Of course second guessing Apple is a pointless exercise really with a totally new product line like this I would expect any company that had the majority market share already to go on an all-out offensive to defend that share!
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iPad 2 resolution will stay the same
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Maybe there'll be two iPad models - one with 1024x768 and one with 2048x1536.
I don't agree with Gruber's point about the iPhone 4 taking so long to get a 'retina' display. Apple's created a marketing term, and they need to give the iPad such a display - anything non-retina in a small mobile device isn't good anymore, according to Apple.
Going from the iPhone 4 to the iPad is horrible - I notice the quality difference right away.
I don't agree with Gruber's point about the iPhone 4 taking so long to get a 'retina' display. Apple's created a marketing term, and they need to give the iPad such a display - anything non-retina in a small mobile device isn't good anymore, according to Apple.
Going from the iPhone 4 to the iPad is horrible - I notice the quality difference right away.
No retina on iPad 2? No buy for me...
1) iPad IPS LCD is indeed nice with viewing angles and color. Unfortunately the small pixel density makes everything a bit blurry (not as sharp).
2) iPad RAM is pathetic. 256MB isn't nearly enough for safari.
3) A4 cpu is fast but I'd like the safari to render pages even faster.
4) Volume is too quiet on current iPad.
5) Battery life is very good - if iPad 2 is the same, it would be great
6) Games run with stuttering compared to ip4 counterpart. But you have 1024x768 vs 960x640. More gpu power is needed.
The competition is heating up - if you don't throw in something to capture us buyers, it's pretty much gonna be I'll look at alternatives. The SCREEN on the iPad is the single most important component. It is a multimedia consuming device and the screen is so vital, it's almost a requirement to have a nice screen vs. any other component built in. IPS LCD was a fab choice for sharing video with more than one person viewing at the same time. But the pixel density is not as good now that you can push 960x640 on a phone. 9.7" with double the pixel resolution would be amazing. I can see that if the iPad2 sports a new screen with double the resolution, it will be a sure win compared to anything else on the market in 2011. Apple isn't that dumb I hope unless they are so greedy for profit margins they are willing to resell the same old iPad 1 screen and package small parts into the ipad2.
So my point is that it's gonna be more than 50% sure that the next gen iPad will have some definite screen enhancements...if not double the pixels, at least something to make it stand out among the competition. If they don't release something new and keep the same old lcd, I would definitely NOT upgrade my ipad1.
1) iPad IPS LCD is indeed nice with viewing angles and color. Unfortunately the small pixel density makes everything a bit blurry (not as sharp).
2) iPad RAM is pathetic. 256MB isn't nearly enough for safari.
3) A4 cpu is fast but I'd like the safari to render pages even faster.
4) Volume is too quiet on current iPad.
5) Battery life is very good - if iPad 2 is the same, it would be great
6) Games run with stuttering compared to ip4 counterpart. But you have 1024x768 vs 960x640. More gpu power is needed.
The competition is heating up - if you don't throw in something to capture us buyers, it's pretty much gonna be I'll look at alternatives. The SCREEN on the iPad is the single most important component. It is a multimedia consuming device and the screen is so vital, it's almost a requirement to have a nice screen vs. any other component built in. IPS LCD was a fab choice for sharing video with more than one person viewing at the same time. But the pixel density is not as good now that you can push 960x640 on a phone. 9.7" with double the pixel resolution would be amazing. I can see that if the iPad2 sports a new screen with double the resolution, it will be a sure win compared to anything else on the market in 2011. Apple isn't that dumb I hope unless they are so greedy for profit margins they are willing to resell the same old iPad 1 screen and package small parts into the ipad2.
So my point is that it's gonna be more than 50% sure that the next gen iPad will have some definite screen enhancements...if not double the pixels, at least something to make it stand out among the competition. If they don't release something new and keep the same old lcd, I would definitely NOT upgrade my ipad1.
Maybe there will be a high end option? With the adoption rate of corporations, the popularity in developing markets and obvious use for the iPad in an education setting, maybe Apple realizes they need multiple products.
They are very diverse markets with different needs. I would think Apple would want to avoid supply constraint by offering 2 display options.
Good - iPad 1.5 - lowered price or redesign to be lighter (to compete in education and with ebook readers)
Better - iPad 2 - front and rear camera, whiz-bang® chip (to compete with tablets on the market today)
Best - iPad 2.5 - front and rear camera, whiz-bang® chip, retina display (to make anyone thinking of getting into the tablet market go back to the drawing board)
They are very diverse markets with different needs. I would think Apple would want to avoid supply constraint by offering 2 display options.
Good - iPad 1.5 - lowered price or redesign to be lighter (to compete in education and with ebook readers)
Better - iPad 2 - front and rear camera, whiz-bang® chip (to compete with tablets on the market today)
Best - iPad 2.5 - front and rear camera, whiz-bang® chip, retina display (to make anyone thinking of getting into the tablet market go back to the drawing board)
It's quite simple really.
Apple had 2010 all to itself really on the Tablet front and made a load of money from being the No.1 out there.
Android tablets. Proper ones, are now only one hill top away and if Apple doe snot move fast and decisive in a big way, Android will be right up there, and Apple will find itself in a direct battle in the market against a dozen or more tablets, all looking very nice, and many boating specs around the same as Apple or even better and they will steal sales.
If Apple want to avoid this and totally blow all their advantage, they cannot do the typical Apple thing of a little tweak each year.
It would almost be criminal of Apple to throw away the giant advantage then have today, so that in 2 years time, they are just 1 of many on the shelves and being outsold.
Apple cannot rely just on blind brand loyalty to stay No.1
I hope they are brave enough, and not greedy NOW, to understand they need to perhaps take less profit short term to totally nail the competition and kill them in their tracks by blowing them away with the iPad2.
Apple had 2010 all to itself really on the Tablet front and made a load of money from being the No.1 out there.
Android tablets. Proper ones, are now only one hill top away and if Apple doe snot move fast and decisive in a big way, Android will be right up there, and Apple will find itself in a direct battle in the market against a dozen or more tablets, all looking very nice, and many boating specs around the same as Apple or even better and they will steal sales.
If Apple want to avoid this and totally blow all their advantage, they cannot do the typical Apple thing of a little tweak each year.
It would almost be criminal of Apple to throw away the giant advantage then have today, so that in 2 years time, they are just 1 of many on the shelves and being outsold.
Apple cannot rely just on blind brand loyalty to stay No.1
I hope they are brave enough, and not greedy NOW, to understand they need to perhaps take less profit short term to totally nail the competition and kill them in their tracks by blowing them away with the iPad2.
1365 x 1024 looks possible to me, not to high to have a good price and power efficiency and high enough for reading. In current landscape mode the screen is also 1024 pixels wide and it works great already.
They could launch a product 5 years' ahead of the opposition and still people on here will be moaning!
iBooks is not part of iOS 4.3, it is a separate app that you can download from the App Store, and I believe that larger bookmark has been their since December 2010 (if I remember the article correctly), but just recently discovered.
I've already speculated on this. However, even without going into technicalities, given that there's currently 6 iPad variants, this would double to 12 with a display choice.
Would be an inventory nightmare!
I completely agree. Conventional wisdom regarding Apple's upgrade-habits (i. e. deliver the smallest spec bump they can get away with at the highest price point they can get away with) will not apply to the next iPad. At least it shouldn't, if Apple are smart, and they are. They're really holding all the chips in the tablet market: if they knock it out of the park with iPad 2 and deliver a stunning device that basically sends the makers of as-yet unreleased Android tablets (and RIM, I guess) back to the drawing board, they will have 2011 mainly to themselves. The iPad will become entrenched in consumers' minds as the de-facto "standard" tablet. If, however, Apple only release a typical incremental upgrade - say, a slight spec bump, same resolution, FaceTime - they put themselves into a dangerous position. Upcoming Android-tablets will have dual-core CPUs and blazingly fast GPUs, a ton of RAM, and great displays - and Honeycomb looks quite good. Apple would do best to nip this competition in the bud by releasing an iPad that makes everyone else cower in fear and shame. This is why I think a Retina Display is still quite likely.
Two additional things to consider: Gruber's statements could be misdirection, spread in order to make the announcement of an iPad with a Retina Display all the more stunning. Think of the 1000$ price point that was floated last year. Furthermore, Apple have kind of painted themselves into a corner marketing-wise. They've introduced consumers to this "Retina Display" technology which basically makes every other display look like crap, so people are going to expect Apple to use this technology in their whole iOS line-up. The iPod Touch already got the Retina treatment, and the iPad should too. The gulf between iPad and iPhone 4 in terms of image quality is already embarrassing.
totally agreed.... a 2048x1536 display will send EVERY single Android Blackberry and HP Palm tablets back to the drawing board - esp if they can keep $499. Apple can also offer carrier-subsidized tablets, thus drastically lowering the barrier of entry (say $299 ipad with 2 year 3G contract but also with Retina).
and if no one else can source these high-res screens for at least 12 months, the whole Android 3.0 Honeycomb hype would become DEAD-ON-ARRIVAL. no one would care about their quad-core CPUs with 4GB of ram if their screen is still "so 2010"
M
Mr.damien
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This is not very accurate. It's not because the image is not as high as the retina display that:
1. Apple could not provide a new one, with the new release.
2. That the camera view will use the whole screen. We can imagine that the view is in the middle and that you have setting around the picture / library / etc ...
Exactly. Most users won't care or understand the difference between specs with competing tablets as far as CPU, RAM, etc goes. But everyone will be able to see the difference if Apple goes with a super-hi-res display! It is the single most important feature than iPad2 could have from a purely business point of view.
Whatever the truth behind the new resolution of the iPad2:
To keep it the same resolution would be unfortunate.
Look at what happened when they unveiled it last year--the others backed out, backed down, gave up, cried in darkened corners of their boardrooms. It was too inexpensive, too compact, too long a battery life, too completely designed for most others to compete.
To keep it the same resolution would be unfortunate.
True, dat. If they can up the iPad enough at this stage they might completely crush the competition which is going to rise into the iPad's spot over the next couple years.
Look at what happened when they unveiled it last year--the others backed out, backed down, gave up, cried in darkened corners of their boardrooms. It was too inexpensive, too compact, too long a battery life, too completely designed for most others to compete.
I don't think the case has been totally made that Android is going to be a great competitor to iPad in terms of price, marketing, and stickiness to a user base, besides this point - there is a more realistic and better way to send OEMs back to the drawing board than a really expensive display - turning the $499 iPad into the new $399 iPad.
I would expect that Apple wants to wait until the first wave of Android-based tablets is released, and then release a new iPad that makes them look like yesterday's news. I would also expect Apple to have a seven inch iPad as close as ready as possible, which would go on sale _if_ seven inch tablets sell in meaningful numbers but not otherwise.
At this point things are locked in. The iPad 2 will arrive with whatever specs Apple has given it.
As far as speculation goes...
As many have pointed out above, the iPad will eventually get a double resolution display. Intermediate resolutions present a lot of problems. If Apple waits till next year then it will be a me too thing. If they do it this year they will crush the competition. It will give Apple at least one more year with the field to themselves in order to establish the iPad as the de facto standard. You have to think that they have looked at this carefully, whether they chose to do it now or not.
The iPhone 4 has an IPS display with a much higher PPI than that proposed for the iPad 2 so the technology for making displays of this resolution is clearly available.
Larger IPS displays with comparable resolution are on the market.
HP ZR30W 30" 2560x1600 street price about $1,100
HP ZR24W 24" 1920x1200 street price about $400
Clearly a 10" display would cost a lot less than $400. Maybe $200? And that is a retail price. The buy in cost for just the panel itself would be much less. Now consider that these HP displays are sold in low volume to niche markets and that Apple will be buying these in the millions and you have to think that a price low enough for an iPad is plausible.
I can easily see Apple selling the current iPad at a lower price and then selling iPad 2 with this great display for >$500. Keeping a model with the current display would be a hedge in case of problems with the high rez display.
Apple is often conservative in some product specs, but at other times it has pushed the envelope. The first iMac dropped the floppy disk and added USB ports. When the DVD burner was introduced to the PowerMac it was pretty amazing. When the Cinema Display was first introduced it was an amazing bit of technology. The unibody MBP and the MBA are aggressive designs. It is not unprecedented for Apple to make a bold move. The unibody MBP, the battery for the MBP and the MBA all required investing in custom tooling in advance of the launch as would this display.
Having said all that I wish Apple would knock this rumor down quickly if it is wrong. I hate talking myself into something like this only to be disappointed on launch day.
As far as speculation goes...
As many have pointed out above, the iPad will eventually get a double resolution display. Intermediate resolutions present a lot of problems. If Apple waits till next year then it will be a me too thing. If they do it this year they will crush the competition. It will give Apple at least one more year with the field to themselves in order to establish the iPad as the de facto standard. You have to think that they have looked at this carefully, whether they chose to do it now or not.
The iPhone 4 has an IPS display with a much higher PPI than that proposed for the iPad 2 so the technology for making displays of this resolution is clearly available.
Larger IPS displays with comparable resolution are on the market.
HP ZR30W 30" 2560x1600 street price about $1,100
HP ZR24W 24" 1920x1200 street price about $400
Clearly a 10" display would cost a lot less than $400. Maybe $200? And that is a retail price. The buy in cost for just the panel itself would be much less. Now consider that these HP displays are sold in low volume to niche markets and that Apple will be buying these in the millions and you have to think that a price low enough for an iPad is plausible.
I can easily see Apple selling the current iPad at a lower price and then selling iPad 2 with this great display for >$500. Keeping a model with the current display would be a hedge in case of problems with the high rez display.
Apple is often conservative in some product specs, but at other times it has pushed the envelope. The first iMac dropped the floppy disk and added USB ports. When the DVD burner was introduced to the PowerMac it was pretty amazing. When the Cinema Display was first introduced it was an amazing bit of technology. The unibody MBP and the MBA are aggressive designs. It is not unprecedented for Apple to make a bold move. The unibody MBP, the battery for the MBP and the MBA all required investing in custom tooling in advance of the launch as would this display.
Having said all that I wish Apple would knock this rumor down quickly if it is wrong. I hate talking myself into something like this only to be disappointed on launch day.
Anyone who expects anything at all other than the obvious stuff (FaceTime, thinner, faster, etc) is probably gonna be disappointed about something missing.
It's better to let Apple surprise you than to go in expecting be amazed. They most likely have something special in store for the iPad 2, but it might not be a retina display.