay on that of the Lightning adapter (which is pretty much the same as my previous measurements). Again, you can easily see this for yourself by subtracting the frame number on the right (TV output) from that on the left (original iDevice). - even with this rather simple demo, the iPad 3 does drop about every fourth frame with the old adapter. For example, the following frames are missing from its footage: 15, 19, 23, 27, 31, 35 etc. No framedrops with the new adapter. - on the iPad 2, there doesn't seem to be any difference between the two HDMI adapters. However, on more complicated frames (e.g., that of the GLBenchmark 2.7's REX scene), the difference is VAST. (I'll post a dual video of that one soon, with both adapters.) That is, it's worth using the new adapter even with the iPad 2.
I'm uploading a dual, half-speed (shot at 720p60) video showing the iPad3 running - RR2 - RR3 - After Burner - the first tests of GLBenchmark 2.7 with the new (2nd-gen) HDMI adapter. The results are orders of magnitude better than with the first-gen HDMI adapter or the VGA adapter. The video will become available in about 9 hours at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hbBD2w_MRo
