I have to agree that it would have made more sense for apple to go with 1280x960 resolution to start with (thats the only thing I agree on). I remember at the time they announced the iPad, thinking that the 1024 X 768 sounded a bit lowm for a 10"inch screen (compared to smartphones anyway). It must have been a cost/manufacturing thing for Apple at the time. I think if the iPad was 1280x960, there would no cries out for a retina display, even now. Just my 2 cents
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Apple, here is why the iPad 2 should have a 1280x960 or 1920x1440 resolution!
- Thread starter wikoogle
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posts like OP's are always useless. No offense or anything, but I don't think Apple recruits dumb a$$es for their R&D, technology, or marketing departments. And basically its as simple as that.
Its not like im going to show the guys down at apple this thread and they will go,"OH CRAP why didn't we think of that"
lol no.
Its not like im going to show the guys down at apple this thread and they will go,"OH CRAP why didn't we think of that"
lol no.
Lol perplex, well someone sounds angry! Why are you so mad? 
The current resolution doesn't work from a marketing standpoint. Many tablets on the market offer up a higher resolution than the iPad's 1028x768. So Apple has to upgrade the resolution asap.
All that Eso and Wikoogle said was that the pixel doubling (upgrading the iPad to 2048 x 1536) isn't the only option, that Apple could go to an intermediate resolution and use interpolation to make images look better than they would with simple pixel doubling.
I happen to agree with them.
Also, by upgrading to a resolution of say 1280x960 (the current resolution x 1.25) or 1920x1440, the iPad could play back 720p or 1080p content in it's native resolution without any scaling. And it could display two or three iPhone apps (640x960) side by side for multitasking, once again without any scaling. Both those resolutions maintain the exact same 4:3 aspect ratio as the current iPad.
I would be fine with that. What's wrong with it?
To the people saying Apple going to 1280x960 or 1920x1440 would cause old apps to look bad, I found this article particularly insightful...
Apple's Embarrassing Predicament
Also, Eso's post on this was insightful...
I just don't see 2048x1536 happening. Such a high resolution display at 10 inches with multitouch would cost as absurd amount of money and I don't see how they could do that and still sell the iPad at $500.
Plus it would cause a huge performance hit for the system, and eat up the battery as well. Games with decent graphics like Epic Citadel would run like crap on a 2048x1536 resolution. The amount of space needed to store such high resolution textures alone would be very high.
I also think web browsing would look worse. So few websites and content is designed to support such a high resolution. Few images are at such a high resolution. And the frame buffer would also really eat up all the ram fairly fast.
And I'm very unhappy with the current resolution. I would feel much better even with an upgrade to 1280x960 which would bring it more in line with competing tablets (many of which offer a higher resolution than the current iPad).
The current resolution doesn't work from a marketing standpoint. Many tablets on the market offer up a higher resolution than the iPad's 1028x768. So Apple has to upgrade the resolution asap.
All that Eso and Wikoogle said was that the pixel doubling (upgrading the iPad to 2048 x 1536) isn't the only option, that Apple could go to an intermediate resolution and use interpolation to make images look better than they would with simple pixel doubling.
I happen to agree with them.
Also, by upgrading to a resolution of say 1280x960 (the current resolution x 1.25) or 1920x1440, the iPad could play back 720p or 1080p content in it's native resolution without any scaling. And it could display two or three iPhone apps (640x960) side by side for multitasking, once again without any scaling. Both those resolutions maintain the exact same 4:3 aspect ratio as the current iPad.
I would be fine with that. What's wrong with it?
To the people saying Apple going to 1280x960 or 1920x1440 would cause old apps to look bad, I found this article particularly insightful...
Apple's Embarrassing Predicament
Some wager that the upcoming iPad 2 will pixel double both axis, similar to what the iPhone 4 did relative to its predecessor, while others believe that it will keep the resolution of the current generation.
Doubling both axis is a formidable technical challenge and would be a unique, likely expensive display. Continuing with the current resolution would represent a significant competitive disadvantage. As people acclimate to high density smartphones, such as the iPhone 4, the iPad's low density is really starting to stand out.
Few believe it will do anything in between. It won’t, the common wisdom goes, go to say 1920 x 1440 or 1280 x 960, or any other fractional improvement less than an outright doubling or quadrupling. The logic is that pixel scaling issues eliminate the possibility of such a half measure.
This harkens to discussions that occurred over 20 years ago.
It should be an embarrassment that such a discussion is occurring in 2011.
In the TiPb article linked above the author leads off with a slur towards Android, saying “Either iPad 2 will have a standard 1024×768 display or a doubled 2048×1538 Retina Display, or developers and users will be in for the type of frustration usually ascribed to Android.”
That makes for an odd, if not outright ignorant, statement: I can’t recall ever reading anyone complain about the density independent pixel of Android, or its awareness and accommodation of a wide variety of profiles. That’s a problem that it has solved very well, and a large ecosystem of sizes and resolutions of displays exist in remarkable harmony.
Consumers like being able to choose between 3” – 15”+ devices with a wide variety of densities. Choice is good.
Because of course the DPI issue has long been solved. Otherwise you would be lamenting that your 72dpi word processor isn’t compatible with your 300dpi printer: “Everything prints out all tiny-like”. Is that the case?
Vector fonts with pixel independent abstractions have been around for a long time (in TrueType and Postscript form), with Apple as one of the primary inventors. Most GUI frameworks, including iOS, have the ability to scale UI rudiments to virtually any resolution and pixel density with ease.
That is an ancient problem, long solved.
But what about icons? What about bitmap graphic artifacts?
In an ideal world icons would come in vector graphic form. That isn’t the case on Android (the platform doesn’t support SVG, including in the browser, which is a huge deficiency), but it is still shocking that Apple, which usually takes the lead on such innovations, doesn’t use them for iOS, as had been widely speculated as a given before the iPhone OS was first released.
With a vector graphic the rendered image is always perfect for the target, ideally with hints that suppress decorations at very low sizes.
Even with bitmap graphics, however, while it’s easy to contrive ridiculous examples to demonstrate the worst of scaling, the reality is that given that text should always be UI generated from vector fonts, perfect for the target, and graphics are usually just supplementary decorations, where scaling up or down by partial multiples is often perfectly adequate.
For your consideration below are some iOS icons (used for fair use purposes but owned by Apple) at their original pixel size, and then scaled to 125% and 150%. Scaling was done using Sinc (Lanczos3), which is a good algorithm to use when scaling up and you want to maintain fine detail.
The horrors! Just to be clear (as it's hard to imagine what the larger images would look like when shown in the same physical space), we're comparing this to simply pixel-doubling, which would look like the following (cropped to avoid exceeding most reader's screen bounds).
There is no universe where a straight pixel-doubled image looks better than an interpolated image, unless you have fine detail in the image (like text) which shouldn't be in the image to begin with.
Not only do they still look great, but remember that in such a case the actual viewed sizes would also decrease proportionally, so the marginal artifacts would be rendered completely irrelevant. Reading some of the blog entries on scaling you would think you’d end up with some sort of blob.
Not to mention that most iPad apps would be fixed up to handle the new platform shortly after the SDK were released...
Doubling both axis is a formidable technical challenge and would be a unique, likely expensive display. Continuing with the current resolution would represent a significant competitive disadvantage. As people acclimate to high density smartphones, such as the iPhone 4, the iPad's low density is really starting to stand out.
Few believe it will do anything in between. It won’t, the common wisdom goes, go to say 1920 x 1440 or 1280 x 960, or any other fractional improvement less than an outright doubling or quadrupling. The logic is that pixel scaling issues eliminate the possibility of such a half measure.
This harkens to discussions that occurred over 20 years ago.
It should be an embarrassment that such a discussion is occurring in 2011.
In the TiPb article linked above the author leads off with a slur towards Android, saying “Either iPad 2 will have a standard 1024×768 display or a doubled 2048×1538 Retina Display, or developers and users will be in for the type of frustration usually ascribed to Android.”
That makes for an odd, if not outright ignorant, statement: I can’t recall ever reading anyone complain about the density independent pixel of Android, or its awareness and accommodation of a wide variety of profiles. That’s a problem that it has solved very well, and a large ecosystem of sizes and resolutions of displays exist in remarkable harmony.
Consumers like being able to choose between 3” – 15”+ devices with a wide variety of densities. Choice is good.
Because of course the DPI issue has long been solved. Otherwise you would be lamenting that your 72dpi word processor isn’t compatible with your 300dpi printer: “Everything prints out all tiny-like”. Is that the case?
Vector fonts with pixel independent abstractions have been around for a long time (in TrueType and Postscript form), with Apple as one of the primary inventors. Most GUI frameworks, including iOS, have the ability to scale UI rudiments to virtually any resolution and pixel density with ease.
That is an ancient problem, long solved.
But what about icons? What about bitmap graphic artifacts?
In an ideal world icons would come in vector graphic form. That isn’t the case on Android (the platform doesn’t support SVG, including in the browser, which is a huge deficiency), but it is still shocking that Apple, which usually takes the lead on such innovations, doesn’t use them for iOS, as had been widely speculated as a given before the iPhone OS was first released.
With a vector graphic the rendered image is always perfect for the target, ideally with hints that suppress decorations at very low sizes.
Even with bitmap graphics, however, while it’s easy to contrive ridiculous examples to demonstrate the worst of scaling, the reality is that given that text should always be UI generated from vector fonts, perfect for the target, and graphics are usually just supplementary decorations, where scaling up or down by partial multiples is often perfectly adequate.
For your consideration below are some iOS icons (used for fair use purposes but owned by Apple) at their original pixel size, and then scaled to 125% and 150%. Scaling was done using Sinc (Lanczos3), which is a good algorithm to use when scaling up and you want to maintain fine detail.
The horrors! Just to be clear (as it's hard to imagine what the larger images would look like when shown in the same physical space), we're comparing this to simply pixel-doubling, which would look like the following (cropped to avoid exceeding most reader's screen bounds).
There is no universe where a straight pixel-doubled image looks better than an interpolated image, unless you have fine detail in the image (like text) which shouldn't be in the image to begin with.
Not only do they still look great, but remember that in such a case the actual viewed sizes would also decrease proportionally, so the marginal artifacts would be rendered completely irrelevant. Reading some of the blog entries on scaling you would think you’d end up with some sort of blob.
Not to mention that most iPad apps would be fixed up to handle the new platform shortly after the SDK were released...
Also, Eso's post on this was insightful...
Here's an experiment, which image looks better?
I just don't see 2048x1536 happening. Such a high resolution display at 10 inches with multitouch would cost as absurd amount of money and I don't see how they could do that and still sell the iPad at $500.
Plus it would cause a huge performance hit for the system, and eat up the battery as well. Games with decent graphics like Epic Citadel would run like crap on a 2048x1536 resolution. The amount of space needed to store such high resolution textures alone would be very high.
I also think web browsing would look worse. So few websites and content is designed to support such a high resolution. Few images are at such a high resolution. And the frame buffer would also really eat up all the ram fairly fast.
And I'm very unhappy with the current resolution. I would feel much better even with an upgrade to 1280x960 which would bring it more in line with competing tablets (many of which offer a higher resolution than the current iPad).
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Actually having developed and published apps in the iTunes App Store, I can tell you that it's a hassle today to manually provide different pixel-sized pngs for all the graphics.
For example, just with icons, today, you have to provide icons in 57px, 72px and 114 px. And then when you actually go to submit the app, you have to provide screenshots at different resolutions too!
What a hassle in Photoshop to crop/resize images over and over again. Yet, all the work for close to zero in added value. (I mean, would you buy an app just because it supports retina display and refrain from buying it because it doesn't? No, one normally buys it for the actual core functionality it provides and yes, for great graphics/animation, etc.)
Now, if Apple went the other way and said to the devs to just provide high-res pngs and that they'll downscale the pixels on their own, that would be the way to go. No added hassle. I could support pixel-doubling or 1.25x or whatever. But as of today, the way the app submission requirements are set up, I'm actually happy that they didn't introduce yet another resolution.
For example, just with icons, today, you have to provide icons in 57px, 72px and 114 px. And then when you actually go to submit the app, you have to provide screenshots at different resolutions too!
What a hassle in Photoshop to crop/resize images over and over again. Yet, all the work for close to zero in added value. (I mean, would you buy an app just because it supports retina display and refrain from buying it because it doesn't? No, one normally buys it for the actual core functionality it provides and yes, for great graphics/animation, etc.)
Now, if Apple went the other way and said to the devs to just provide high-res pngs and that they'll downscale the pixels on their own, that would be the way to go. No added hassle. I could support pixel-doubling or 1.25x or whatever. But as of today, the way the app submission requirements are set up, I'm actually happy that they didn't introduce yet another resolution.
i honestly don't see how you perceived I was mad in my post.
Anyway..we can banter on and on, about what the iPad SHOULD be, or apple should have done blah blah.
But you guys don't understand the fine variables that deal with a worldwide product such as the iPad. We are talking about manufacturers, logistics, how it affects the suppliers, how the consumers are hit in the pockets. The developers, the apps, web content, camera etc etc. The product we get is usually the one that satisfies all of these factors in the best way. Yea the iPad resolution could have been better. Who would disagree with that? But it isn't for a REASON, not because apple dropped the ball.
Amirite cuzz?
Anyway..we can banter on and on, about what the iPad SHOULD be, or apple should have done blah blah.
But you guys don't understand the fine variables that deal with a worldwide product such as the iPad. We are talking about manufacturers, logistics, how it affects the suppliers, how the consumers are hit in the pockets. The developers, the apps, web content, camera etc etc. The product we get is usually the one that satisfies all of these factors in the best way. Yea the iPad resolution could have been better. Who would disagree with that? But it isn't for a REASON, not because apple dropped the ball.
Amirite cuzz?
According to this...
http://pediatrics.about.com/cs/growthcharts2/f/avg_ht_male.htm
... the average height is about 5'9.2"
And going by the convention that an average man's wingspan is equal to his height. Then 2-3' would be about the arm length viewing distance. So yes the image on the right looks slightly better but not that by much. Now if you put you nose up against the screen then both images look like crap.
Nicely done OP. Although it appears this thread turned into a rage feet for whatever reason, I thought your idea was pretty spot on. The idea of running multiple iPhone apps side by side is brilliant.
I also agree that a slight bump in screen resolution would make a lot of sense. 1024x768 is just such an arbitrary and outdated resolution for most of today's content!
I also agree that a slight bump in screen resolution would make a lot of sense. 1024x768 is just such an arbitrary and outdated resolution for most of today's content!
Thread starter has no idea what his talking about it seems.
You should know what difficultes apple will face using a resolution thats completly different from the other ones.
Doubling or resoultion independence is the only thing that will work for apple.
We could get a completly different resolution, but that will make all the 60 000 apps for ipad 1, obsolete for the ipad with a different res.
Dunno why this threads keep coming up, and why people with no knowledge pretend they are engineers. To iphone apps side by side? really, that must be the dumbest idea ever.
Also a high resolution display wont happen yet, try plain real racing 2 hd in double the ipad's resolution. with the kind of peformance you have now. It wont work. Also you will kill the battery to power that screen.
You should know what difficultes apple will face using a resolution thats completly different from the other ones.
Doubling or resoultion independence is the only thing that will work for apple.
We could get a completly different resolution, but that will make all the 60 000 apps for ipad 1, obsolete for the ipad with a different res.
Dunno why this threads keep coming up, and why people with no knowledge pretend they are engineers. To iphone apps side by side? really, that must be the dumbest idea ever.
Also a high resolution display wont happen yet, try plain real racing 2 hd in double the ipad's resolution. with the kind of peformance you have now. It wont work. Also you will kill the battery to power that screen.
Exhibit A that there is no "right" answer -- just opinions.
Both of which have pros and cons.
You are both wrong.
But you are both right too.
It's OK. Especially on Fridays.
(Next Friday will be even better.)
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There would be. The difference in clarity compared to iPhone 4 is just too big.
I doubt most users hold the iPad at full arm's length all of the time.
Since you obviously haven't tried it, what makes you so sure? And even if games rendered at a lower resolution, most other apps could still benefit.
If you don't think the gpu has enough horse power, apple could stick a SGX543MP4 gpu in the next iPad like the NGP does. That would be quite a performer.
I agree.
1280x960 has three major advantages...
1. It's higher res that the Xoom which is currently leading the market as far as resolution on tablets goes. Apple shouldn't let a competing tablet have a higher resolution display than them, it's not their style and hurts their branding as the premium tablet.
2. It allows you to playback 720p content in it's native resolution without any downscaling. This is huge. iTunes HD movies are all uploaded at a 720p resolution, it would be nice if the iPad could take advantage of that resolution.
3. It's exactly twice the resolution of the iPhone. Having two iPhone apps running side by side on the iPad in native resolution, without any bezel or black bars would look fantastic.
1920x1440 would be awesome for the same reasons but with three iphone apps running natively side by side rather than two.
I agree.
1280x960 has three major advantages...
1. It's higher res that the Xoom which is currently leading the market as far as resolution on tablets goes. Apple shouldn't let a competing tablet have a higher resolution display than them, it's not their style and hurts their branding as the premium tablet.
2. It allows you to playback 720p content in it's native resolution without any downscaling. This is huge. iTunes HD movies are all uploaded at a 720p resolution, it would be nice if the iPad could take advantage of that resolution.
3. It's exactly twice the resolution of the iPhone. Having two iPhone apps running side by side on the iPad in native resolution, without any bezel or black bars would look fantastic.
1920x1440 would be awesome for the same reasons but with three iphone apps running natively side by side rather than two.
I think 1920x1440 would be awesome!
Or better yet, they should make the iPhone 5 1280 x 960 and the iPad 3 1920x1280.
The iPhone 5 would have double the resolution of the iPhone 4s to display two iPhone 4s apps side by side, and the iPad 3 would have double the resolution of the iPhone 5 and four times the resolution of the iPhone 4s.
Or better yet, they should make the iPhone 5 1280 x 960 and the iPad 3 1920x1280.
The iPhone 5 would have double the resolution of the iPhone 4s to display two iPhone 4s apps side by side, and the iPad 3 would have double the resolution of the iPhone 5 and four times the resolution of the iPhone 4s.