Teardown of Fourth-Generation iPad Reveals LG Display, A6X Chip, Lightning Connector

Just went to pick up mine. I guess this time I was lucky: no dead pixels and no light leaking. Performance is definitely improved compared to iPad 3, especially in Facebook. I still have to try my games.

thekev said:

Your claims aren't backed up by actual information. Apple has gone back and forth using one or both of these guys. LG is practically everywhere.

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True, but I wasn't aware that they needed to be backed up? I just figured that it seemed odd that Samsung was supplying more mobile screens than LG, when LG is less of a competitor. Although, as many others have said, I would hope that Apple would take more into consideration when choosing a supplier than the level of competition that they present.

Whats the GPU? I learned nothing new except that it's bigger than the ones in the A5X. So its a completely different GPU, and thats how its able to get twice the graphics performance? What GPU is it then? Would really like to know.

JHankwitz said:

What heat issue? Show me any elictrical device that doesn't heat up when used. Basic laws of physics mandates heat generation whenever there's electron flow.

The only "heat issue" I'm aware of is when I place my Dell laptop on my dining room table to use, and it leaves a burn mark on the varnish after a half-hour. I use my iPad for hours on my lap and can barely feel it getting warm over time. iPads dont have a "heat issue". They get warm like every electrical device, but it's certainly not an "issue".

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They surely do, Google is your best friend.

carmenodie said:

Tim Cook is an idiot bringing out an iPad so close to the release of the last one. The thrill is gone. He's a greedy dude.

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Did you really think Apple would let their flagship iPad be the only iOS device with the old connector? Did you really think they'd let the iPhone 5 blow it away performance wise?

dweezle3 said:

it seemed odd that Samsung was supplying more mobile screens than LG, when LG is less of a competitor

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I'm pretty sure LG supplies far more mobile screens than Samsung does to Apple because of the iPhones and iPod Touchs.

iChrist said:

Frack that.

LG display is an automatic pass. After seeing the sad state of LG screens firsthand in the rMBP, I'm not buying this second rate crap.

The Samsung screens on the iPad 3 were perfectly color accurate against my calibrated Eizo screens. LG is a warm mess.

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I'm really sad to hear this!

Does anyone else have the same experience with LG screens.

If so this would be a major disappointment as I returned my iPad 3 (on the 14th day) to get this new-fangled iPad 4. I loved the display on the iPad 3.

I don't get it...

Ok, I bought into all the hype & picked up a 4th gen iPad 32GB wifi today to replace my 16GB iPad 2.

Finally got everything backed up, installed & restored. What I don't get is that I'm really not seeing a huge difference. Yes, the display appears to be a little sharper & color is marginally better. Speed doesn't seem that much faster to me. Maybe slightly, but I'm very underwhelmed at the moment.

Can someone suggest something to try that will clearly illustrate & justify the upgrade from an iPad 2 to iPad 4? Seriously, I'm using them side by side, displaying the same images from each & running the same apps, etc. but am not even close to being "blown away". I picked this up from Bestbuy, so returning the iPad 4 is easy enough... just want to make sure I'm not missing something.

I'm a photographer with a focussed eye on graphic display, and am simply not seeing that much difference here. I'm no novice with regards to photography either:
http://skiphunt.carbonmade.com
http://www.kaleidoscopeofcolor.com/galleria/
http://skiphuntphotography.com
http://skiphuntphoto.com

I don't play games much, but use the iPad on the road for content creation including video work. So far, I'm wondering what the gain was by upgrading to iPad 4?

Running side by side, same apps, looking at same photos... and, I'm pretty underwhelmed initially. I must be missing something, because I don't notice it being that much better. Doesn't feel any faster. Fine text is a bit crisper. Photos have very slightly better color/contrast, but only if you're looking at them side by side with a critical eye.

Unless I discover something I'm missing or don't have set right... Might return it. I really don't care about Siri either. Don't find myself using it on the iPhone 5 either. So far, disappointed in this new iPad. I have to be missing something though, since the reviews keep talking about what an order of magnitude leap ahead the retina screen & A6 processor are. Can't be ALL hype can it?

So since the board is the same for the lightning connector. can i open my 3rd Gen iPad, and replace the board with the lightning connector board and give it a new back and convert my 3rd gen into a 3.5 gen?

What the diff?

I did check them out when the iPad 3 came out. I took my iPad 2 into a Best Buy and played with each for a good half hour. I displayed images on each and even asked the sales clerks if they could see much difference. They couldn't.

At that point I made the decision to sit the upgrade out.

The reason I upgraded was for better resolution AND speed. But as I sit both iPads next to each other and launch apps at the same time, they're pretty much the same. I also tried a slo-mo app that converts your 720p 60fps footage to extreme slow motion after a long render. Both iPads performed the long render at exactly the same time.

This isn't buyers remorse of an impulse buy... This is me trying to figure out why I'm going to take a loss after selling my iPad 2 & keeping the iPad 4. I'm not a lemming who just buys crap because its the latest greatest. There must be a significant benefit to justify the upgrade. I'm not seeing enough performance boost to justify the upgrade.

I posted to see if maybe I'd missed something, or some setting. Perhaps I shouldn't have restored from my iPad 2's backup? Perhaps the speed difference will only be significant with apps written to take advantage of it?

No problem here. I can easily return the iPad 4 to Best Buy for no loss other than my time, but will play a bit to confirm I'm not missing something.

fertilized-egg said:

I'm pretty sure LG supplies far more mobile screens than Samsung does to Apple because of the iPhones and iPod Touchs.

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I thought Samsung made the retina displays for all the iPhones and iPod Touches?

dweezle3 said:

I thought Samsung made the retina displays for all the iPhones and iPod Touches?

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No. LG all the way and a number of other manufacturers such as CMI, Sharp, etc but not Samsung. I don't think Samsung made 3GS displays either. If any newspaper or blog tells you "iPhone/iPod Touch quantity is insufficient due to Apple's legal troubles with Samsung", you know it's BS.

WestonHarvey1 said:

True, but the LG panels have more consistent color and backlight. It's still give and take.

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One of the reasons I am thinking of getting newer iPad mini or iPad 4 is because the iPad 3 I have has pink/green shifts . The iPad 3 definitely suffered from this issue, you can check Apple Support forums for a huge thread based on this

I just upgraded from the 2 to the 4 I mainly use mine for games and web browsing PDF reads and for me the new display is worth it, I was also running out of space on my 2 i thought about getting a refurb 3 but best buy had the no interest 18 month financing which is why I went for this. I think upgrading from a 2 is totally worth it to have this fantastic screen I no longer have to zoom up on my scanned PDFs the text just looks perfect

CoreForce said:

AppleTalk was there in every Mac - and was replaced by USB in the end.
FireWire was there in every Mac - and was replaced by USB in the end.
Lightning is now introduced
Thunderbolt will be there in every Mac - and will be replaced by ... guess what.

My statement is that the peripheral endeavors of Apple always have been not long lasting. There is little indication this will change in the future, based on the introduction of new proprietary connectors and standards.

On the other hand Apple has been quite successful when extending on existing standards, without breaching compatibility. Ethernet, WiFi and GSM card to name just some examples or the new Fusion Drive.

Claiming that everyone would own an iOS device in future is an foolish exaggeration, honestly.

We should learn from the past. Not just blindly hope for the best (which would be faulty, most likely).

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We should learn from the past. Most definitely. It's time for a history lesson.

AppleTalk/LocalTalk was there, and got replaced by Ethernet (not USB). After ~15 years.
While AppleTalk was around, for clusters of Apple networks, its adoption was ridiculously high because Farallon introduced AppleTalk over phone wires. (PhoneNet)
In the beginning, LocalTalk was a small fraction of Ethernet's speed, but also a small fraction of Ethernet's price.
230kBit/sec versus 2 or 10 MBit/sec. 8x or 40x difference.
$20 per node versus $1000 per node. 50x difference.
Localtalk can be installed by a 5 year old and managed by anybody who can read a manual.
Ethernet needed to be installed by a professional.
For anybody who wanted to share data and only involved Macs, Localtalk was considered quite a success. For everybody else, you either threw money at the problem or waited a decade.

Lesson: Cheap, fast enough, easy to use gets the adoption.

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You must be thinking about Apple Desktop Bus (ADB). It was replaced by USB starting with the iMac.
It also lasted about 12 years. ADB's design had flaws but its benefits were significant enough that USB designers looked at ADB for inspiration. So much inspiration that ADB-to-USB converters were trivial to design and highly compatible.
Given that USB uses all the good parts of ADB and is now everywhere, I'd say that's pretty much a success.

Lesson: Great ideas live on.

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Firewire. Designed by Apple & Sony. Expensive because it tried to do anything and everything.
Except most people don't need anything and everything. Firewire 400 was always faster than USB2.
Lives on in professional movie equipment, professional sound equipment, and specialized networking equipment... and USB3. Did you know that USB3 takes the most widely used parts of Firewire, and then builds an incompatible hybrid of USB2 and Firewire design concepts, and then stacks it on top of a USB2 port? Thereby making USB3 more expensive, harder to implement, and kind of overkill. Expect USB3 adoption to be much slower than USB2.

Lesson: Cheap, fast enough, easy to use gets the most adoption. (sounds familiar?)

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Thunderbolt. Designed by Apple & Intel. It's now on high end PCs mobos too.
Expensive because it's ridiculously fast.
Except most people don't have a use for that much speed.

Given that we know "cheap, fast enough, easy to use gets the most adoption," why do it?

Because if mass adoption was the goal right now, we'd all be using USB2 and Localtalk for the rest of our lives.

While you think "peripheral endeavors of Apple always have been not long lasting," you're neglecting that it's those endeavors which allow the industry to bring most of the popular technology to us later.

ichrisg30 said:

Apple: LG, your phones and tablets look a lot like ours!
LG: No they're not, your phones and tablets look like ours
(Both go to court and sue each other. Apple stops having LG make displays for them)

Sigh

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At this rate, Apple is going to run out of suppliers they can sue and stop ordering from!