Apple’s A4 SoC: awesome, but barely
Mar 2nd
It was a slow Monday, but the one thing worth noting is the supposedly new information about Apple’s custom iPad chip. It appears as though all of the high hopes we had for the iPad’s processor have been shot out of the sky by recent rumors about the System-on-a-Chip (SoC). Information has slowly leaked out about the processor since the annoucement on the 27th of January. First there was the definition of custom silicon versus a custom chip, then there were rumors that it wasn’t designed by the team from P.A. Semi, and finally we have a somewhat less blurry picture of the chip from Ars Technica and a few of their sources. Brace yourself–they claim that it’s not as awesome as it used to be.
Ars explains in the article something that we’ve been saying since our initial analysis of the iPad: it’s not the hardware that will make it popular, it’s the software. We obviously agree: the software expandability of the App Store on a device as large as the iPad will make it tremendously popular. We still wish that Apple would loosen up their approval process a bit, but there’s a lot of great software in the App Store nonetheless.
So what’s not awesome about the SoC? Well, it may not be the chip we thought it was. Ars says it’s definitely not cutting-edge: far from it, actually. The only impressive feature is the lack of features this chip has built-in. If Ars’ sources are correct, it actually runs on the ARM Cortex A8 instead of the A9 as originally assumed. The author also claims it to be single core — no extra oomph for the iPad. It’s also running the PowerVR SGX GPU instead of the newer Mali GPU some analysts predicted. While that’s still a pretty decent SoC, it’s nothing amazing… and that’s probably why Apple’s been fairly secretive with the specifications.
The iPad is limited in hardware: that actually helps the SoC perform better and consume less energy. At this point, there’s no camera that we know of (that could still change between now and the launch). The multitouch display uses one Input/Output channel, the device connects to your computer and charges via one I/O channel, and the video out is sent along an analog channel. That’s not much for I/O and requires very little from the SoC itself. Modern SoC’s ship with many more capabilities than the iPad needs at this point… that could be the driving reason for Apple to develop custom silicon. They wanted to offer us the best battery life possible by building a chip that had just enough hardware to make the device run. That’s a pretty good strategy, but we’re not sure it’s worth the billion dollar price tag that some analysts claim.
Limiting hardware limits future potential. We think the handicapped A4 is possible but we don’t think it’s in Apple’s best interest. If they really did strip out everything non-essential to the functionality of the device, we’re looking at another re-design if they decide to add more features in the future. Again, that’s a huge issue if a SoC really costs a billion bucks to produce. Everyone wants a camera in the iPad… everyone. Why would Apple invest so much money into a first generation device and do it again for the next model. Take a look at the iPod and the iPhone: each gained considerable amounts of traction and features with time. Actually, the more we think about it, the more intelligence Ars’ theory loses over time.
It’s great to have sources that want to share this kind of information with you, but we need to seriously re-examine how we share that information as truth, rumor or possibility. Not once did Ars mention the reliability of their sources. Not once did they mention the fact that they’re still guessing because no one will truly know until we can take it apart. In fact, they really started two more rumors: it’s running an ARM Cortex A8 and a PowerVR SGX GPU. We already knew the potential makeup of the iPad SoC, we won’t know what it really is until we see it, so why not add more speculation to the news-hungry internet? Why not?
The ultimate truth: yes, it’s possible that Ars’ sources and speculation is correct, but don’t hold it as fact just yet. Until the iPad comes out, we can only hope for the great hardware we initially thought was in the device. Once we have ours torn apart, we’ll let you know what we find. Until then, drink a beer, relax… and maybe stop turning nothing into nothing that makes money.
Dr. Seuss apps on sale this Suessday
Mar 1st
Yes, we spelled it that way on purpose. (T)Seussday, March 2nd, is the birthday of the wizard of words and to celebrate, all of the applications will be on sale for a cheap $0.99! Each of the eBooks sell for $3.99 on a daily basis, and the camera apps go for $2.99. On the 2nd, you’ll be able to grab the whole collection for $5.94 instead of the usual $20.94. Oceanhouse Media is working exclusively with Dr. Seuss Enterprises to bring all of the master’s great works to the iPhone and iPod touch — and have a lot of fun on the way. Clicking the image to the right will open iTunes.
I have a few of these apps, and I’ve really been impressed with Oceanhouse Media’s work. They aren’t just copying the original books from one medium to the next, they’re putting a tremendous amount of thought into the whole Dr. Seuss experience. Their holiday game “Grinchmas!” was a great success in the App Store and (I’m a little afraid to admit) wasted much of my time over holiday break. Realistically, these applications are not time wasters; they’re a great way to share the world of Dr. Seuss with your family and friends. We had the whole family throwing snowballs at one point.
The Dr. Seuss collection will be expanding as time allows. Oceanhouse Media is planning on bringing these applications to the iPad and introducing more titles in the future. It will be quite an effort to get all of the Doctor’s work brought to the Cocoa Touch platform, but we can’t wait for more. The introduction of the iPad and the new iBook Store will definitely bring new opportunities for interactive books that will increase a child’s desire to read and learn. With the direction education has gone recently, every little bit will help. 
Head over to the App Store and grab these apps now. The 99 cent price is good for Tuesday only… they go back to normal on Wednesday (if that wasn’t obvious). If you have kids or grew up reading the works of Dr. Seuss, these are great apps that you’ll use time and time again. When I’m having a bad day, I swipe over to throw some snowballs at noisy houses or read the whimsical lyrics of my favorite children’s author. Snowballs or chuckles, this is definitely a CTA recommended buy.
2011: the year of LTE
Feb 28th
Several news sources have recently reported that AT&T has finally signed the papers authorizing Alcatel-Lucent and Ericsson to get cracking on the infrastructure necessary for the transition to LTE (4G). That’s not very big news… but it could be tremendous for those of us who have had continuous issues with the AT&T network since the introduction of the iPhone. We’re still very adamant that any network would have terrible service with the massive amount of extra data iPhone users eat through on a daily basis, but 4G could be awesome.
Don’t get too excited yet, the 4G rollout will take quite some time. They’ll be doing trial runs later this year, much like Sprint’s Chicago introduction: most people won’t have access to the 4G network during the trials and possibly far into 2011… and even that could be limited depending on your market. Cocoa Touch Apps is based near downtown Denver, so we’d expect to see the 4G network here sooner rather than later — especially since we have a major Alcatel-Lucent office 20 minutes from here.
We also need to realize that the introduction of 4G doesn’t mean awesome service: 4G phones will theoretically have the ability to rollback to 3G or even EDGE if service sucks in your location. Considering the fact that it’s taken AT&T 3 or 4 years to get their 3G network reliable (in most cities), we’re not holding our breath on the 4G network quite yet. The 140-300Mbps transfer rates look pretty stellar, but we’re all waiting to see what we can realistically expect from the service. Considering the best download speed offered by Comcast — in the Denver area — is somewhere around 18Mbps, we’d really be surprised if our phones started offering us better browsing speeds than our desktops.
Hopefully we’ll see a smoother transition to 4G after the 3G debacle. We’re pretty sure that the 140-300Mbps speeds will last us a little longer than the 7.2Mbps we’re supposedly getting on 3G. Wouldn’t it make sense to throw a great majority of your effort at a standard that will offer us a substantially better lifetime than it’s predecessor? We thought so.
Browse CTA through images!
Feb 26th
We’ve added a new feature to the website (what else were we going to do while the servers weren’t responding?). 
You can now click the Gallery tab in the navigation bar to see all of the images we’ve used in our articles. If you’re a visual person, this will probably be the best thing ever. If you see a picture that looks interesting, click the title underneath and you’ll be taken to that article. Cocoa Touch Apps strives to make the reader experience better every day: we find creative and innovative ways to share the news with you.
We’re always looking for feedback! If you have a suggestion for the site or any other comments you’d like to share with the editorial staff, please click the mail icon in the sidebar to the right and let us know. We appreciate all of our readers and their continued support. Thank you for reading Cocoa Touch Apps — the best place for the Apple news you care about.
Cocoa Touch Apps Server Issues…
Feb 25th
Hey folks, we’re aware of the intermittent server issues that you might encounter when visiting the website. It appears as though our hosting company can’t handle the traffic that we’re receiving. We’ve turned on a caching service to help improve load times as a temporary solution. We’re working very closely with the web host to make sure that the issue is fixed sooner rather than later. Please bear with us as we work through this problem. If worst comes to worst, we’ll be switching to a bigger hosting company that can handle our traffic without special consideration. That could mean more downtime as it would require a lot of work getting databases transferred and the site software reinstalled on the new server. If it comes to that, we’ll try and make the transition smoothly so you, our readers, aren’t affected much.
Steam: coming to a Mac near you… eventually.
Feb 25th
For those of you who are unfamiliar with Steam, it’s a game distribution platform that has revolutionized the way PC users purchase, play and share games. Each user has an account that can be accessed from any machine, and thus you can play any of your games on any machine. By machine, we mean PC. The titles are always current, and the Steam platform streamlines the shopping process for you. I’ve actually purchased games I had never seen at the store because they were featured on Steam and they looked great.
My gaming days are nearly behind me, but I still get caught up in a great game every now and then… and when I was a PC, Steam was my platform of choice. I grew up building, repairing and gaming on the PC… I eventually switched to Mac for my music endeavors about 6 years ago now. True gamers have always been disappointed with the gaming abilities of the Mac: unless you want to play older titles, World of Warcraft or niche games similar to PopCap’s offerings, there’s really nothing here for us. I’m the owner of a Mac repair shop (check it out in the sidebar) and I run a blog devoted to Apple products… but I still game on the PC, using Steam’s distribution platform.
Gizmodo reported this morning that a few members of the Steam forums found several references to OS X in the latest beta release of the software. They specifically found Mac icons related to the close, minimize, and maximize icons of OS X windows. There has also been discussion about the replacement of Valve’s web engine Trident with the very mac friendly WebKit. These two facts don’t mean that Steam is definitely coming to the Mac — WebKit can be used on any platform, and pictures are just pictures — but it’s still encouraging to deem it a possibility. Not too long ago, Steam and Apple discussed bringing their games to the Mac and it really wasn’t the result we were looking for… both parties went their different ways.
Even if we do see Steam come to the light, we probably won’t see the popular gaming titles follow suit right away. It is up to the developer to make their games OS-independent and not many of them have been so keen on that up to this point. Realistically, the Mac market share is still rather small compared to the PC counterpart… and the people who want to play these games know that the PC is the only way. We’re hoping that Steam’s inclusion of the Mac will give developers a better option for Mac distribution. In the end, gaming has never been a priority for the Mac. I’m sitting here with a brand new, awesome 27-inch iMac and it only has a 256MB video card. That’s pretty sad, and it definitely wouldn’t play Crysis at a decent FPS.
Apple’s dictatorship has lasted long enough
Feb 24th
By now, almost everyone is familiar with the fact that Apple “allows” us certain privileges with the iPhone OS. Be warned: this is an editorial piece that will most likely anger some and affirm others.
Apple has become drunk with power… so drunk, in fact, that they honestly believe their users will put up with anything they do. What will it take for all of the Apple fanboys to get pissed off, or are we forever pathetically committed to a company that thinks it can control our every move? I’m surprised that we haven’t hit the point of revolution already.
Take for example this past week’s removal of boob apps from the App Store: the totals for app removal are well over 5,000 at this point. Anything that references boobs, or has any sort of “sexual” content within the app has been removed from the store. Apple essentially decided to remove anything that could possibly turn us on. How can they really determine what turns us on? Even after this removal, we can still find applications with half naked men washing cars — this definitely doesn’t turn us on but could still be considered offensive material in some circles. They supposedly received so many complaints about the content in the store that they commenced operation “App Store Boob War.” In this war, we’ve run into a lot of civilian casualties, but somehow we’ve missed the all-important, ever-offending targets. Someone explain why an innocent clothing company’s app can be removed for showing swimsuit apparel but the Playboy and Sports Illustrated Swimsuit apps still remain in the store unscathed by the barrage of policy changes?
Phil Schiller, exercising his usual damage control, tried to explain that “well-established” applications have remained in the App Store because… they’re well established. This tells us it’s okay for big brother Apple to approve applications with tremendous capital and political pull but the small guys get screwed. Anyone else see issues with that? That doesn’t show us the freedom we’ve come to expect from a capitalist country where the small guy can make it big. No, that’s a dictatorship. We might as well be living in China where the government thinks it’s okay to filter our ability to access online content. Isn’t that what Apple has done here?
Let’s go back a few months: Apple has consistently denied companies access to the App Store because of possible conflicts with their current or future offerings. To name just a few, Google Voice and other applications of the sort were denied access because Apple believed it would cause customer confusion. VoIP applications were initially barred from using AT&T’s 3G network. Sure, one could argue that the 3G restriction had more to do with AT&T than Apple, but Apple is the one who’s ultimately doing the banning. Back even further, Podcaster was an application that wanted to give us better control over our podcasts: it was denied access for duplicating a functionality that didn’t even exist in the iPhone OS at that point. Apple wanted to offer a service like it in the future, so they killed it and all of the effort the developer put into the application. What’s to prevent them from claiming duplication of our great ideas if there’s never been any previous documentation? They have the last say; we have nothing.
What about the Jailbreak community? The general argument for Jailbreak is this: people want to get more out of their devices so they Jailbreak it in order to do with it as they please. Shouldn’t we be able to do that without modifying the stock software? Shouldn’t we be able to use the hardware we purchase on any carrier by default? Even if we spend the extra money to buy an iPhone out-right, we still have to unlock it for use with T-Mobile in the U.S… other countries have it a little easier. The unlock process is never an easy task: we’re always playing cat and mouse to keep our devices running the latest software and remain unlocked.
Apple also tries to stupid-proof all of their devices. By doing so, they lock down features and innovation that could easily result in the next big advancement of the iPhone OS. Themes are a pretty big request among the Jailbreak community as well as tethering (for AT&T customers), stronger parental controls and easier access to information with apps like IntelliScreen. IntelliScreen and better parental controls could easily make their way into the next version of iPhone software, but theming is probably another stupid-proof restriction that Apple hasn’t implemented because they don’t know how. That’s what we ran into with copy and paste; they spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to make it work with an “Apple” interface. Even now, we find ourselves trying to copy things that won’t copy: partially developer issues but there’s definitely not a global copy and paste interface for the iPhone quite yet.
That’s just the tip of the iceberg… we could seriously go on for another 1,000 words re-hashing the idiosyncrasies of the iPhone OS, but we’ll stop and move on to some possible solutions.
Apple cannot and should not restrict iPhone content. Period. They need to loosen the developer handcuffs a bit and realize that there will eventually be porn on the iPhone whether they like it or not. They just need to figure out a way to implement it without causing problems for the conservative audience. We’ve already suggested that they create a separate adult store for those applications, but it seems like we’ve just been spitting in the wind. We can have R-rated boob movies in the iTunes Store but we can’t use the word “boob” in an application. We can download explicit tracks that call women hoes and bitches (I mean no offense) in the music store but if someone curses in your social app, you could be banned. We can watch sex on TV with our iPhones but we can’t show women in bikinis. Whatever happened to checks and balances. Our government has to have them, what about companies that take dictatorship a little too far?
We realize that AT&T and Apple are undergoing investigations with the FCC due to the interesting drama surrounding Google Voice… but they can only do so much. They won’t ban carrier exclusivity, they won’t force Apple to be more accepting with apps and they definitely won’t get porn on the iPhone. So what’s the point? It seems like we keep getting back to porn, but that’s not our main point: we want the iPhone OS to be an open platform. A platform that fosters innovation instead of hindering it.
Part of that hindrance is the lack of structure within the App Store approval process. Developers are afraid to be innovative because they never know what will happen when they press the submit button after completing their application. Even if they’ve read the SDK with a militant eye, their app could be denied for any reason… it’s usually followed with a vague description for repair and resubmittal. The next reviewer could claim more faults that were never expressed in the first review and their app could be stuck in limbo for weeks if not months. Why would any self-respecting developer put themselves through that kind of shame? Because Apple is extremely popular and, in many aspects, worth the risk if you have something that will sell. It’s that attitude that has made Apple into this dictator, and it’s the haphazardness that has turned many developers away from the platform. There needs to be a pre-approval process for developers: it wouldn’t be too difficult to implement and it may prove to bring more developers to the platform who are willing to be innovative.
Control isn’t everything; Apple seems to be bending over for AT&T. After what is almost a year, we still don’t have access to tethering in the U.S. with AT&T’s 3G network. We finally have some breakthroughs with the introduction of video streaming and VoIP over 3G, but that’s not enough and has not always been the case. Strong-arm Apple needs to get off the ground and go to bat for its customers against AT&T. They’re obviously not living up to the agreement that Apple theoretically put in place before signing contracts… or maybe Apple was too desperate to get a partner (at the time) that they didn’t include specific articles like tethering in the contract. We can’t really comment on the 3G data here — we’re firm believers that any network would have issues handling the iPhone traffic, even Verizon. Either way, carrier exclusivity is NOT the way to go if you want to keep your customers happy.
Okay, step off the soap box… We also have to realize that Apple is only in its third revision of the OS. Realistically, there weren’t that many changes from 2.0 to 3.0 either. Other mobile operating systems like Windows Mobile, Palm OS and Blackberry OS have had years to perfect their devices and figure out all of the issues that Apple encountered within the last couple years. Does that mean Apple should deny us the customer experience we’re looking for? No, but you could attribute the lack of “awesome” to their inexperience and tremendously quick growth.
When the iPhone came out almost 3 years ago, it appeared to be the best phone on the market and forced many other developers to improve their operating systems… and they did. They’ve answered Apple’s challenge and have come up with better user interfaces, some that put Apple’s non-multitasking, page-sliding OS to shame. All the while, Apple’s user interface has remained largely unchanged since its initial launch back in 2007. Yes, we have native applications; yes, there’s a search function; yes, there are countless other features that improved the user experience, but those “new features” have been available on other devices for years. So when does Apple stop playing catch up with the other devices? When does the real innovation start? When will the current restrictions be removed?
Right now, it’s looking like hell will freeze over and pigs will fly before Apple’s dictatorship is overthrown.
You’ll probably have to pay for mobile Hulu
Feb 23rd
We reported earlier last week that Hulu will be making it’s way to the iPad (iPhone and iPod touch will likely follow suit). Since that possibility was leaked, more information has come through the grapevine… and it’s not going to make you happy.
It appears that the three owning studios — ABC, NBC, and FOX — have been trying to figure out a way to make more money from Hulu besides the already annoying ads. This will probably result in a premium model that will give us access to more content. Currently, shows available on Hulu contain the latest three episodes (on average). That’s always been our biggest issue with Hulu: we can’t watch anything older than a few weeks. Even the networks’ online players tend to limit shows to the current season. Anyone else want to watch old seasons of Big Bang Theory?
So what does this premium model look like? It’s been suggested that paid users will have access to content on three devices: a computer, a TV and a mobile device. That seems like a pretty big step backwards to us. Just this last year, Apple gave us a great music sharing tool with iTunes Home Sharing. It lets us copy all of our content between computers on our home network. Granted this is still limited to Apple’s 5-computer model and requires you to sign into an iTunes Store account BUT there’s no limit for mobile devices. So, what makes Hulu think we should be limited to three devices?
Step back from the question for a sec… we don’t actually own any content with Hulu. We would be paying them for streamed content we can get from countless other sources — sources that would allow us to own it. Buy a season DVD, buy individual shows on iTunes, get a season pass on iTunes, there’s also the nefarious world of illegal acquisitions (we’re not recommending that one) — all of those options give us content that we own. Most of us already pay for cable or satellite and most of those companies won’t offer us internet packages without a TV option. So, what’s driving us to subscribe to another paid TV application that still restricts our access?
Sounds like a bad deal to us.
No sex in the champagne room (App Store)
Feb 20th
We’re sure that Chris Rock never wanted us to use that joke in reference to the availability of iPhone porn, but we did anyway… sorry. Over the past week, developer after developer has been told by Apple that their applications were too risqué for the App Store. That’s one giant leap backwards for mankind.
Please remember that the statements below are generalities (We’re not obsessed with porn nor do we have any opinion on the matter).
Since the App Store launched back in 2008, we’ve heard countless stories of “overtly sexual” content being rejected and then approved. Most of this is due to policy changes in the App Store approval process — the policies really haven’t been defined well and seem to change on a daily basis.
“Wobble iBoobs” was an app that originally popped up in the App Store quite some time ago and was shortly followed by the real problem apps: all of the stupid “pasties” apps that show everything possible without nudity (no nipples). We’re not sure who turned on the switch for porn, but we do know that the amount of “pasties” apps were getting well into the double digits. Some stupid, new app showed up on the top downloads nearly every week.
Maybe the sheer number of crappy porn apps caused Apple to tighten their belts and lay out stricter rules… maybe they were pressured by your mother (yeah, she saw you). Who knows? Apple has responded to this barrage of internet news coverage with the following statement:
“Whenever we receive customer complaints about objectionable content we review them. If we find apps that contain inappropriate material we remove them from the App Store and request the developer to make any necessary changes to their apps in order to be distributed by Apple.â€
We’re not sure we buy that. There’s been some pretty heavy banning in the App Store this week, and we’re sure that mom didn’t start complaining on Monday.
Click the read link… it’s worth reading the rest of this, we promise 
Continue reading this article…
Plants vs. Zombies shuffles to the iPhone
Feb 19th
CTA RATING: 
PopCap finally has brought its most recent popular title to the iPhone: Plants vs. Zombies. It’s not your mother’s tower defense strategy game; it’s a completely new variant of the style, which sends waves of zombies to your door — they want to eat your brains. Defend your home by placing 49 different plants. The game also boasts 29 different zombies. From pole vaulters to Michael Jackson, they can come at you fast or slow, so be ready. This game is probably one of the best iPhone ports we’ve seen and definitely matches the quality of other PopCap titles.
How does Cocoa Touch change the gameplay? To us, it seems easier. There’s no precise clicking as your finger is doing all the work. We’ve found ourselves tapping randomly at the screen in order to pick up all of the sun that comes our way. However, placing the plants can be somewhat difficult at times: we’re constantly putting the wrong plants in the wrong spot, but that’s probably because our fingers are somewhat large (they’re not huge and fat, just big).
Anyway, we’ve played both versions — iPhone and Desktop — and we’re excited to have it available in our pocket at any time. We’re thankful for that but still a little miffed that it’s not the full version. We can spend $2.99 for a pretty good port or pay $19.99 and buy the desktop version. At this point, we don’t see the survival mode, puzzles or the mini-games that we’ve come to love on the desktop version. Maybe they’ll appear in an update in the future, but we don’t see any way to enable them at this point. We’d seriously pay more to get that extra gameplay, as this could get old very quickly. Hopefully we’ll see them take advantage of the in-app purchases… or just give it to us for free.
The gameplay is great but the extras appear to be missing, so we’ll give it an 8 out of 10. Definitely worth the 3 bucks.
Full picture gallery after the break.
Continue reading this article…
