Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

iPad 2 Screen Likely to Have 2048x1536 resolution

fpnc said:
A further problem with the iPad-as-iPhone approach is that this largely ignores the competition's Tegra 2 CPU/GPU and it also tends to minimize the difficulty in producing a 2048x1536 9.7" LCD that could match the quality of the IPS display used in the current iPad. Making the jump to a 9.7" display at the so-called retina resolution (or near to that) is a lot more difficult than doing the same on the iPhone's 3.5" display (as someone said earlier, it's not simply the case of "gluing" together four or more iPhone screens to make one for the iPad). One of the reasons for this is that the manufacturing yield of LCDs is strongly influenced by the total square area of the display -- simply put, a larger display (by area) is more difficult to produce even if both products are at the same pixel density (pixels-per-inch).

Just try to compare the price on a 35" LCD HDTV to one at 97 inches (if you could find the latter, which I don't think you can) and note that a 97 inch, 1080p HDTV has a much lower pixel density than does the cheaper 35" set (I'm not trying to claim that the manufacturing problems and market dynamics are the same for HDTVs as they are for tablets, but this comparison should give you a hint as to why larger -- in area -- is not necessarily easy).
Click to expand...

Why does everyone seem to think that producing a screen at such a high resolution would be so much more expensive.

If as suggested you cannot identify individual pixels at such a high resolution what does it matter if some of the pixels are defective. You wouldn't even notice the dead pixels, where you would on a lower resolution screen.

Providing there aren't too many dead pixels adjacent to each other there is no reason a high res screen should be any more expensive than a lower res one.
 
URFloorMatt said:
...

To reduce some of their costs, I would expect they will introduce fewer models with less differentiation. All iPads will be 3G, and there will be only two storage capacities: 32 GB and 64 GB (plus whatever you want via SD card). From six models to two. And they'll keep the first gen iPad, probably wifi only (because of Verizon) and 16 GB, at a lower price. I'm guessing $349.
...
Click to expand...



I can see them keeping the iPad 1 (16GB) priced at $499; introducing the iPad 2 (32GB) at $599, replacing the equivalent iPad 1 (32gb) as you've mentioned.


P.
 
Last edited:
antic said:
Why does everyone seem to think that producing a screen at such a high resolution would be so much more expensive.

If as suggested you cannot identify individual pixels at such a high resolution what does it matter if some of the pixels are defective. You wouldn't even notice the dead pixels, where you would on a lower resolution screen.

Providing there aren't too many dead pixels adjacent to each other there is no reason a high res screen should be any more expensive than a lower res one.
Click to expand...
That might be a very good point if the functioning yield was always 100% (that is, you don't care if "some of the pixels are defective"). While accepting a few bad pixels could reduce costs the problem is that some panels just won't work and others will have rather catastrophic failure, like a complete row or column that is non-functional. The yield issues given area in semi-conductor and LCD panel production are well known. All things else being equal, you can't simply make a substrate larger and expect the same yields (that being, the percentage of acceptable or good parts). This is one of the reasons why CPU chips don't simply get larger and larger in area (to include more transistors and functions). Going larger is not simply a matter of materials cost, because catastrophic defects can be a function of area you soon reach a point where your yield will approach zero.

I'm not saying that it would be anything like impossible to produce a retina-like display for the iPad (since a 9.7" panel isn't really that huge), it's just that such a panel would likely be more expensive than you might expect (that is, if you simply try to scale up from the Retina display costs on the iPhone). There is also the problem of supply, the iPad is growing to be a true mass-market item and such products usually don't include cutting-edge technology. However, I'd admit that there might be scenarios where Apple could include a retina-like display on the next iPad while still holding costs to today's levels. The problem is, I think it would be pretty difficult for Apple to do that while also making significant upgrades in other areas (some of which could be critical for the next iPad). If your argument then turns to, "Well, just increase the price" then maybe I could accept that but I'm not certain that the market would. So, yes, we could see a 2048x1536 display on the next iPad but what are you going to sacrifice to get there? Cost, competitive performance, or some other features, you be the judge.
 
vixducis said:
It's been said before: these pixel densities are only affordable at small displays. These resolutions would mean the ipad has 85% of the pixels of the 27" apple displays, which are also led and ips, but very expensive. Also: the graphics processor in the ipad would have to be a whole lot better to support all those pixels.
Click to expand...

Very expensive, but last I read, Apple was purchasing screens in bulk - 40million (or was it 65 million) for 2011.

If the graphics processor is the faster SGX model, in addition to a faster memory bus, there's your bandwidth.
 
i would like to add that i still find this unbelievable.
what if this has something to do with the mac's app store's ibooks?

however, if this is true on the second gen ipad, i am already convinced i want it. no matter what other stuff has been added. this is good enough to get me to buy the newer ipad.
someone wants a 32gb ipad 3g? 😛
 
iPad rocks since it penetrate the market. God knows what the price would be if
ipad-2 comes up with such a high resolution.
 
yettie2 said:
This is my first post but after reading through this thread I decided to do a little research. It turns out that the iPhone 3gS screen cost Apple approximately $19.25 and the "retina" display on the iPhone 4 cost Apple $28.50 representing a 48% increase in screen cost to double the screen's linear resolution. These numbers aren't exact but I have my sources below (found from iSuppli, a company that does a lot of this stuff). The screen on the current iPad is estimated to cost around $80. Using the 48% as a guess for the price increase that would put the proposed 2048x1536 iPad 2 screen at around $118.44 . Considering that it is estimated the iPad costs as little as $219 for apple to actually make, a $40 cut in profits doesn't seem too bad, especially considering that it will badly hurt the competition. As for the A4 chip, since Apple makes it in house it is only estimated to cost $10.75 . Given Moore's law and a small price increase, the A5 might be more powerful than we thing although power draw will be interesting to manage.]
Click to expand...

The suggested resolution is about 5 times that of the iPhone 4 if the cost of that display is $28.5, another optimistic estimate would be five times that at $142.5. You can still see damaged pixels in the matrix as people have been doing with the iPhone 4. Pixel count does cost money, 16:10 displays are substantially more expensive than 16:9 although also because the latter apect ratio dominates TVs and low cost displays.

If the rumor turned out to be true it would change our idea of the mobile display and push the limits of what current technology can do.
I think a smaller bump in resolution sounds more realistic and maybe add subpixel rendering of fonts, that would be a big a improvement. Pixel quadroupling as a means to simplify scaling seems overrated, you don't do 2K (4:3) to simplify things.
 
PBF said:
Awww, guys, you're in for some massive disappointment come April: the leaked graphics are for the iBooks app for Mac App Store.

Kill your excitement ASAP (for your own good)!!!
Click to expand...
And why exactly is the file called “bookmark-ribbon-iPad@2x.png” ???
 
Brauni said:
And why exactly is the file called “bookmark-ribbon-iPad@2x.png” ???
Click to expand...

you have no idea how easy it is to chance a name. it could be to fool us.
But how do you know for certain that thats the name in the SDK or firmware?
source link? i have seen ipad2x but maby they called it that way because they wanted to spice up the rumours.
 
PhazonUK said:
I really don't see this happening. 2048x1536 (or whatever it is) would be INSANE on a 10" screen. Not to mention the horsepower needed to run this thing smoothly and the battery power...and weight......and cost.

The number of rumors about it and now this make it seem as if they are really doing it...but I won't believe it until I see Steve announce it.
Click to expand...

It's always nice to have such strong opinions from people who have no idea what talking about. This post is a mirror image of the entire first page.

Typical macrumors. Nothing but users, with zero technical knowledge.
 
I can't imagine it being that high. That amount of pixels on a mobile device would be insane. How much battery would you have to have to power a GPU to display that!! You'd be charging the iPad every couple of hours, unless apple has some new amazing battery up their sleeve. which i don't doubt really.
when it due out? about april time i am guessing.
 
Quick Calculations

2048x1536 = 3,145,728 pixels

Arn mentioned that the "SGX543 is said to deliver performance of 35 million polygons per second and a filtrate of 1 billion pixels per second when running at 200 MHz"

Thats 1 Billion pixels per second. Event at a 30 frames a second, we've only filled 94,371,840 pixels. Thats about a 10th of the GPU's capacity. You can bet Apple has room to underclock this puppy and keep the power draw low.
 
fpnc said:
Besides that, Apple needs millions, and millions, and millions of displays for the next iPad and I can't see them taking a supply risk by going to a new, more difficult to manufacture, and vastly more expensive part.
Click to expand...

Wouldn't that make it... billions?

dr-evil.jpg
 
1920x1600 has been available on 13" notebook screens for the past 4 years or so. Apple's own macbook air can drive an 11.6 inch screen at 1366x768 with ease and that is with a relatively power hungry Core 2 Duo/Nvidia 320 package. The A4 iphone 4 can handle driving 960x480 with ease on a 3.5 inch screen. We can yet only guess what an "A5" processor could do in terms of performance and battery life and doing so on a 9.7 inch display @ 2048x1536 is possible. The Cost of having a 2048x1536 display is high but hey an extra $100 or $200 on the price of an ipad will hardly deter those seeking the best. Apple could still offer the current ipad at rock bottom prices while having a high resolution model at the $700-$1000 price range.

Meh.... but this is just my own relatively naive and uninformed layman's perspective on the issue. I suppose my faith in this happening is based on Apple's track record of never ceasing to amaze.😉
 
Mac app version?

If I may guess I would say this could refer to a Mac version of the iBook App, the resolution is close to that of the new iMac.They just disguise it in an iPad name.
You know Apple and secrecy.

Edit:
Lok like some other people have the same idea, it's hard to go through 15 page.
 
iCeltic said:
If I may guess I would say this could refer to a Mac version of the iBook App, the resolution is close to that of the new iMac.They just disguise it in an iPad name.
You know Apple and secrecy.

Edit:
Lok like some other people have the same idea, it's hard to go through 15 page.
Click to expand...

exactly the same idea. there is simply no way that 9,7inch screen will have a bigger resolution of our full HD 1 meter TV.
 
AZREOSpecialist said:
The article is actually incorrect in when it says Apple is "doubling" the resolution. By doubling the pixel dimensions, which is what we are talking about, you are actually QUADRUPLING the resolution and number of pixels.

It's 4x resolution, not 2x.
Click to expand...

Well as a photographer and a pixel snob, I would be happy as heck to look at my photos on a screen with this pixel density, after having the iPhone 4 since it was released, it is hard to look at the resolution of the current iPads. I for one say bring on the pixels, the more the merrier...
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7E18 Safari/528.16)

borgqueenx said:
iCeltic said:
If I may guess I would say this could refer to a Mac version of the iBook App, the resolution is close to that of the new iMac.They just disguise it in an iPad name.
You know Apple and secrecy.

Edit:
Lok like some other people have the same idea, it's hard to go through 15 page.
Click to expand...

exactly the same idea. there is simply no way that 9,7inch screen will have a bigger resolution of our full HD 1 meter TV.
Click to expand...

Why, exactly? There are 22-inch monitors with twice the resolution of your full HD one-meter TV.
 
nokq said:
2048x1536 = 3,145,728 pixels

Arn mentioned that the "SGX543 is said to deliver performance of 35 million polygons per second and a filtrate of 1 billion pixels per second when running at 200 MHz"

Thats 1 Billion pixels per second. Event at a 30 frames a second, we've only filled 94,371,840 pixels. Thats about a 10th of the GPU's capacity. You can bet Apple has room to underclock this puppy and keep the power draw low.
Click to expand...

There is marketing BS, and there is reality. The billion pixels is under the best possible circumstances, like filling the complete screen in white color. Try copying an image, slightly scaled, with a bit of gamma correction, and your pixel rate drops so far you wouldn't believe it. That is before we get into what 3D games do, like running pixelshaders. And your calculation assumes that each pixel is only drawn once, which isn't true either.
 
I have to admit that I was a non-believer about the resolution doubling (4x pixel count) for ipad2.

This tells me that the screen component cost is not nearly as high as I thought it was (and/or that Apple is willing to accept further compressed margins), AND that the horsepower of whatever CPU/GPU will live inside the iPad2 is much more powerful than I otherwise expected.

I CAN'T RECALL EVER BEFORE HAVING BEEN SO HAPPY TO BE WRONG!! 😀
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back