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iPad 1 vs 3...I SEE no difference

I brought my iPad 2 into BestBuy this weekend to compare it to the iPAd 3 (new iPad). The screen on the new iPad is a little better than the iPad 2. But I do not think it is a huge difference. I always was impressed with the iPad 2 screen. The difference in screen from the iPhone 3GS to the iPhone 4 was HUGE, but the difference in screen from the iPad 2 to the iPad 3 is minor, in my opinion.
 
Things definitely don't work the way they should, but I bet it'll get fixed. Open the following link on the iPad2 and iPad3, while holding the device in the horizontal orientation, so the image is as big as possible.
http://img29.imageshack.us/img29/1769/retinatest.jpg

Both the old and the new iPad resizes the image to 912x684, even though the source image is 3648x2736. This size makes sense for the old iPad, but it makes no sense on the new one. Because of the resizing, they will look almost the same. The expiration on the license plate is not readable on either device.

Now, hold your finger on the image and tap "Save Image". It will save the full sized image to the "Photos" application. Open it up on both devices and don't pinch zoom. On the retina display, I can read "2012 Ford" under the expiration date. On the old iPad, it's just a gray smudge.

So it depends on how you are viewing you images. They might look the same or the retina might look quite a bit better. Safari in my opinion is broken because it doesn't resize images correctly for the retina screen.
 
throAU said:
All of the above. Any text, anywhere.
Click to expand...

Careful... not everywhere.

Examples:
TheEconomist app is updated, text is retina crisp. Like reading the print edition.

WallStreetJournal app isn't updated, text is iPad2 level and appears fuzzy/jagged on the new iPad.
 
gnagy said:
Things definitely don't work the way they should, but I bet it'll get fixed. Open the following link on the iPad2 and iPad3, while holding the device in the horizontal orientation, so the image is as big as possible.
http://img29.imageshack.us/img29/1769/retinatest.jpg

....Safari in my opinion is broken because it doesn't resize images correctly for the retina screen.
Click to expand...

yes I saw this bug/design stupidity on MR today regarding Safari but I wonder if the email systems and/or other systems in ios are down scaling. If someone wants to email me a few test pics just private message me here and we can go back and forth with some tests.

All: sorry for the late reply here...I had lung surgery the other day. :(
 
I can send you a copy of this photo later in the day. It is night and day from my iPad 1 to the new iPad. My original is bigger, but even the lower sized 1920x1536 version that I had loaded on my new iPad is drastically better than on my iPad 1. I have not tried to compare to he iPad 2.

9cb20e55.jpg
 
You don't notice the better color saturation with the new iPad either? Photos were the biggest difference. But I use portfolio to load my picture on the iPad. Didn't check with the built in photo app to see if there was a difference. But I do have photos I shot as my lock screen and background, and those were noticeable as soon as the initial part of the restore from backup was done.


I would have to agree with other's posts, either the photos are being compressed or something either via email or what have you, or there is something wrong with the iPad.
 
bajaracing said:
Awesome pic Hammie! Love the ip3 screen & speed on LTE..
Click to expand...

Thanks, and that is still compressed compared to the one actually on my iPad. :D

My 60-some year old mother-in-law noticed immediately the difference of the new iPad's screen. Actually, everyone has. My photography has really POPPED with this new screen. Love showing people my pictures now. :cool:
 
Hammie said:
I can send you a copy of this photo later in the day. It is night and day from my iPad 1 to the new iPad. My original is bigger, but even the lower sized 1920x1536 version that I had loaded on my new iPad is drastically better than on my iPad 1. I have not tried to compare to he iPad 2.
Click to expand...

thanks for the test photo! So here is what I did:

1. Surfed to this forum on iPad 1 and 3 and saved your pic to the photo album
2. Then I opened the pic on each iPad for the photo album side by side.

To my eyes, they are identical or very very very very very similar. Even zooming in all the way. I have asked 2 others to look with me and they agree there is no difference.

What difference are you folks seeing with this grasshopper picture between iPad 1 and 3? I was expecting the zoom to be incredibly better on the 3 and it is not. I was expecting hi res pix like these to be much sharper and generally look better on the 3. I would be shocked to find that my great eyes cannot tell the diff between a 1024x768 resolution (iPad 1) and the very high res in the iPad 3. I've been using computer monitors at 1600x1200 for over a decade.

If others here could test the above grasshopper photo on the iPad 1 and 3 that would be great....and to be precise on what you are experiencing.

In my view, either my eyes truly cannot distinguish above 1024x768 ( any articles/stats about this? Would seem odd if us humans cannot see above this range yet the computer industry far exceeded 1024x768 back in the early 90s) or my iPad 3 is defective or I was not sold a 3 (my model reports MC706LL)

Thanks so much in advance!

P.s. I think apple should have some test photos for people to use to prove their case.
 
ImperialX said:
There is a huge difference with photos. I suspect your photos were compressed or shrunk in resolution when you transferred.
Click to expand...

Please tell me how you are testing/comparing....what apps are you using, how did you get the pix?
 
ericinboston said:
thanks for the test photo! So here is what I did:

1. Surfed to this forum on iPad 1 and 3 and saved your pic to the photo album
2. Then I opened the pic on each iPad for the photo album side by side.

To my eyes, they are identical or very very very very very similar. Even zooming in all the way. I have asked 2 others to look with me and they agree there is no difference.

What difference are you folks seeing with this grasshopper picture between iPad 1 and 3? I was expecting the zoom to be incredibly better on the 3 and it is not. I was expecting hi res pix like these to be much sharper and generally look better on the 3. I would be shocked to find that my great eyes cannot tell the diff between a 1024x768 resolution (iPad 1) and the very high res in the iPad 3. I've been using computer monitors at 1600x1200 for over a decade.

If others here could test the above grasshopper photo on the iPad 1 and 3 that would be great....and to be precise on what you are experiencing.

In my view, either my eyes truly cannot distinguish above 1024x768 ( any articles/stats about this? Would seem odd if us humans cannot see above this range yet the computer industry far exceeded 1024x768 back in the early 90s) or my iPad 3 is defective or I was not sold a 3 (my model reports MC706LL)

Thanks so much in advance!

P.s. I think apple should have some test photos for people to use to prove their case.
Click to expand...

lol zooming a photo in all the way is not going to show an improvement in resolution on a display. getting closer physically to it will.
 
ericinboston said:
thanks for the test photo! So here is what I did:

1. Surfed to this forum on iPad 1 and 3 and saved your pic to the photo album
2. Then I opened the pic on each iPad for the photo album side by side.

To my eyes, they are identical or very very very very very similar. Even zooming in all the way. I have asked 2 others to look with me and they agree there is no difference.

What difference are you folks seeing with this grasshopper picture between iPad 1 and 3? I was expecting the zoom to be incredibly better on the 3 and it is not. I was expecting hi res pix like these to be much sharper and generally look better on the 3. I would be shocked to find that my great eyes cannot tell the diff between a 1024x768 resolution (iPad 1) and the very high res in the iPad 3. I've been using computer monitors at 1600x1200 for over a decade.

If others here could test the above grasshopper photo on the iPad 1 and 3 that would be great....and to be precise on what you are experiencing.

In my view, either my eyes truly cannot distinguish above 1024x768 ( any articles/stats about this? Would seem odd if us humans cannot see above this range yet the computer industry far exceeded 1024x768 back in the early 90s) or my iPad 3 is defective or I was not sold a 3 (my model reports MC706LL)

Thanks so much in advance!

P.s. I think apple should have some test photos for people to use to prove their case.
Click to expand...

The photo posted here is very compressed. Send me a PM and I will send you a clean photo at original resolution. That will be a better way to view it than this. Because even on my new iPad, this looks worse than the original saved in my local iPad photo album.

BTW, the size is 3089x2471 and is about 5MB after export to JPEG from RAW.
 
Last edited:
ericinboston said:
Please tell me how you are testing/comparing....what apps are you using, how did you get the pix?
Click to expand...

Take the photo with any DSLR at more than your iPad 3's resolution and transfer the photos to Goodreader. Then open the images and you will see the difference. You don't even need a very sharp lens. Even kit lens will do.

Dropbox and all that all degrade the photos so don't bother with that.
 
ImperialX said:
Take the photo with any DSLR at more than your iPad 3's resolution and transfer the photos to Goodreader. Then open the images and you will see the difference. You don't even need a very sharp lens. Even kit lens will do.

Dropbox and all that all degrade the photos so don't bother with that.
Click to expand...

Dropbox degrades the pix!?!? I was told they do not.

In general how is the average user supposed to view beautiful pix on the iPad if Safari downscales and the camera is fair?!? Where are we told how to look at our great pix?! I'm pretty pissed now that apple supposedly has this wonderful display yet I can't ________ing use it!!!!!
 
ericinboston said:
Dropbox degrades the pix!?!? I was told they do not.

In general how is the average user supposed to view beautiful pix on the iPad if Safari downscales and the camera is fair?!? Where are we told how to look at our great pix?! I'm pretty pissed now that apple supposedly has this wonderful display yet I can't ________ing use it!!!!!
Click to expand...

Eric,

Message sent. I also e-mailed it to myself and my son, so I am going to see what it looks like on each of them. Additionally, I am going to open it on iPhoto on the iPad and see what sizing, etc. it shows.

Let us know what you see.

EDIT: I compared the picture that I e-mailed you on both the new iPad and the iPad 2. I got each iPad to about the same brightness and the same zoom level. They are close, but the new iPad has better coloring and is sharper around the edges. If you zoom in to the max, it is significantly sharper on the new iPad. The iPad two looks a little washed out and the lines of the body parts sort of run together.

If you just quickly look at each, there may not appear to be a difference between the two, but if you do look closely and do a side by side, there is a difference.

I will admit that the most obvious difference is with text from apps like iBooks or Kindle.
 
Last edited:
Hammie said:
Eric,

Message sent. I also e-mailed it to myself and my son, so I am going to see what it looks like on each of them. Additionally, I am going to open it on iPhoto on the iPad and see what sizing, etc. it shows.

Let us know what you see.
Click to expand...

Hi all....I got the full quality pic via email and saved it on my iPad 3 and it looks better than the same pic that was saved from safari. I also opened up the email on the iPad 1 and compared the 2 iPads of the full quality pix and there is a difference....but it is not nit and day. Possibly it's just not the right pic to compare....I notice the difference when I zoom in....but again , it's not earth shattering.


So how do people put their beautiful dslr pix on the iPad? I always emailed them to myself. I really don't want to use the iTunes sync feature. I also have an app called photo transfer which will copy pix to/from a computer or iOS device....this should not alter the pix but I will ask the author.

One of the big reasons I bought the iPad 3 was to see our dslr pix in glorious hi definition such as with the Slideshow feature. Any tips and advice on my above questions would be greatly appreciated....on a side note, I think apple is really misleading end users with the safari downscaling....technically there is no reason to muck around like that....especially after ll the ads show glorious photos and such.

----------
ImperialX said:
Take the photo with any DSLR at more than your iPad 3's resolution and transfer the photos to Goodreader. Then open the images and you will see the difference. You don't even need a very sharp lens. Even kit lens will do.

Dropbox and all that all degrade the photos so don't bother with that.
Click to expand...

Can you please elaborate on how to transfer the pix wiith good reader?
 
Paulywauly said:
Respectfully, i have to agree with this post too and my eyesight is very poor. If its really not better could it not be faulty?
Click to expand...

I am very nearsighted and can tell a huge difference between ipad 1 (which I have) and the 3. There is no comparison to how much clearer the ipad 3 is.

----------
Hammie said:
I can send you a copy of this photo later in the day. It is night and day from my iPad 1 to the new iPad. My original is bigger, but even the lower sized 1920x1536 version that I had loaded on my new iPad is drastically better than on my iPad 1. I have not tried to compare to he iPad 2.

Image
Click to expand...

That picture is awesome!! :D
 
TonicAngel said:
I am very nearsighted and can tell a huge difference between ipad 1 (which I have) and the 3. There is no comparison to how much clearer the ipad 3 is.

----------



That picture is awesome!! :D
Click to expand...

Once again I ask....please give specifics and great detail on how your are seeing such a difference....I'd like to replicate it so I need you to tell me what you are viewing, etc. thanks.
 
gnagy said:
Things definitely don't work the way they should, but I bet it'll get fixed. Open the following link on the iPad2 and iPad3, while holding the device in the horizontal orientation, so the image is as big as possible.
http://img29.imageshack.us/img29/1769/retinatest.jpg

Both the old and the new iPad resizes the image to 912x684, even though the source image is 3648x2736. This size makes sense for the old iPad, but it makes no sense on the new one. Because of the resizing, they will look almost the same. The expiration on the license plate is not readable on either device.

Now, hold your finger on the image and tap "Save Image". It will save the full sized image to the "Photos" application. Open it up on both devices and don't pinch zoom. On the retina display, I can read "2012 Ford" under the expiration date. On the old iPad, it's just a gray smudge.

So it depends on how you are viewing you images. They might look the same or the retina might look quite a bit better. Safari in my opinion is broken because it doesn't resize images correctly for the retina screen.
Click to expand...


Have you tried my test case? Save that photo using Safari, and open it using the "Photos" application. The license plate has small text on it, which should be readable on the iPad 3 and not readable on the iPad 2. Don't use pinch zoom. If you zoom in, the text will be readable on both devices. The difference is that on the new iPad, you no longer need to pinch zoom to see it (assuming you have good eyes).
 
ericinboston said:
Once again I ask....please give specifics and great detail on how your are seeing such a difference....I'd like to replicate it so I need you to tell me what you are viewing, etc. thanks.
Click to expand...

Honestly, I am comparing text and the overall sharpness of the screen. My ipad 1 looked almost blurry in comparison. Now far away with no contacts in, both look blurry ;) :D Overall the screen on the Ipad 3 is just crisper in text and in photos (that are high resolution) as is HD video. I'm not sure what "tests" you can do if you do not see a difference because it is very striking to me. I guess a test could be - Snoopys Fair looks super sharp on the ipad when zoomed in and more pixelated on ipad 1.
 
It's hard to believe that you can't tell the difference. My photo albums imported through iTunes are so much better that we spend a few hours, just to browse through our holiday pics again....




actually the best way to see the difference is using the iPad-page on apple:

http://www.apple.com/ipad/

Depending on the iPad you;re using, you'll get either the normal pic, or the higher res one.
 
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