All iPads 16:9 Ratio iPad/mini

I think not.

16:9 is rotten for the web and book IMHO.

16:9 is pretty much the one thing i cant stand about my iPod touch they truly had a great aspect ratio with 3:2.

It honestly baffle me that people prefer to have such a great disparity between what they see horizontally compared to vertically. Good for video shot in that format but little else.

Recently sampled the Surface Pro. Great device and its resolution alleviates some of the problems i have with it but holding it horizontally just felt so unnatural and awkward.

No thank you. Since I hardly watch videos on my Mini 16:9 would be awful.

iPad Mini 16:9 yes please, supurb for video, iPad Full size, no, keep the aspect ratio as is.

Nightarchaon said:

iPad Mini 16:9 yes please, supurb for video, iPad Full size, no, keep the aspect ratio as is.

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Why would you prefer the smaller iPad for videos instead of the larger screen?

darngooddesign said:

Why would you prefer the smaller iPad for videos instead of the larger screen?

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Most videos are 16:9 or 21:9(which is closer to 16:9 than to 4:3).
On the iPad mini currently you see big black boxes around the video that are either smaller or not there at 16:9

darngooddesign said:

Why would you prefer the smaller iPad for videos instead of the larger screen?

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Portabilty.

Lacas said:

Most videos are 16:9 or 21:9(which is closer to 16:9 than to 4:3).
On the iPad mini currently you see big black boxes around the video that are either smaller or not there at 16:9

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You see the same on the full iPad. But the full iPads screen is much better for videos because its larger. The actual video size would be the same between a 4:3 and 16:9 Mini.

And for web browsing and magazine/comics reading 16:9 is inferior.

When I watch a movie in full 16:9 on the iPad Mini, a lot of screen real-estate gets wasted. I get more total screen real-estate on my Nexus 7, in this respect.

However, I don't see Apple changing the aspect ratio of its iPads, since the the 4:3 aspect ratio is generally more useful.

MindsEye said:

16:9 is pretty much the one thing i cant stand about my iPod touch they truly had a great aspect ratio with 3:2.

It honestly baffle me that people prefer to have such a great disparity between what they see horizontally compared to vertically. Good for video shot in that format but little else.

Recently sampled the Surface Pro. Great device and its resolution alleviates some of the problems i have with it but holding it horizontally just felt so unnatural and awkward.

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I will not buy the Touch because of that aspect ratio and I don't care how cheap I would be able to get one down the road.

Internaut said:

When I watch a movie in full 16:9 on the iPad Mini, a lot of screen real-estate gets wasted. I get more total screen real-estate on my Nexus 7, in this respect.

However, I don't see Apple changing the aspect ratio of its iPads, since the the 4:3 aspect ratio is generally more useful.

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True. I watch mostly classic TV shows and movies, so 4:3 is perfect.

darngooddesign said:

You see the same on the full iPad. But the full iPads screen is much better for videos because its larger. The actual video size would be the same between a 4:3 and 16:9 Mini.

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What you're saying does not make sense. Let's Take a 16:9 video, an iPad and the Surface. They're approximately the same height in landscape. On the iPad you have 2 options, letter boxing and stretching to fit.
If you letterbox you lose about a third of the height of the screen and use the full length. That is objectively less space than on the Surface where you lose neither length nor vertical space.
If you stretch to fit, you lose about a third of the video in either direction to make use of the full height. For 21:9 videos both have black bars, but again it is less notable on the 16:9 screen.
I do think my iPad is better for browsing and holding, though I personally prefer books on the Surface (epub, djvu and other dynamic formats) but PDFs are more pleasant on the iPad. Personally I think the iPad mini would work great in 16:9/16:10, while the regular iPad should remain 4:3(16:9 on a 10" machine is unwieldly)

16x10 like the nexus 7 is much better than 16x9 in my opinion.

I have my navbar set to go on the side in landscape (like on the phones) and that makes it even better.

Whilst I like the current screen ratio on the iPad, the iPhone 5 looks much better when using AirPlay mirroring as it fills the whole tv screen naturally. I use AirPlay mirroring a lot and never reach for the iPad due to this reason.

Lacas said:

What you're saying does not make sense. Let's Take a 16:9 video, an iPad and the Surface. They're approximately the same height in landscape. On the iPad you have 2 options, letter boxing and stretching to fit.
If you letterbox you lose about a third of the height of the screen and use the full length. That is objectively less space than on the Surface where you lose neither length nor vertical space.
If you stretch to fit, you lose about a third of the video in either direction to make use of the full height. For 21:9 videos both have black bars, but again it is less notable on the 16:9 screen.
I do think my iPad is better for browsing and holding, though I personally prefer books on the Surface (epub, djvu and other dynamic formats) but PDFs are more pleasant on the iPad. Personally I think the iPad mini would work great in 16:9/16:10, while the regular iPad should remain 4:3(16:9 on a 10" machine is unwieldly)

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Comparing a 16:9 and 4:3 iPad, mini or otherwise, if the long dimension is the same all you would be loosing are the black bars. Therefore the videos size would be the same.

As far as books and magazines, only ebooks with dynamic text would look good on a 16:9 screen. Printed pages of magazines and comics are not formatted for widescreens so you'd end up with black bars when looking at a full page.

I have a nexus 7, and I don't like the aspect ratio at all. It's 16:10, and I would probably hate 16:9 even more. It reminds me of an oversized phone. I like the 4:3 aspect ratio of the iPad, and I think it's perfect for a tablet.

darngooddesign said:

Comparing a 16:9 and 4:3 iPad, mini or otherwise, if the long dimension is the same all you would be loosing are the black bars. Therefore the videos size would be the same.

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I'm sorry but that is wrong and does not make sense. The 4:3 device would need to be bigger to view the same sized image. The image is lazy but should get the point across.

As far as books and magazines, only ebooks with dynamic text would look good on a 16:9 screen. Printed pages of magazines and comics are not formatted for widescreens so you'd end up with black bars when looking at a full page.

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I hope the irony of that statement is not lost on you.
In fact magazines and comics are published in 16:10 to the best of my knowledge.

Lacas said:

In fact magazines and comics are published in 16:10 to the best of my knowledge.

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If magazines are formatted in 16:10 why does a page fit perfectly on my 4:3 screen? If they weren't formatted at 4:3 then there would be black bars above and below magazine pages when viewed in portrait. Now some magazines are formatted taller, earlier Emigre and Cinefex for example, but the majority of magazines are formatted close to 4:3.

You are correct that comics are formatted a little taller so they look better on a taller screen, but they're not exactly 16:9 so you'd end up with some black bars on either type of screen.



Here you can see how much wasted space there is displaying a magazine page on a N7 vs iPad 4. A widescreen Mini wouldn't have software buttons on the screen so you see even more of a black bar.

Now when viewed in landsscape the N7 has black bars on the left and right of the two-page spread while the iPad has black bars above and below the spread, but at that size screen I doubt anyone is really reading like that, but in portrait the 4:3 screen wins out.

Lacas said:

I'm sorry but that is wrong and does not make sense. The 4:3 device would need to be bigger to view the same sized image. The image is lazy but should get the point across.

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In my lazy image we have a widescreen Mini that displays the same sized video image as a regular 4:3 Mini. I assume that Apple would keep the height the same and just reduce the width to achieve a widescreen iPad. Otherwide the widescreen Mini would only differ from the full size one by width. If the Mini weren't that widescreen the video image size would stay the same but you'd have small black bars.

But I hardly watch videos, so web browsing is far more important to me, and there is a ton of evidence showing how the Mini's screen displays significntly more of a webpage in landscape and almost as much as the N7's in portrait due to the lack of software buttons and much less browser chrome.

16:9 format?

darngooddesign said:

In my lazy image we have a widescreen Mini that displays the same sized video image as a regular 4:3 Mini. I assume that Apple would keep the height the same and just reduce the width to achieve a widescreen iPad. Otherwide the widescreen Mini would only differ from the full size one by width. If the Mini weren't that widescreen the video image size would stay the same but you'd have small black bars.

But I hardly watch videos, so web browsing is far more important to me, and there is a ton of evidence showing how the Mini's screen displays significntly more of a webpage in landscape and almost as much as the N7's in portrait due to the lack of software buttons and much less browser chrome.

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After looking at that 16:9 iPad I gave the "why?? Why would apple destroy the iPad like that?" Look.

darngooddesign said:

Why would you prefer the smaller iPad for videos instead of the larger screen?

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because the iPad mini fits in my pocket, so i carry it to and from work, its superb for watching Netflix etc whilst on the train for 1hr 30mins each way.

The iPad i had to carry, used up a hand, could be put down and forgotten and was just too large to carry about day to day.

A slightly longer, but just as wide iPad mini would also continue to fit easily in my pocket, and mean i could watch movies without borders.

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darngooddesign said:

I I assume that Apple would keep the height the same and just reduce the width to achieve a widescreen iPad.

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Nope, they should do the same as the iPhone 5, keep width, extend hight

Nightarchaon said:

Nope, they should do the same as the iPhone 5, keep width, extend hight

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Doing that would make it almost as big as the full iPad5, which eliminates most of the portability benefits of the mini. If they have widescreen iPads they should take the existing iPads and decrease the widths.bthe iPhone is different because it was already pretty small.

The current mini only fits in some of my pockets so a slightly narrower one would fit in more of them, but as I've said widescreens are worse for what I mostly use my iPad for so I don't want one.

If apple releases one, hopefully it won't replace the 4:3 iPads.