16:9 iPad 4??

[yegon]

Landscape mode 98% of the time for me (but largely because the sleeve I keep it in mostly restricts it to that mode). What's your point?

It was a response to someone else saying they only use landscape.

Clearly, there's a lot of different usage cases (I'm 95% portrait), and in this regard I think 4:3 is a good balance.

 

[donrsd]

Is there anyway to keep the current form, maybe incease it but barely, by maing the bezel smaller all around to make a true 16:9 device?

 

[zephyrnoid]

But but you're not holding your laptop or TV while in use. One of the great things about the iPad is that it's comfortable to use either way. A 16:9 iPad would feel very awkward to hold.

You might want to consider the upcoming ipad Square®. Looks great any way that you hold it

 

[DMVillain]

I think the (business) appeal of the iPad is that it is roughly the size of a piece of paper/notebook. That would be eliminated with 16:9.

 

[Aftashock617]

They should change ratio

I think that the new iPad or what ever they call it should change ratio. I don't think it should be 16:9 but maybe 16:10 just to keep the numbers even. I also believe that by creating a wider screen it can open up the doors for new possibilities within iOS. I think one of the things holding iPad back from being a great creation device is that you can have only one screen open at a time (full screen app). Extending the screen, to a 16:9 ratio, will allow Apple to combat other tablet offerings that are allowing multiple apps on a screen at a time. Apple would be able to split the screen in half to have two apps share the same space as one full app would but still remain at the same ratio at full screen.

It will also make for a better viewing experience when it comes to watching videos with less bars on top and bottom.

This probably won't happen but a man can dream, can't he?

 

[knucklehead]

I just had a long chat with my brainstorming buddy. Subjects included the ratio of the extant ipads versus Google Nexus 7 and the evolving paradigms of visual media viewing.
My take.
4:3 is dead (though I actually only own a 4:3 SD TV !!!) for the next steps in visual electronic media.
See, 4:3 was ideal in a world ruled by 8.5"X11" letter sized PAPER documents.
That world is rapidly being relegated to backup printouts of kitchen recipes etc.
16:9 is it IMHO
The closer that your ratio is to a square, the more static the page. So ideally....
1) Movies & modest panoramas... Horizontal 16:9
2) E-pubs... Vertical 9:16
3) Zoom E-pubs... Horizontal 16:9
If future ipads are delivered in anything fatter than Nexus 7 ratio , I'm out.

Well:

I agree with that girl!

8.5 x 11 is hardly the exclusive territory of kitchen recipes just yet ...

 

[zephyrnoid]

Well:

Image

I agree with that girl!

8.5 x 11 is hardly the exclusive territory of kitchen recipes just yet ...

If you insist, I never resist!
However... in time, you 'boxy' ratio huggers will come around.
I spent the first 1/2 of my life as a visual designer in Print and in that, steeped in typography and page layout. The more you read, the more that you will embrace the 'straight and narrow'. EXAMPLE> Research I did back in the 80's taught me that the most efficient (high usability quotient) text line on screen, is about twice newspaper column width . That drives an e-reader layout that's in the Nexus 7's 90mm dimension.
Flip that around to a horizontal and you can fit a 16:9 with just a tad of border top and bottom.
Folks that don't know the evolution of modern paper formats and dimensions, assume that those are ideal for everything. They are not.
ASK THIS> Why 8X10 for American Photographs for nearly a Century? Why 8.5X11 for standard magazine and letter documents?
None of paper format rations is based on usability. Those 4:3 formats are tired old legacies of the age of print.

 

[TC03]

I just had a long chat with my brainstorming buddy. Subjects included the ratio of the extant ipads versus Google Nexus 7 and the evolving paradigms of visual media viewing.
My take.
4:3 is dead (though I actually only own a 4:3 SD TV !!!) for the next steps in visual electronic media.
See, 4:3 was ideal in a world ruled by 8.5"X11" letter sized PAPER documents.
That world is rapidly being relegated to backup printouts of kitchen recipes etc.
16:9 is it IMHO
The closer that your ratio is to a square, the more static the page. So ideally....
1) Movies & modest panoramas... Horizontal 16:9
2) E-pubs... Vertical 9:16
3) Zoom E-pubs... Horizontal 16:9
If future ipads are delivered in anything fatter than Nexus 7 ratio , I'm out.

In my opinion, you're rather narrow minded.

16:9 is ideal for movies and perhaps games. However, for almost all other things it is useless on a tablet, because 16:9 in portrait mode is not really usable. Also, why do you prefer 16:9 for epubs? This doesn't make sense to me. 4:3 is just as good.

 

[zephyrnoid]

I know Apple too well. Here's a preview....

Scenario: October Apple Event. Timothy D. Cook takes the stage and the usual unveiling fanfare shall ensue... animation of curtain opening on screen and viola! ....
Timothy "We listened to our customers and never giving our competitors an opportunity to best us... I present to you... the iPad Mini.
[crowd applause]
Timothy "Positioned as the iPad for everyone else, it's packed with unique features, allow me to walk you through them"
First and foremost, If the New iPad is 'Papa Bear' and the iPhone 5 is 'baby bear'.... the new ipad Mini is 'MAMA BEAR' !
[crowd applause]
Timothy"Sporting an 7.9" diagonal screen it fits right into a gaping hole in our popular tablet line! Never mind that this forces the outer dimensions to be too BIG to fit into most coat or jacket pockets [crowd chuckle],because the iPad Mini has 25% more on-screen real estate that our competitor for that oh I'm bigger and better than the Joneses feeling all over! "
[crowd applause... cut away to smiling faces]
Timothy"But that's not all! In addition to the same features already in the New iPad, the iPad Mini also has two cameras and is offered with three memory sizes, 8GB (poor student edition at $200) , 16GB ( I can use that edition $275) and an unprecedented 32GB option (Rich & Famous edition$325)."
[crowd applause... cut away to smiling faces]
Timothy"Now I know how so many many of our fans are hungry for High Speed Broadband in a diminutive tablet so the new iPad Mini now also comes with an option of 3G connectivity to piggy back onto your iPhone 5 service plans and global 'anywhere/everywhere' wifi convenience. [Beat that Google]
---------
What the iPAd Mini will not do (other than NOT) fit into coat pockets...
- No direct mini HDMI connector for use as wired remote monitor for millions of digital imaging devices
- No removable media (Micro SD) (you'd better LOVE 'The Cloud')
we shall see.....
I've been wrong before. I hope I'm all wrong on this ipad Mini

 

[zephyrnoid]

In my opinion, you're rather narrow minded.

Also, why do you prefer 16:9 for epubs?

My expertise and narrow FOCUS is in human factors and ergonomics. I'm Zephyrnoid in the Blogsphere but only on the Blogsphere ...elsewhere.....
16:9 is a fabulous ratio, albeit, the NEW GOLDEN RATIO. Whereas 4:3 was the Classic and ancient Golden Mean, ideal for architecture, the 16:9 is perfect fit for electronic text and movie content TOGETHER.
I addressed the advantage of a vertical 9:16 for reading elsewhere in this thread. I am NOT about to dig up citations, you can do that yourself via Wikipedia or a Google search. Simply put, the MINIMUM human readable and comprehensible line of text and font size results in the double newspaper column. Too small for you? No prob, flip the tablet around. Still too small? Zoom it.
My MAJOR gripe with RUMORS about the ipad mini are not so much the 'boxier' than 16:9 ratio but rather that we may end up with a tablet that may be smaller than the current ipad, but will be too large yet for a number of uses and coat pockets.

 

[knucklehead]

My expertise and narrow FOCUS is in human factors and ergonomics. I'm Zephyrnoid in the Blogsphere but only on the Blogsphere ...elsewhere.....
16:9 is a fabulous ratio, albeit, the NEW GOLDEN RATIO. Whereas 4:3 was the Classic and ancient Golden Mean, ideal for architecture, the 16:9 is perfect fit for electronic text and movie content TOGETHER.
I addressed the advantage of a vertical 9:16 for reading elsewhere in this thread. I am NOT about to dig up citations, you can do that yourself via Wikipedia or a Google search. Simply put, the MINIMUM human readable and comprehensible line of text and font size results in the double newspaper column. Too small for you? No prob, flip the tablet around. Still too small? Zoom it.
My MAJOR gripe with RUMORS about the ipad mini are not so much the 'boxier' than 16:9 ratio but rather that we may end up with a tablet that may be smaller than the current ipad, but will be too large yet for a number of uses and coat pockets.

I have no doubt that a lot of "new" media will work fine - or better - with a more elongated aspect ratio, but there's still plenty of content that will always work better at 4:3; such as pages of text, or things like the weather radar I'm looking at right now on my iPad. Those sorts of things aren't just going away.

There's room for different aspect ratios, that are better suited for different situations and uses. The overall screen size is an important factor.
On something like the 27' iMac, it's not much of a concern, as you have plenty of room to make windows of any size and shape that suits you.
On the 11" Air, things can seem a bit squashed down at times. (As a fan of irony, I couldn't help but be amused that the webpage on which you were touting the superiority of of 16:9, was ignoring it.)
On a small screen like the Nexus 7, when you flip it to landscape, you really get the effect of looking at the world through a slit (made worse by the button bar at the bottom).

I agree about the size concerns about the "mini' mockups we've seen being just a bit too big to fit in very many pockets. If they made it without bezels, it would be fine - but I certainly don't expect to see that happen just yet.

 

[zephyrnoid]

As a fan of irony, I couldn't help but be amused that the webpage on which you were touting the superiority of of 16:9, was ignoring it.

????

 

[knucklehead]

????

The advantage(?) of viewing that page on the Air's 16:9 screen vs. the iPad's 4:3 comes in the form of extra blank space on the sides.

... well ... I thought it was funny ...

PS - Just to emphasize another fairly obvious point:
Your post proclaiming 4:3 dead to anything other than kitchen recipes starts right below the NOOOO Girl GIF. You can see a good bit of it on the iPad and Air displays, but not at all in the 16:9 Nexus 7 display. Thats what I referred to as looking at the world through a slit. A scaled down 4:3 mini display would show your post -- it would show everything that is shown in the full size iPad display.

 

[knucklehead]

Here's a somewhat sloppy comparison of the Nesus 7 16:9 vs. iPad mini 7.85 4:3 screen:

[/IMG]

Sloppy, yes. But it gives a pretty fair comparison. (I realized that I must have tapped on, and slightly zoomed on the Nexus 7 screen in the previous inage.)

 

[zephyrnoid]

HELLO good buddy !!!

My point is that the design standards going forward need to escape 4:3 !!!

In a recent 'Field Producer' exam. I got all but one question right because I refuse to be a victim of regressive thinking. The questions was:
"When capturing raw footage for broadcast delivery, which of the following crops should you specify?"
A- Center-crop of 16:9 ( ie to accomodate 4:3 SD TV's)
B- Letterbox (yielding black top and bottom borders on 4:3
My unequivocal answer was B- Letterbox!!!
Why?
Because IF I were to shoot for a center crop option, that would mean ADDING dead content left and right of my center subject in order to accommodate granny and her 4:3 SD Magnavox TV .
NO Way! Sorry Granny.
I still passed the exam and history has proven me correct as everyone is ditching their 4:3 TV's, their 4:3 Paperback books and eventually, their 4:3 ipads

The advantage(?) of viewing that page on the Air's 16:9 screen vs. the iPad's 4:3 comes in the form of extra blank space on the sides.

... well ... I thought it was funny ...

PS - Just to emphasize another fairly obvious point:
Your post proclaiming 4:3 dead to anything other than kitchen recipes starts right below the NOOOO Girl GIF. You can see a good bit of it on the iPad and Air displays, but not at all in the 16:9 Nexus 7 display. Thats what I referred to as looking at the world through a slit. A scaled down 4:3 mini display would show your post -- it would show everything that is shown in the full size iPad display.

 

[knucklehead]

HELLO good buddy !!!

My point is that the design standards going forward need to escape 4:3 !!!

In a recent 'Field Producer' exam. I got all but one question right because I refuse to be a victim of regressive thinking. The questions was:
"When capturing raw footage for broadcast delivery, which of the following crops should you specify?"
A- Center-crop of 16:9 ( ie to accomodate 4:3 SD TV's)
B- Letterbox (yielding black top and bottom borders on 4:3
My unequivocal answer was B- Letterbox!!!
Why?
Because IF I were to shoot for a center crop option, that would mean ADDING dead content left and right of my center subject in order to accommodate granny and her 4:3 SD Magnavox TV .
NO Way! Sorry Granny.
I still passed the exam and history has proven me correct as everyone is ditching their 4:3 TV's, their 4:3 Paperback books and eventually, their 4:3 ipads

Good Morning!

It looks like the problem here is that you seem to be equating these these tablets with TVs! There have been multiple comments in this thread that 16:9 is better for video, and I agree with that.
Not everyone is primarily interested in watching video on their tablets. 4:3 suits them better.
If people are ditching their paperback books, they're ditching them for e-readers. Even the just released Kindle Paperwhite is 4:3.
Why do you keep trying to insist that 4:3 is dying or dead? It isn't.

I like my Nexus 7, and consider it a keeper. That's primarily on the strength of it's having a good 7" touch display and GPS for the reasonable(!) price of $200.
I only wish it were half an inch shorter so it would fit better in my cargo pockets.