After having a chance to make quite a few LiDAR scans with @PolyCamAI on the 2020 iPad Pro as well as the #iPhone12Pro I'm ready to share a few thoughts about the similarities and differences between the devices. A thread

1. There does not seem to be any difference between the actual LiDAR sensor on the devices -- mesh resolution and scanning range seem to be the same on both devices

2. The camera system on the iPhone 12 Pro is definitely better, with better image stabilization and better low-light performance, and this translates into clearer textures for the 3D captures

3. The main weakness of the iPhone 12 Pro vs the iPad is in the heat dissipation. The iPhone 12 actually has a more powerful chip, but because it is in a small device it gets hot faster and this leads to thermal throttling of the OS

3 continued. Thermal throttling means, for example, that if you are taking a very large scan, the device will start to starve processes of resources, for example the capture view will start to slow its frame rate, and the tracking can get worse

4. The thermal throttling mentioned in 3 means that it can be harder to make very large scans with the iPhone compared to the iPad, because the iPad must have a bigger heatsink on the chip so it can dissipate heat more efficiently

5. Since the 12 Pro Max is a bigger device, it will probably have a bigger heat sink, and thermal throttling may be less of a big deal -- I'll have to see when my device arrives tomorrow

6. Despite the differences mentioned above, the actual experience and performance on both devices is quite similar, and you won't notice a huge difference on one device vs another unless you are pushing for ultra clear textures (iPhone better) or very large captures (iPad better)