Talk:iPad Pro/Archive 1

Archive 1

Why is the iPad Pro not considered 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️??

Why isn't this considered part of the main line of the iPad devices?? Georgia guy (talk) 16:35, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

My guess is because the iPad Air, iPad Mini and iPad Pro are each considered different product lines. --Bomyne (talk) 06:08, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

My understanding is that this is not the latest model in the iPad Air series; this is a new product line. I believe that when this is released, you'll be able to purchase either an iPad Mini, iPad Air, or iPad Pro as they are three separate product lines. The iPad Pro isn't the latest model in the iPad Air series. --MrMoonshine (talk) 07:07, 17 September 2015 (CDT) — Preceding unsigned comment added by MrMoonshine (talk • contribs)

Correct. —zziccardi (talk) 14:16, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

One important fact about this question is that contrary to what User:MrMoonshine is implying, I'm not talking about it being the third iPad Air; I'm talking about it being the seventh in the main iPad line, after the iPad, iPad 2, 3, 4, Air, and Air 2 (with Air and Air 2 being 5 and 6.) Georgia guy (talk) 14:22, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

As with the MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, and MacBook, the iPad Pro, iPad Air, and iPad Mini are all treated as distinct product lines by both Apple and reliable sources. Thus, it's a separate entity from the original iPad (or iPad Air) lineup, regardless of the numbering schemes. —zziccardi (talk) 15:24, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

Also the differentiation in screen size as well as accessories made specifically for the iPad Pro (smart keyboard and pencil) clearly indicates that its primary use is different from the main iPad line. The iPad Air was put into the main iPad line because it retains the same screen size, as well as Apple clearly mentioning that they were renaming the iPad as iPad Air simply because of its smaller physical dimensions. — AYTK talk. 15:54, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

Error in the iPad Pro display reference

The article states " iPad Pro introduces a new display layer that detects force and reduces latency." The sources cited do not indicate that force detection has been introduced (it hasn't). The pencil detects force, not the display. The text should be replaced with "iPad Pro introduces a new display with increased responsiveness and precision over previous iPad displays with Apple Pencil support added.

Done Stickee (talk) 22:22, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 16 November 2015

In the feature section

Improved face detection

is mentioned twice, the duplicate should be removed.

Craftit (talk) 08:35, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

 Done - Thanks for pointing that out - Arjayay (talk) 13:34, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Technical Issues

iPad Pros are prone to becoming completely unresponsive while being charged needing a hard reset to get it working again. It has happened to me about 4 times in a week!

http://appadvice.com/appnn/2015/11/apple-confirms-ipad-pro-charging-problem-a-fix-is-on-the-way — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.154.116.195 (talk) 18:49, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Smaller iPad Pro

At the March 21 press conference, Apple said it is going to release a 9.7-inch version of the Pro. So how should this article be renamed to reflect that there are two models? Or should all the information be in this article, since the major difference is screen size and the smaller Pro has a better camera (12MP)? --Frmorrison (talk) 18:30, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

Capital i in the title

The title should start with lowercase i. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.24.147.239 (talk) 19:50, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

This is a technical limitation of the MediaWiki software. The article has the 'fix' template included. I just added it to this talk page as well. Ckoerner (talk) 19:48, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

New Article?

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: page not split. --Frmorrison (talk) 18:50, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

I think the article is too mixed between the pro and pro 9.7 inch. Looks like a split is needed. WP:SPLIT. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TheUSConservative (talk • contribs) 04:55, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

• How is this too mixed? Please elaborate. For the MacBook Pro there is no splitting into 13" and 15" (and I don't think it necessary) while they have vastly different hardware. 77.87.224.99 (talk) 09:46, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose - Two articles would end up duplicating much information. The differences, as they stand, can be handled here. Jbh^Talk 14:12, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose - ditto. <<< SOME GADGET GEEK >>> (talk) 15:42, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
• I am also inlined to disagree. I’d rather see this article being treated as the articles for the iPhone 6(s)/- Plus. They were released within a short timespan after each other and cover the same information.–Totie (talk) 17:12, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose - I agree with Jbhunley, but also because various other products that have two-size variations for the same product are also contained in a single page (the Nintendo DSi/DSi XL, for example). Too much info will be carried over from one page to another, because the only real discernible difference is the size. (Jeimii (talk) 20:14, 30 March 2016 (UTC))
• Oppose - Even though I don't have one (of either), I think a new article (iPad Pro 9.7) would make things less confusing in the long run, because if Apple does the same thing in November 2016 and/or March 2017, it would turn into a kind of iPad, making another new article, making twice as much sense (literally). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:306:CE12:E0C0:40DB:2785:3332:6798 (talk) 02:13, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

  If you think a new article would make things less confusing, aren't you supporting the split rather than opposing it? Guy Harris (talk) 23:22, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose - Agree with Jbhunley and Totie. MacBook articles are not split based on size, and their size variations can have larger differences compared to the iPad Pros. – Nick Mitchell 98 ^talk 08:06, 31 March 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose - I can't see enough differences to justify a dedicated article. I think both are variants of the same line of models and the differences can be dealt with inside one single article. OceanO (talk) 09:47, 1 April 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose - They're mostly the same, I don't think it really makes sense to split the two types into different articles. Datbubblegumdoe^{[talk – contribs]} 19:10, 2 April 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose - as 77.87.224.99 says, this is no different from the MacBook Pro, which also has two different sizes.

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

iPad Air 2 as predecessor

There have been several edits to designate the iPad Air as the predecessor. Based on the several reverts there is no concensus for this. As I understand the material from Apple the Pro line is different from the regular iPad line and was inagurated by the 12in Pro. Does anyone know of sources saying otherwise. Jbh^Talk 14:39, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

• Support - as of this source: — Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.79.28.178 (talk) 04:11, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

  That source says absolutely nothing, whatsoever, about the 9.7" iPad Pro being a successor to the 9.7" iPad Air. It compares them, but that doesn't mean one is a predecessor or successor to it, it merely means that, if you're looking for a tablet of that size, they're alternatives. Guy Harris (talk) 07:03, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Current software version is iOS 9.3.4, not 9.3.3

The current version listed for the iPad Pro at the moment is still iOS 9.3.3, but today Apple released iOS 9.3.4 which is supported for the iPad Pro 12.9 and 9.7. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tommykackert (talk • contribs) 00:49, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

So change it to 9.3.4. Guy Harris (talk) 02:27, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

Clock speed is 2.26 GHz not 2.24

One of the references links to http://www.anandtech.com/show/9780/taking-notes-with-ipad-pro/2
This webpage mentions 2.26 GHz. There are two occurrences in this article mentioning the number 2.24
84.173.192.62 (talk) 18:56, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

Done. 84.173.218.160 (talk) 14:50, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

References

Missing reftags

The "History" and "Features" sections do not have any citations or reftags. Sources for that section of information need to be added as tags in that section. Alilykat (talk) 16:42, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

Error in Known issues reference

Article states "The device was known to shut down randomly." Both sources cited do not mention that it was a random shut down. They mention that after being charged the device would completely freeze for a few seconds, then shut down. Should also be mentioned that this issue only happened to the 12.9 inch iPad Pro, not the 9.7 inch (had not been released yet). Alilykat (talk) 16:42, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

See MacBook Pro for one way to handle the new iPad Pros

MacBook Pro covers the entire history of laptops named "MacBook Pro", from the first ones to the current touch bar models.

If this page is to cover the entire history of tablets named "iPad Pro", from the first 12.7" one to the ones announced at WWDC 2017, it should probably do so in a similar fashion. If this page is to cover only the first generation, with the 12.7" and 9.7" models, it should be renamed "iPad Pro (first generation)" or something such as that. Guy Harris (talk) 20:59, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

I agree that it would be a good idea to organize this article by making this one cover all four Pro models, similar to iPad Mini, and then having iPad Pro (1st generation) and iPad Pro (2nd generation) articles created. --Frmorrison (talk) 21:24, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

I thought, starting with iPad (2017), we are inclining towards year-based naming: iPad Pro (2017). But this is problematic, as the previous iPad Pro 12.7" was released in 2015, and the iPad Pro 9.7" was released in 2016. — Peterwhy 23:10, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

Exactly. The inclination may be to year-based naming when that works, but the first generation doesn't have a year associated with it. In addition, Apple haven't yet muddied the waters of naming the way they did with the new iPad; the whole mess of "so what generation is that iPad, anyway?" was the reason to give up and go for a year as the identifier. Guy Harris (talk) 04:36, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

Just be careful when calling the 2017 iPad Pro devices as second generation. These are what the iPad Pro devices are called in full in the iOS 10 page:

• 12.9‑inch iPad Pro 2nd generation
• 12.9‑inch iPad Pro 1st generation
• 10.5‑inch iPad Pro
• 9.7‑inch iPad Pro

And it is not clear what generation the 10.5-inch iPad Pro is. I know, only reliable sources matter, but this can cause trouble in the future.

Also, in what way did Apple muddied the waters for iPad (2017 / 5th generation)? By reusing the generation number that media assumed what iPad Air was? — Peterwhy 09:39, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

So maybe there should be separate sections for "12.9‑inch iPad Pro 1st generation", "9.7‑inch iPad Pro", and "10.5‑inch iPad Pro and 12.9‑inch iPad Pro 2nd generation".

"By reusing the generation number that media assumed what iPad Air was?" Yes. If they'd called it the 7th generation iPad, counting the iPad Air and iPad Air 2 as the 5th and 6th generations, we wouldn't have had edit wars over "5th generation" vs. "7th generation" (well, we might have, this being Wikipedia after all, but the pro-5th-generation people wouldn't have had as much of a leg to stand on). Guy Harris (talk) 19:36, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

We should wait until next week to see how the media handles naming in product reviews before creating/naming more articles. We settled on iPad (2017) because that was the most commonly used name in the media. --Frmorrison (talk) 18:27, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

Passer-by comment: Please excuse me for this somewhat off-topic comment, I just cannot let the opportunity pass by. Angela Ahrendts did an interview with CBS This Morning a while back, and said: "Everything at Apple has to be simple". I laughed at that sentiment following the iPad (2017) discussion, and now a new discussion probably comes into action. Company logic is in full play :P LocalNet (talk) 09:44, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

Hey, it's simple! They're just following the same pattern as MacBook/MacBook Air/MacBook Pro, right? :-) Guy Harris (talk) 17:15, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

Wayback

I have to Wayback Machine this link. How do you properly indicate that a site has been Wayback Machined? Qwertyxp2000 (talk | contribs) 02:04, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

By using one of the {{cite XXX}} templates, and putting the Web archive URL in as archive-url= and the archiving date as archive-date=. See the change I made to that reference. Guy Harris (talk) 03:16, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

Like Qwertyxp2000 (talk | contribs) 21:23, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

Adding third generation reviews subheading

Now that the 2018 iPad Pro models have been released, perhaps it’s time to start adding this new subheading under the main article. However, I do not have the expertise to find proper sources, the least I can contribute to this subheading is by adding it under the main article. Adding the subheading is easy enough, but my only obstacle is risking the chances of being pegged as a vandal (a Wikipedia admin or mod might see it as “adding a subheading and leaving it empty?! really?”).

So what I’m trying to say is... does anyone want to take the initiative to add it and put in some substantial content along with it? Thanks for your input.

RayDeeUx (talk) 23:57, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

EDIT: ISSUE HAS BEEN ADDRESSED. PLEASE IGNORE THIS SECTION. (RayDeeUx (talk) 00:24, 25 November 2018 (UTC))

About listing successors (and in turn, predecessors)

OK, this issue may have been addressed to SOME extent much, much earlier (around the time when the original article was first created). It's been agreed that users should NOT list the iPad Air as the iPad Pro's predecessor. However, just recently, a revision was made where the successor was listed as the 2017 iPad. I've made the edited line into a comment to preserve it just in case, and now I've brought this issue to everyone's attention so that all the Apple fanboys here in Wikipedia can address this issue whenever possible.

RayDeeUx (talk) 00:41, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

3rd gen iPad Pro images missing for a long time

Hey guys!

The 3rd gen iPad Pro was released almost 5 months ago, and the images of them are supposed to be on there now. However, there are still not there. Can anyone design the mock up of the 3rd gen iPad Pros and uploading those images there? I don't want to see any black spaces on the model chart again.

Thanks to those who tried and contributed!

Sincerely, AppleExpert1214 — Preceding unsigned comment added by AppleExpert1214 (talk • contribs) 09:23, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

Orphaned references in IPad Pro

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of IPad Pro's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "ReferenceB":

• From List of iOS devices: "Use Made for iPhone hearing aids - Apple Support". support.apple.com. Retrieved 2016-04-03.
• From Exmor: "List of all Nikon DSLR cameras and their sensor manufacturer/designer - Nikon Rumors". Nikonrumors.com.
• From Lithium-ion battery: Nitta, Naoki; Wu, Feixiang; Lee, Jung Tae; Yushin, Gleb (2015). "Li-ion battery materials: present and future". MaterialsToday. 18 (5): 252–264. doi:10.1016/j.mattod.2014.10.040.
• From IPod Nano: "iTunes – Partner with iTunes". Apple. Retrieved September 2, 2010.

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT⚡ 03:37, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

iPad Face ID sensor data is incorrect

In the page it says that "[the iPad Pros] also feature up to 1024 GB of storage and Face ID using sensor arrays on the top and side bezels – unlike iPhone models featuring Face ID, which have a single sensor array residing in the top bezel."

This is incorrect -- they only have one sensor array which is at the top. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.64.41.189 (talk) 02:10, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

flash drive: decimal or binary?

I thought flash drives were labelled with decimal GB, TB and have edited accordingly. Feel free to revert (with a RS) if I've got this wrong. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 19:48, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

I have no idea why anybody'd labeling storage that's made from chips with binary-power-of-2 bit counts in decimal sizes, but perhaps, for external flash drives, they do so because people are used to that for spinning-platter storage.

However, for internal storage, I have no reason whatsoever to believe they're labelled decimally. Guy Harris (talk) 20:20, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

Especially given that the numbers of gigabytes are themselves powers of 2, so those are probably gibibytes and tebibytes, not decimal gigabytes and terabytes. Guy Harris (talk) 20:27, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

Available evidence suggests that 1 GB = 10^9 B and 1 TB = 10^12 B. Do you have a source to support your claim that these are binary? Dondervogel 2 (talk) 23:39, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

OK, iFixit hasn't done a teardown of the latest iPad Pro, but let's look at an 11" iPad Pro teardown from 2018. They found "Toshiba TSB3247M61710TWNA1 flash storage", with "64 GB total". I can't find the data sheet for those chips, but this Toshiba catalog shows flash memory chips with power-of-2 numbers of bytes. I see no reason to assume that Apple have decided to reserve/ignore exactly 4719476736 bytes worth of storage, so that it's exactly 64*1000*1000*1000 bytes available rather than 64*1024*1024*1024 bytes. (Perhaps whoever wrote that page on the campus store's web site just pasted some boilerplate text, not realizing that flash works differently from spinning platters and thus its storage is in powers of 2, not powers of 10.) Guy Harris (talk) 01:15, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

Note, by the way, that my 8 TB MacBook Pro's built-in SSD has, according to Disk Utility, "8,004,444,651,520" as its "Volume capacity", so it clearly has more than 8*1000*1000*1000*1000 bytes. Some of the remaining 791,648,370,688 bytes are probably spare capacity to be used if some flash cells wear out; others may be used for the map in the flash translation layer, if Apple has one (APFS is copy-on-write, so it has less need for an FTL to do wear leveling). Guy Harris (talk) 01:50, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

And this brings up the fact that there are multiple ways of talking about the capacity of a flash drive.

There's the raw capacity, which is "number of chips plugged into or soldered to the motherboard" times "capacity of the chip". ("Motherboard" either being the CPU motherboard, for on-board flash memory such as smartphones, tablets, and laptops have, or the SSD motherboard, for an external SSD.) "Capacity of the chip" is almost certainly a power of 2, so the raw capacity is almost certainly a small multiple of a power of 2 (perhaps not guaranteed to be a power of 2 itself if, for example, a flash controller can handle 3 flash chips). This could be thought of as equivalent to the raw capacity of a spinning-platter drive, i.e. "number of sectors" times "sector size" (minus any low-level overhead such as sector headers and ECC - just as the raw capacity of an flash drive doesn't include any ECC bits on the flash chips), although that isn't necessarily a small multiple of a power of 2, 10, or any other integer.

There's the "available" capacity, which is "raw capacity minus flash controller overhead", as per the above. If the overhead per 1024 bytes of raw capacity is close to 24 bytes, then that capacity may be close to a small multiple of a power of 10 - but not necessarily an exact multiple of a power of 10. (Then again, the "available" capacity of a spinning-platter drive, i.e. the raw capacity minus spare sectors, drive firmware, etc., isn't necessarily an exact multiple of a power of 10, either.)

But the "available" capacity is almost certainly greater than the number of bytes of images, videos, Word documents, etc. you can store on the drive, because there's partition overhead, file system overhead, operating system overhead, etc.. The latter is what people ultimately care about.

So maybe drive vendors should advertise sizes in G'B, T'B, etc., where "G'" is "some number somewhere in the range between 1000*1000*1000 and 1024*1024*1024, with no guarantee where it is in that range" and "T'" is that but with 1000^4 and 1024^4. :-)

In the case of my laptop, the T' happens to be somewhat close to 1000*1000*1000*1000, but there's no reason to assume that was by design on Apple's part. In the case of the iPad Pro, we don't know what the "available" capacity is, and we don't know whether Apple's numbers are the raw or available capacity. Guy Harris (talk) 04:22, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

So maybe what should be done is not to commit at all to what "G" and "T" stand for. Guy Harris (talk) 04:23, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

I disagree. You want 128 GB to mean 128 GiB but that is wishful thinking. In this context 128 GB actually means 119 GiB and here's another reference to support that. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 08:08, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

"You want 128 GB to mean 128 GiB" I disagree with that assertion.

For what it's worth, like it or not, there are places where people use "G" to mean 1024*1024*1024; see, for example, the iFixit teardown, where that's exactly what they did.

And are the Macworld people assuming that every byte of flash RAM soldered to the motherboard is available for storage, other than OS overhead? That's not a wise assumption to make, given that, with flash memory, you need spare space to handle flash cells wearing out. As the Apple reference they point to says:

The Disk Utility app might also show slight differences in storage capacity, particularly for solid-state drives (SSDs) and flash storage, because of the additional space used by the EFI partition, restore partition, wear-leveling blocks, write-buffer area, metadata, spare blocks, grown bad blocks, and factory bad blocks.

Some of that might not apply to iOS, but "wear-leveling blocks", for example, does - that's a characteristic of flash memory.

And, as noted, my 8TB MBP has > 8*1000*1000*1000*1000 bytes of storage, so clearly it's not an 8*1000*1000*1000*1000-byte MBP. They may choose to say "it's decimal" because the actual amount of storage, once unusable parts of the 8*1024*1024*1024*1024 bytes worth of flash RAM soldered to the motherboard are subtracted, is closer to 8*1000*1000*1000*1000 than to 8*1024*1024*1024*1024, but any attempt to convince me that there is anything other than an exact-power-of-2 number of bytes worth of flash RAM soldered to its motherboard would have to indicate what flash RAM chips are used, how many bytes each chip has, how many chips there are, and that the product of the latter two numbers is a power of 10. That's... rather unlikely.

I.e., the reported size isn't below the exact power of 2 because there really are n*1000*1000*1000 bytes on an nGB machine (there observably aren't, on my machine, given the count of bytes reported by Disk Utility), it's because there's overhead of various sorts. Guy Harris (talk) 09:51, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

Fair enough. I confess I have no idea what you want it to mean so I withdraw that assertion. That does not alter the fact that I have provided 2 sources (and you have provided a 3rd) to back up the statement that in this context (we are talking storage, not RAM) 1 GB = 1000^3 B, but I see none for your claim that 1 GB = 1024^3 B. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 10:08, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

Spinning-platter storage is normally in units of 512-byte or 4096-byte sectors, so, unless vendors choose to make the count of sectors a small integer times a multiple of 5^9 or 5^12, the raw size won't be exactly a small integer times a power of 10.

Flash storage is in power-of-2 units, so the raw size of a flash drive won't be exactly a small integer times a power of 10, either.

The available capacity of both may approximate a small integer times a power of 10, and that's what's being expressed as such (e.g., the size of an 8 TB MacBook Pro's storage). Guy Harris (talk) 10:44, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

According to the Macworld source they seem to label the drives with total capacity and not the available capacity. I agree it's never exactly a power of ten, but they seem to engineer the drives to be a little over (presumably to protect against accusations of under-selling). The other two sources both seem consistent with this statement, but neither provides a detailed analysis like Macworld. Alternative suggestions to the wording are very welcome, but they are clearly not using GB (or TB) in the binary sense. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 10:59, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

Again, there's spinning-platter storage and there's solid-state storage, and the only way you don't get, as raw capacity (number of flash cells, not counting cells containing physical-layer overhead such as ECC bits), a pure power of 2 is to install a non-power-of-2 number of flash chips (as flash chips come in power-of-2 bit counts, again not counting the overhead cells).

And the Macworld article appears to have been written by somebody with an incomplete understanding of how flash memory is used in practice, or who doesn't want to make readers' heads explode by saying "and there's some overhead in a flash drive" (no need to go into a level of detail explaining flash translation layers); I'm curious whether they'd stare blankly if you cited phrases to them such as "wear leveling" and "flash translation layer", as their analysis isn't detailed enough to spend any time talking about the overhead for wear leveling, block sparing, etc.. Don't assume that they're an authoritative source on this topic; if you do so, you run a significant risk of coming to an incorrect conclusion. For a bit more of an expert view on flash drives, see, for example, this bit from John Osterhout's lecture notes, where he says, among other things, that flash translation layers can "Waste capacity", or this paper by some people at NetApp, where, among other things, section 3.1 "Design Assumptions" speaks of power-of-2 capacity for flash drives. Guy Harris (talk) 17:59, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

(I sent the author of the Macworld piece an email noting this.) Guy Harris (talk) 18:07, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

Your knowledge of computers clearly exceeds mine. Nevertheless, what matters for this article are reliable sources to support the statements made in the article. I am pinging @Tom94022: in the hope that he can suggest a way forward. I for one am confused and I blame that confusion on the present (dysfunctional) mosnum guidelines on the subject. By the way I mentioned this discussion on mosnum talk as an example of the confusion that has arisen from those guidelines. I would welcome your input there too. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 05:23, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for inviting me into this dialog; i'll have to do some research but off the top of my head:

• Both SSD and HDD internally store user data in binary blocks, 0.5 KiB or 4.0 KiB for HDD and as I recall 32 KiB for SSD (maybe larger today). Note the physical blocks on the medium are larger due to codes, ECC and headers, they reduce to the binary quantity as a result of the reading process.
• Specification with large decimal prefixes will always have a rounding error and the published gross user data will always be slightly higher to avoid litigation. I recall IDEMA published a standard for exactly how many binary blocks equaled each large decimal prefix (e.g. GB, TB) so as to avoid problems caused by intermixing various vendor HDDs say in a RAID. I don't know if there is a similar agreement for SSDs, but there should be.
• Both SSDs and HDDs have additional blocks available internally for sparing amongst other things so the capacity remains above the advertised gross user data as the devices wear. I think you can use SMART commands to find the gross data capacity but it can't be accessed thru the usual interface commands.
• The interfaces used by both SSDs and HDDs provide the system an integer binary number equal to the total number of user data blocks on the device. I believe all HDD and SSD manufacturers, internal or external, label their devices using decimal prefixes. How the system manufacturers then report the capacity varies with many using decimal prefix letters in the binary sense leading to lots of confusion.
• AFAIK no system manufacturer discounts S/HDD capacity for the OS, hidden partitions, etc.
• Opening an SSD and counting chips or developing disk surfaces of an HDD (much harder to do) will give a larger and almost meaningless count of blocks.
• I'm not a MAC user so this article is a bit out of my domain.

I agree that the MOSSUM guideline on this leads to a great deal of confusion so maybe its time to readdress the guideline. Tom94022 (talk) 18:07, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

"Both SSDs and HDDs have additional blocks available internally for sparing amongst other things so the capacity remains above the advertised gross user data as the devices wear." So do you have any idea how flash translation layer overhead, if any, is taken into account when sizes are reported for flash drives? (I say "if any" because, in an earlier Web search, I found some pages mentioning the idea of having a flash translation layer map be volatile and reconstructable from per-block metadata stored in the flash drive; that overhead count be considered similar to sector header, ECC, etc. overhead, with the flash chips having power-of-2 data capacity after subtracting out that overhead.)

My understanding is the flash translation layer is not counted when the size is reported for SDDs; but I'd have to research that to be sure. Tom94022 (talk) 20:36, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

"I recall IDEMA published a standard for exactly how many binary blocks equaled each large decimal prefix (e.g. GB, TB) so as to avoid problems caused by intermixing various vendor HDDs say in a RAID." Would that be "IDEMA Document LBA1-03 LBA Count for Disk Drives Standard"?

Yes, since it is a defacto "Disk Drives Standard" that applies to the interface commands for multiple DD interfaces I would expect the SSDs would comply. Note SATA is not listed therein but I suspect the PATA HDD manufacturers carried their practice into their SATA HDDs. But there is no enforcement short of the INCITS groups and I don't know if this has been incorporated into their published interface standards. 20:36, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

That document says, in section 2.0 "Scope", "The scope of this document has been increased to include SATA/SAS Disk drive, SATA/SAS Large Data Sector (4k sector) drives and SAS disk drive whose sector is formatted with T10 PI (Protection Information), a.k.a. DIF (Data Integrity Format).", so it appears to cover SATA and SAS. (I guess for parallel SCSI you're on your own. :-)) Guy Harris (talk) 20:56, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

"I agree that the MOSSUM guideline on this leads to a great deal of confusion so maybe its time to readdress the guideline." WP:COMPUNITS does say it's ok to use IEC prefixes "in articles in which both types of prefix are used with neither clearly primary, or in which converting all quantities to one or the other type would be misleading or lose necessary precision, or declaring the actual meaning of a unit on each use would be impractical", and this article talks both about primary memory (where binary prefixes are appropriate) and secondary storage capacities (where neither prefix gets the exact amount of available storage, but decimal prefixes at least understate rather than overstating that amount), so I'd say it's OK to use GiB here. Guy Harris (talk) 19:49, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

I agree that GiB is appropriate herein, but as noted above there are a number of Wiki-lawyers who suppress most attempts to use them even in the most obvious cases. One example is FDD articles which are a mess of unit prefixes, binary, decimal and weird, where even the most "expert" reader gets confused. I seem to recall attempts there for clarity were suppressed a while back on the basis of common meaning. Tom94022 (talk) 20:36, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Should we split the article?

A fourth generation has been released, and now this article is getting big. I would suggest using this page to refer to the series as a whole, with separate articles for each generation (ie one for the first generation, another for the second, and so on). — Preceding unsigned comment added by QuarioQuario54321 (talk • contribs) 17:51, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Maybe not just yet, since they all run iOS 13 and all have retina display. I also think one big article can be easier than having lots of small articles that repeat exactly the same things: it's better to treat the topic synoptically. Although I know we do that for iPhones which have changed hardware format totally since 2007, and the iMacs which have also gone through major hardware changes, the MacBook Pros and MacBook Airs fit into one article nicely and splitting would not be an improvement. But I agree that this point could be coming fairly soon-the change from lightning connector/home button to USB-C/face ID was a big dividing line. Blythwood (talk) 18:59, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

The normal iPads all have their own generations split. We need to maintain continuity and do the same for the Pros. The MacBooks aren’t split because it’s such a vast line of products, with incremental improvement between them. I strongly believe in doing this now, because the longer we wait, the more there is to split. This question of splitting will be arisen time and time again if not done, might as well to it now. GyozaDumpling (talk) 15:57, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

Yes, these should be split. There's a significant difference between the different models. At least, there are major differences between the first two generations and the next two. feminist (talk) 14:03, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

There were just a few differences between generations one to three, but now the fourth has a lot of changes. I think it is fine but perhaps not in a few years. I am fine with the status quo or making four new articles. --Frmorrison (talk) 21:32, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure I'm following. There is a huge difference between generation 2 and 3, not 3 and 4. Trinitresque (talk) 13:23, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

See, for example, iPad Mini and the individual articles for specific generations. (There's no article for the iPad Air line; iPad Air is for the first-generation iPad Air.) Guy Harris (talk) 22:25, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

It should have been split up way back when the iPad Pro 2nd generation was released. I made that suggestion back then but it got removed by an admin. 2001:E68:602F:4B01:5C18:D46A:BBA2:915B (talk) 05:15, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

The longer we wait to split, the larger and more complicated this main article will get to do so. The sooner the better. 2601:681:4102:CE40:F5F8:E12:9764:A8E4 (talk) 15:47, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

Absolutely split. There's a huge difference now between the different generations of iPad Pros, much more than the difference between different generations of iPad minis or iPad Airs, both of which have split articles. The first generation iPad Pro has Touch ID, a decent dual-core processor, a sharp-edged 60Hz rectangular screen, and a lightning port. The latest generation has Face ID, a missing home button, an octacore processor that outflanks many MacBook Pros, a curved 120Hz screen, and a USB-C port. The first generation iPad Pro is much closer to the iPad Air than to the latest iPad Pro. For this reason I would support keeping the main iPad Pro article, but also creating separate iPad Pro (1st generation), iPad Pro (2nd generation), etc. pages. Trinitresque (talk) 13:22, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

Split – Enough time has passed to split the pages up. JE98 (talk) 14:45, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Split! And split the macBook Pro and Air too. Glenxoseph (talk) 03:29, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Weak Don’t Split - the generation number is different between sizes. The 2nd generation 11” iPad Pro is the same device as the 4th generation 12.9”. Clearly this confusion is Apple’s fault, but needs to be considered when choosing how to split the articles and what to call them. carelesshx _talk 19:51, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

The second model of 11" iPad Pro that Apple released is part of the fourth generation of iPad Pros. Guy Harris (talk) 20:11, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

Split - Apple's iPad Pro lineup is quite complex, so it would make sense to split the article into each generation while keeping the iPad Pro article as well (like the pages for the iPhone lineup). The regular iPad lineup has pages for each generation, so let's keep it consistent and split the article. ClueCog (talk) 19:48, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Split - readers are not looking for information on the lineup, they prob want to see stuff about gen1, 2, 3, 4, etc. Aasim 06:22, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

Split Yes. This article is getting too long and we should have a bit more on each one. Also, regarding the differing generation numbers between sizes, that's laughable. All sizes of one generation are released in the same year. You could also look at the processor. If we have to, name them iPad Pro (2015), iPad Pro (2017), etc. — Preceding unsigned comment added by JdRDMS (talk • contribs) 20:56, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

Absolutely 100% Split - Each iPad Pro is different from the previous on, so giving them all the same article is inappropriate. In the same way each iPhone gets its own article, each iPad Pro should too. — Preceding unsigned comment added by UltraUsurper (talk • contribs) 09:08, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Support split grouping by generation (1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th). BLAIXX 03:15, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Yes we should definitely split it as it is a large article optXSolo at 10:30 EST on 6/25/2020 — Preceding unsigned comment added by OptXSolo (talk • contribs) 14:30, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Don’t split – Each generation is not notable enough on its own to merit standalone Wikipedia articles. We already have separate articles for "iPad" and "iPad Pro." If this article is too long, we should shorten it. It doesn’t appear excessively long to me, though. — Tartan357  ^(Talk) 17:42, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

WPA 3 here available?

With first or in 2nd generation? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:6D40:34D1:7701:44A0:D739:4603:BC8D (talk) 19:37, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Clarification of GB vs GiB

As far as I can tell the article consistently uses GB to mean 1000³ bytes and GiB to mean 1024³ bytes. At least that is the intention. If there are places where that is not the case, let's discuss them here on Talk and correct them where needed. And if a different convention is preferred let's discuss that here too. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 10:07, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Also, I see there is an emerging consensus to split the article into multiple smaller articles. If that happens, let's make sure we have this discussion only once (on this page, before the article is split). Dondervogel 2 (talk) 10:10, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

I recently reverted an edit that removed the distinction between GB and GiB. This article explains why the distinction is needed. Without it we cannot explain the storage capacity of these devices. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 17:22, 21 April 2021 (UTC)

WT:MOSNUM is over there. I will not engage you on settled style guidelines unless and until you get consensus to change WP:COMPUNITS. —Locke Cole • t • c 04:17, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

MOSNUM does not require articles to make incorrect or ambiguous statements. After your edits, the article contains incorrect statements. There is no need for you to engage. Stay away if you must, but allow others to make the article correct and unambiguous. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 07:07, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

Proposal to rename the generations

Apple, unfortunately, only counts generations within each iPad Pro size. For example, the current iPad Pros are the iPad Pro 11-inch (3rd generation) and the iPad Pro 12.9-inch (5th generation). Terrible, I know. However, I do not think that Wikipedia articles on the iPad Pros should contradict this, especially because there are few precedents where sources actually counted iPad Pros as "generations", potentially for this very reason. Therefore, I propose to rename the generations and move (rename) the pages. My suggestion would be to switch to yearly designations ("iPad Pro (2021)"), which is relatively common - but feel free to put forward your own ideas! Andibrema (talk) 21:02, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

I think yearly designations would make most sense, and require the least work. This is how it's done for the base model iPad (iPad (2020) for example). Another option would be to curate everything to just two articles: "iPad Pro (11-inch)" and "iPad Pro (12.9-inch)". Well, actually four because there used to be a 9.7-inch and 10.5-inch iPad Pro as well. This would be similar to how the Mac articles are done.Abobeck11 (talk) 21:33, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

I personally don't support grouping them into screen sizes, since that would produce multiple articles with essentially the same content, not to mention that it might be confusing for some people. The yearly designation is a nice expression of what we're calling "generations" as of now, in my opinion. Andibrema (talk) 00:53, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

I'll agree that using the year seems to be the predominant usage for the latest model (e.g. iPad Pro 2021). I'll point out that the first "generation" was released over 2 years so the articles would have to be:

• iPad Pro (2015 and 2016)
• iPad Pro (2017)
• iPad Pro (2018)
• iPad Pro (2020)
• iPad Pro (2021)

I would even support merging those 5 articles into just 2, grouping together the first 2 and the last 3. The break point corresponds with the only major redesign and introduction of USB-C in 2018. If people want 5 articles though, I support the year naming proposal. BLAIXX 22:32, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

Thanks! I'd go with "iPad Pro (2015/2016)" for the first models, personally. I would consider the grouping technique if it was an article with multiple sections, but since it has already been voted to split the iPad Pro article, I wouldn't support a grouping into two articles; it's just not enough of a generation break for my taste. Andibrema (talk) 00:53, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

Generally and is prefered to a slash (see WP:AND, MOS:SLASH) in article titles. I'm aware of the vote to split but consensus can change. I'm now having second thoughts based on how little new information is in the 2017, 2020, and 2021 articles. Most of their content is just repeating the features that are shared with their predecessors. BLAIXX 13:35, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

WP:AND tells us that titles with "and" are generally "permissible", notably not listing numbers as an example. Meanwhile, MOS:SLASH tells us to avoid joining words with a slash, not numbers. Neither of these rules really seem to fit here.

However, MOS:SLASH says that an unspaced slash may be used to indicate regular defined yearly periods that do not coincide with calendar years (e.g., the 2009/2010 fiscal year). This isn't exactly what we're looking for either, but it serves as an example that joining years with a slash is generally intended for some purposes.

I don't think that there's a rule for this specific scenario. My opinion is that we shouldn't cling to an imprecise WP rule in this case, but rather choose a fitting title that seems sensible. To me, this seems quite related to the 2009/2010 fiscal year or the "overnight period" mentioned in MOS:DATERANGE.

"And" just doesn't make sense to me here. "2015 and 2016" sounds like we're talking about the years themselves, but we're just using them to describe a generation of iPads — the 2015/2016 generation. Andibrema (talk) 14:47, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. Split them by years but keep them as separate articles. Abobeck11 (talk) 15:25, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

I strongly oppose because I feel renaming it by year would be super confusing. For example iPad (3rd generation) and iPad (4th generation) were both released in 2012, so how did you name them? Second, "iPad Pro 5th generation" is the official name for the device[1], I don't get why you want to use nickname and fanon gossip instead. This is Wikipedia, not Fanonpedia.Wingwatchers (talk) 03:00, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

Agreed, something like this should be discussed more thoroughly. —Locke Cole • t • c 05:39, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

The iPads that you mentioned should absolutely be called iPad (3rd generation) and iPad (4th generation), which are their official names. However, "iPad Pro (5th generation)" is not an official name mentioned on the page that you linked. Instead, the current, 2021, iPad Pro consists of:

• iPad Pro 12.9-inch (5th generation)
• iPad Pro 11-inch (3rd generation)

As you can see, the two models are assigned different generations. That's why I believe that calling the current iPad Pro the "5th generation" is idiosyncratic, and moreover, confusing, because the model designations used all over Apple's website directly contradict the titles on Wikipedia. Andibrema (talk) 10:24, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

But how else do we name them? The yearly designation doesn't work because the 1st generation was released in 2 different years. Naming it something like "iPad Pro (2015/2016)" would to someone out of context imply they were two generations as opposed to one. Subscribe to me (talk) 14:21, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

Agreed. Wingwatchers (talk) 16:43, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

I'm torn on how best to tackle this. As mentioned above, WP:AND has some guidance (see Pioneer 6, 7, 8, and 9 and Hellman's and Best Foods). It's clumsy, but iPad Pro (5th generation 12.9" and 3rd generation 11") would resolve the issue. The issue becomes that the prior iPad Pro article names would also need to be changed accordingly. The full set would eventually look like this:

• iPad Pro (1st generation) → iPad Pro (1st generation 12.9" and 1st generation 9.7") (torn on omitting the 2nd "1st generation" here; this is also probably the only one where the existing name might be sufficient)
• iPad Pro (2nd generation) → iPad Pro (2nd generation 12.9" and 1st generation 10.5")
• iPad Pro (3rd generation) → iPad Pro (3rd generation 12.9" and 1st generation 11")
• iPad Pro (4th generation) → iPad Pro (4th generation 12.9" and 2nd generation 11")
• iPad Pro (5th generation) → iPad Pro (5th generation 12.9" and 3rd generation 11")

The years are definitely cleaner in this instance, but I think the years also omit the obvious generational changes occurring each time (9.7" to 10.5" then 11" on the first three generations which seem like pretty major changes to not include in the title). Unless someone has a cleaner naming scheme that hasn't been considered yet?

Consistency with other iPad article naming would be desired as well, so perhaps this discussion should expand to look at them all? —Locke Cole • t • c 18:33, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

In the interests of WP:COMMONNAME I'd like to reiterate my preference for years. I feel that "iPad Pro (2020)" is way more clear to the casual audience than "iPad Pro (4th generation 12.9" and 2nd generation 11")". Most secondary sources that I have come across use the release year rather than Apple's official names. For the first models I would do "2015 and 2016" per the Pioneer precedent. BLAIXX 21:43, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

@Blaixx: WP:COMMONNAME is important, but so is WP:CONSISTENT:

A good Wikipedia article title has the five following characteristics: ...

• Consistency – The title is consistent with the pattern of similar articles' titles.

When taken through all the other iPad articles, you can see using years is inconsistent with all of the others (every other article either uses a distinguishing title, like iPad mini 4, or generations, like iPad Air (4th generation)). See iPad Series box at right for more.

Perhaps a third option would be to stick with the current naming (using the 12.9" "generation" as the distinguishing factor) and simply noting within the lead that the article also covers the 9.7", 10.5" or 11" (and which generation of that model is being discussed)? I think we all agree that the smaller versions don't need their own articles, but redirects from iPad Pro (1st generation 11"), iPad Pro (2nd generation 11") and iPad Pro (3rd generation 11") to the respective articles (with hatnotes in each explaining why) might make sense. —Locke Cole • t • c 23:01, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

• Comment I moved the pages requested by Andibrema before seeing this lengthy discussion, but in any case it was a technical reversion of undiscussed page moves. If you want to change naming of these articles you will need to open a formal move discussion at WP:RM as at present all discussion here is informal. Polyamorph (talk) 08:13, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Amakuru reverted my moves on the basis of this discussion. But you still need to open a formal WP:RM discussion. Polyamorph (talk) 08:18, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

@Polyamorph: in fact, I have already opened the discussion at Talk:IPad Pro (2nd generation), so the formal RM is underway there. As noted, there's clearly no consensus so far in this discussion, and it was not an uncontroversial move. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 08:26, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

@Polyamorph: - PS, I only just noticed that you said "it was a technical reversion of undiscussed page moves" above. I'm not seeing that myself. The long-term names for the articles (since their creation last year) appear to be iPad Pro (2nd generation) etc. with no page moves until today. Am I missing something?  — Amakuru (talk) 08:31, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

@Amakuru: OK thanks, I think you closed the technical request at the same time as I performed the move, before the bot had a chance to list the discussion. And for the undiscussed move, (I may have misread the page history) it may have been a reversion in any case: discussion is obviously needed and sorry for adding to the confusion. Polyamorph (talk) 08:48, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

@Amakuru: I manually added IPad Pro (1st generation) and IPad Pro (5th generation) to the move listed on Talk:IPad Pro (2nd generation). Hope that works. Andibrema (talk) 13:39, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

@Andibrema: oh yeah, no problem. Sorry I wasn't aware of the other two pages as I didn't see them at WP:RM/TR. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 15:23, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Advertised and actual storage capacities

A discussion about the difference between advertised and actual storage capacities of this device is taking place at the MOSNUM talk page. Interested editors are invited to comment there. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 00:12, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

Unreadable, useless table

The table under the "Model" sections is completely useless because of the longstanding issue https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T42763

I tried splitting the table in parts to make it readable, but I failed. Can someone with more skills with wikipedia editing do that? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.131.84.119 (talk) 17:33, 27 November 2023 (UTC)