That's why we believe, if anyone can pull it off, it'll be Apple who puts such high res display onto a 10" mobile device. Apple sells so many of the said 10" device that they can convince LCD manufacturers to invest and develop new process for the high res display due to the sheer amount of volume they'll generate.
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iPad 2 Screen Likely to Have 2048x1536 resolution
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That's why we believe, if anyone can pull it off, it'll be Apple who puts such high res display onto a 10" mobile device. Apple sells so many of the said 10" device that they can convince LCD manufacturers to invest and develop new process for the high res display due to the sheer amount of volume they'll generate.
This thread reminds me of a rumor on here that the iPhone 4 had 512 MB of RAM (now we know that's true). There was a whole bunch of people claiming that the iPhone 4 couldn't have 512 MB of RAM because the iPad only had 256 MB of RAM. Well we obviously know that isn't true.
Just because your 24 inch iMac doesn't have this resolution, doesn't mean the iPad isn't going to have it.
Just because your 24 inch iMac doesn't have this resolution, doesn't mean the iPad isn't going to have it.
A few points for the skeptics:
1. Cost: display panels, pretty much like any other tech component, get cheaper when manufactured in bulk, and a lot cheaper when manufactured is massive numbers. Apple and their suppliers know they will be making millions of these. Apple will basically get these at a commodity price even though its a custom part. (also, no one but Apple can do this).
2. Performance: it's important to note that the only thing changing here would be the number of pixels. With desktops and notebooks, an increase in pixels typically goes hand-in-hand with an increase in content. E.g., 4x pixels means 4x the amount of text, 4x the amount of pictures, 4x the amount of UI elements, etc. But with the iPad, the 4x pixels isn't going to affect the amount of content on the display at one time. E.g., if you open a web page on the current iPad and on a "retina" iPad, you're still going to see the exact same amount of the HMTL. That's important because there are two things driving the processing needed to display content to screen: 1. the amount and complexity of the source and 2. the size of the destination. With a rentina iPad 1. stays exactly the same -- it's only the size of the destination that changes. For complex screens, 1. is almost always taking the lion's share of the processing time. 2. usually dominates when the screen is simple -- and in that case there isn't a performance problem in any case. (There are some exceptions to this, e.g., plotting a fractal.) E.g. consider:
- source geomertry requires 85% of processing, pushing pixels requires 15%. A retina iPad would only require 45% more processing than the current iPad; a difference an improved GPU can handle. In my experience, for most performance-sensitive scenarios, pushing pixels accounts for < 10% of processing, so the overall increase in display processing is going to be < 30%.
3. Battery life - with the overall increase in display processing < 30%, incremental battery improvements should be able to cover the difference (remember, display processing itself accounts for only a fraction of the overall battery usage.
4. Size & Weight - Since the overall increase of load on the battery will be small, incremental battery improvements should mean the device does not need to get any bigger nor significantly heavier.
5. iPhone 4 proves all of the points above. DPI was doubled, pixels were quadrupled but cost, performance, size, wieght, and battery life were not sacrificed.
1. Cost: display panels, pretty much like any other tech component, get cheaper when manufactured in bulk, and a lot cheaper when manufactured is massive numbers. Apple and their suppliers know they will be making millions of these. Apple will basically get these at a commodity price even though its a custom part. (also, no one but Apple can do this).
2. Performance: it's important to note that the only thing changing here would be the number of pixels. With desktops and notebooks, an increase in pixels typically goes hand-in-hand with an increase in content. E.g., 4x pixels means 4x the amount of text, 4x the amount of pictures, 4x the amount of UI elements, etc. But with the iPad, the 4x pixels isn't going to affect the amount of content on the display at one time. E.g., if you open a web page on the current iPad and on a "retina" iPad, you're still going to see the exact same amount of the HMTL. That's important because there are two things driving the processing needed to display content to screen: 1. the amount and complexity of the source and 2. the size of the destination. With a rentina iPad 1. stays exactly the same -- it's only the size of the destination that changes. For complex screens, 1. is almost always taking the lion's share of the processing time. 2. usually dominates when the screen is simple -- and in that case there isn't a performance problem in any case. (There are some exceptions to this, e.g., plotting a fractal.) E.g. consider:
- source geomertry requires 85% of processing, pushing pixels requires 15%. A retina iPad would only require 45% more processing than the current iPad; a difference an improved GPU can handle. In my experience, for most performance-sensitive scenarios, pushing pixels accounts for < 10% of processing, so the overall increase in display processing is going to be < 30%.
3. Battery life - with the overall increase in display processing < 30%, incremental battery improvements should be able to cover the difference (remember, display processing itself accounts for only a fraction of the overall battery usage.
4. Size & Weight - Since the overall increase of load on the battery will be small, incremental battery improvements should mean the device does not need to get any bigger nor significantly heavier.
5. iPhone 4 proves all of the points above. DPI was doubled, pixels were quadrupled but cost, performance, size, wieght, and battery life were not sacrificed.
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Laptops were released in 2002 with 2048*1536 screens! The power of the iPad is much greater. The link is in Japanese, but you can use Google Translate, or alternatively, just look for the word QXGA (Quad eXtended Graphics Array, four times XGA aka 1024*768 (which leads me to the fact that the resolution is 4 times larger, not 2)).
http://www.nec.co.jp/press/ja/0207/0101.html
Laptops were released in 2002 with 2048*1536 screens! The power of the iPad is much greater. The link is in Japanese, but you can use Google Translate, or alternatively, just look for the word QXGA (Quad eXtended Graphics Array, four times XGA aka 1024*768 (which leads me to the fact that the resolution is 4 times larger, not 2)).
http://www.nec.co.jp/press/ja/0207/0101.html
I think likely what's going to happen is Apple will ask devs to start producing graphics for their apps at this double resolution, and then Apple will apply some kind of resolution-independent scaling technology to whatever resolution is actually on the iPad.
This explains the presence of 2048x1536 graphics resources despite the apparent cost/supply issues with a screen that resolution. This would also allow Apple to offer devices at 1024x768 (existing iPad) and pretty much any resolution they want for future iPads, without forcing devs to recode to a new screen resolution each and every time.
Kind of like how if you open up an app on your Mac and look at the icon graphics, they're drawn at something like 256x256 pixels -- but nobody has icons that large on their desktop, they're always resized down to 32x32 or something more reasonable. How many different screen resolutions are available on Macs? Many. Yet icons and apps look just fine on those.
This explains the presence of 2048x1536 graphics resources despite the apparent cost/supply issues with a screen that resolution. This would also allow Apple to offer devices at 1024x768 (existing iPad) and pretty much any resolution they want for future iPads, without forcing devs to recode to a new screen resolution each and every time.
Kind of like how if you open up an app on your Mac and look at the icon graphics, they're drawn at something like 256x256 pixels -- but nobody has icons that large on their desktop, they're always resized down to 32x32 or something more reasonable. How many different screen resolutions are available on Macs? Many. Yet icons and apps look just fine on those.
Yes and no. The total pixel count is quadrupled, but usually when one talks about "resolution," they talk about linear resolution which on a XY plan obviously is only doubled when the total pixel count is quadrupled.
People keep saying this
Number of pixels does not equal resolution!
Twice the resolution -> 4x the number of pixels. Easy.
wait what?
I meant when the macbooks get refreshed in the spring will they have higher resolution displays?
I think it's implicit that when we saw "twice" we are referring to the linear dimensions, not the volume (total pixel count).
If you hand you a 4x6" photo and I say "Looks great! Print me one twice that size", are you going to make a 6x8"? Or an 8x12"?
If you hand you a 4x6" photo and I say "Looks great! Print me one twice that size", are you going to make a 6x8"? Or an 8x12"?
When I was younger, I had PCs because I played games but I do not anymore. I was skeptic of Macs but I switched. My first Apple product was an ipod nano 1st generation, then an ipod touch, then I bought an Iphone 3gs, and a macbook, then an iphone4 and I'm holding off for the iPad 2.
I am kind of brainwashed now and I became a believer There is one thing I learned with Apple. It starts with a rumor, nobody believes it then on launched day the rumor is in your face, you can touch it, you can buy it. After launch for a while, everybody is still skeptic of the said product's usefulness (see the press the ipad got at launch...) then the idea sink's in and it become an industry standard.
i'm sure the display resolution will be true for the ipad 2 and if true it will redefine the entire display market. Is it not what Apple always wants, redefine and lead?
I am kind of brainwashed now and I became a believer
There is one thing I learned with Apple. It starts with a rumor, nobody believes it then on launched day the rumor is in your face, you can touch it, you can buy it. After launch for a while, everybody is still skeptic of the said product's usefulness (see the press the ipad got at launch...) then the idea sink's in and it become an industry standard. i'm sure the display resolution will be true for the ipad 2 and if true it will redefine the entire display market. Is it not what Apple always wants, redefine and lead?
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Not everyone thinks like that. In my case, I see 2048 * 1536 as an equivalent to 3145728, the same way (x-1)*(x+1) is the equivalent to (x^2 -1). 2048 * 1536 represents an array of pixels, equivalent to an area in mathematics. Double the two dimensions and the area quadruples.
As an iPad/iPhone game dev who has already weighed in on this discussion last week in a different thread (see https://forums.macrumors.com/search/?searchid=22517339), I thought I'd jump in to provide a developers perspective on this that might be interesting to everyone in this discussion:
First off, let me say that if Apple does manage to pull off a 2048x1536 resolution (and pull it off properly), then the iPad 2 will without doubt be the most amazing gadget I've ever had my hands on, and I would be tremendously excited about the ideas of what you could do on such a platform.
That being said, I'm unforunately still very pessimistic about the odds of this actually happening.
First, it seems like a safe bet that the iPad 2 will be based on the PowerVR SGX 543 GPU (e.g. https://www.macrumors.com/2011/01/1...-opencl-capable-sgx543-gpu-in-future-devices/), which roughly doubles fillrate (from 500 megapixel to 1 gigapixel) while increasing poly throughput from 28 million to 35 million. I'm a developer and not a hardware guy, so I don't know if you could push those numbers much further with a multi-core configuration, but doubling the fillrate seems reasonable to me, and would give the iPad a much-needed push: It is certainly not the case, as people on here have suggested, that "geometry takes up 85% of the processing power and pixel pushing takes up the remaining 15%" - that may very well be the case for current-generation PC or console games, but the iPad has been strongly fill rate limited from the start, and I would say that most developers would see this as the iPads major problems (do a google search for "ipad fill rate" to see what I mean); indeed, even 2D games can at times be tricky to pull off at maximum performance due to this limitation, so I'm pretty sceptical about what would happen if you had to push four times as many pixels as before on a GPU that seems to deliver only about twice the fill rate.
On the other hand, perhaps the double resolution is not intended to be used for games but mainly for web browsing and anything involving a lot of text in the first place, and I can confidently say that I think that a game running at 1024x768 with strong anti-aliasing (something that's not doable on the current generation hardware) scaled up by a factor of two would still look a lot better than what we're currently seeing on the iPad - I think most people strongly underestimate the influence of good anti-aliasing as compared to what you get by doubling the resolution.
My major argument against the iPad 2 delivering such a resolution increase is that while it would be a technological miracle and surely drive up production costs significantly, the incremental sales Apple would achieve with this (as in "how many more people would buy a high-res iPad 2 with camera, more memory, etc. compared to the same iPad 2 but with an only slighty improved screen") definitely wouldn't make up for what Apple would be losing in terms of margins.
None of the competitors are offering this as one of their main selling points, and a strongly evolved (more power, more storage space, camera for facetime, etc.) but not revolutionized iPad 2 at the same price point seems like a very strong offering, so even if they could pull it off from a technological point of view, they'd probably be much better off keeping that ace up their sleeve for next year's offering, don't you think?
On the other hand, perhaps they've decided to instead go for an approach of "shock and awe", and that certainly is what a ultra-high res iPad would be delivering to the competition...
As to what the "iPad2x" graphics files in the latest version of the SDK are supposed to mean, I think there are a multitude of possible answers:
- it's something they've decided to put in now to drum up a bit of hype (unlikely, as they in that case would already know that they won't be able to live up to this particular hype) or to keep competitors guessing at this point in time (more likely),
- they're intended for a Displaylink/HDMI out that should arrive eventually and deliver 1080p
- they're intended for a later version of the iPad which eventually will feature a much higher display resolution
- in order to improve usability, some apps might simply start offering higher zoom levels, which would also mean that higher res artwork will be needed
- etc.
The nice thing about our guessing game is that we'll (hopefully) soon know what the iPad 2 truly does offer.
My best guess at this point is that the screen will be of the same resolution that we currently have, but with less susceptibility to smudging and less glare, but no fundamental changes - those will come eventually, but now is not yet the time.
To make this (and the eventual keynote) a bit more interesting, I'd like to offer a bet to anyone here who's interested and especially to anyone convinced that we will indeed see an iPad 2 with a 2048x1536 resolution:
I'd like to bet an iPad 2 that the resolution on this device will NOT be doubled both horizontally and vertically, i.e. that the iPad 2 will NOT have a resolution of 2048x1536. The odds are 1:1 - if you take the other side and Apple does pull this off, I'll gladly buy you an iPad 2. If they don't, however, you buy me one.
Here's your chance to put your money where your mouth is - anyone in?
First off, let me say that if Apple does manage to pull off a 2048x1536 resolution (and pull it off properly), then the iPad 2 will without doubt be the most amazing gadget I've ever had my hands on, and I would be tremendously excited about the ideas of what you could do on such a platform.
That being said, I'm unforunately still very pessimistic about the odds of this actually happening.
First, it seems like a safe bet that the iPad 2 will be based on the PowerVR SGX 543 GPU (e.g. https://www.macrumors.com/2011/01/1...-opencl-capable-sgx543-gpu-in-future-devices/), which roughly doubles fillrate (from 500 megapixel to 1 gigapixel) while increasing poly throughput from 28 million to 35 million. I'm a developer and not a hardware guy, so I don't know if you could push those numbers much further with a multi-core configuration, but doubling the fillrate seems reasonable to me, and would give the iPad a much-needed push: It is certainly not the case, as people on here have suggested, that "geometry takes up 85% of the processing power and pixel pushing takes up the remaining 15%" - that may very well be the case for current-generation PC or console games, but the iPad has been strongly fill rate limited from the start, and I would say that most developers would see this as the iPads major problems (do a google search for "ipad fill rate" to see what I mean); indeed, even 2D games can at times be tricky to pull off at maximum performance due to this limitation, so I'm pretty sceptical about what would happen if you had to push four times as many pixels as before on a GPU that seems to deliver only about twice the fill rate.
On the other hand, perhaps the double resolution is not intended to be used for games but mainly for web browsing and anything involving a lot of text in the first place, and I can confidently say that I think that a game running at 1024x768 with strong anti-aliasing (something that's not doable on the current generation hardware) scaled up by a factor of two would still look a lot better than what we're currently seeing on the iPad - I think most people strongly underestimate the influence of good anti-aliasing as compared to what you get by doubling the resolution.
My major argument against the iPad 2 delivering such a resolution increase is that while it would be a technological miracle and surely drive up production costs significantly, the incremental sales Apple would achieve with this (as in "how many more people would buy a high-res iPad 2 with camera, more memory, etc. compared to the same iPad 2 but with an only slighty improved screen") definitely wouldn't make up for what Apple would be losing in terms of margins.
None of the competitors are offering this as one of their main selling points, and a strongly evolved (more power, more storage space, camera for facetime, etc.) but not revolutionized iPad 2 at the same price point seems like a very strong offering, so even if they could pull it off from a technological point of view, they'd probably be much better off keeping that ace up their sleeve for next year's offering, don't you think?
On the other hand, perhaps they've decided to instead go for an approach of "shock and awe", and that certainly is what a ultra-high res iPad would be delivering to the competition...
As to what the "iPad2x" graphics files in the latest version of the SDK are supposed to mean, I think there are a multitude of possible answers:
- it's something they've decided to put in now to drum up a bit of hype (unlikely, as they in that case would already know that they won't be able to live up to this particular hype) or to keep competitors guessing at this point in time (more likely),
- they're intended for a Displaylink/HDMI out that should arrive eventually and deliver 1080p
- they're intended for a later version of the iPad which eventually will feature a much higher display resolution
- in order to improve usability, some apps might simply start offering higher zoom levels, which would also mean that higher res artwork will be needed
- etc.
The nice thing about our guessing game is that we'll (hopefully) soon know what the iPad 2 truly does offer.
My best guess at this point is that the screen will be of the same resolution that we currently have, but with less susceptibility to smudging and less glare, but no fundamental changes - those will come eventually, but now is not yet the time.
To make this (and the eventual keynote) a bit more interesting, I'd like to offer a bet to anyone here who's interested and especially to anyone convinced that we will indeed see an iPad 2 with a 2048x1536 resolution:
I'd like to bet an iPad 2 that the resolution on this device will NOT be doubled both horizontally and vertically, i.e. that the iPad 2 will NOT have a resolution of 2048x1536. The odds are 1:1 - if you take the other side and Apple does pull this off, I'll gladly buy you an iPad 2. If they don't, however, you buy me one.
Here's your chance to put your money where your mouth is - anyone in?
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I'm fairly confident that the battery life will increase rather than decrease. Why would Apple go backwards? Just look at what they did with the iP4.
MacRumorUser said:
I'm fairly confident that the battery life will increase rather than decrease. Why would Apple go backwards? Just look at what they did with the iP4.
You are all going to be disappointed. There isn't a retina display iPad. At least not yet.
Look at the names of the files. They don't follow the naming convention of the retina display files.
Bookmark_iPad
Bookmark_iPadx2
If this were a retina display icon I would be named
Bookmark_iPad@2x
The additional images are for a larger bookmark for kids books and when the user is using a bigger font.
Look at the names of the files. They don't follow the naming convention of the retina display files.
Bookmark_iPad
Bookmark_iPadx2
If this were a retina display icon I would be named
Bookmark_iPad@2x
The additional images are for a larger bookmark for kids books and when the user is using a bigger font.
i also find it very strange that it is the ONLY ipad2x file found.
someone put it there on purpose.
or to laugh at us because we are so wrong, or to tell us whats going to happen.
do we have a history with this?
did we found files like these before and did they turned out to be true or false?
i'd like to know this.
someone put it there on purpose.
or to laugh at us because we are so wrong, or to tell us whats going to happen.
do we have a history with this?
did we found files like these before and did they turned out to be true or false?
i'd like to know this.
I'm inclined to agree with the above poster. 2x could offer a zoom which is an accessibility setting for older users or those with poor sight. We're already hearing stories of how iPhones have helped the blind and other disabled, why not cater to those with poor vision as well?
The technological costs associated with a screen that high res is simply not realistic. I expect a new SoC, more RAM, better battery, cameras and the like, but the screen is pretty good and will stick around for a bit.
The technological costs associated with a screen that high res is simply not realistic. I expect a new SoC, more RAM, better battery, cameras and the like, but the screen is pretty good and will stick around for a bit.
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What is the closest competitor to screen resolution (besides Meizu)? Last time I checked, not one of the manufactures had anything mind-blowing planned.
slicecom said:
What is the closest competitor to screen resolution (besides Meizu)? Last time I checked, not one of the manufactures had anything mind-blowing planned.
When I was younger, I had PCs because I played games but I do not anymore. I was skeptic of Macs but I switched. My first Apple product was an ipod nano 1st generation, then an ipod touch, then I bought an Iphone 3gs, and a macbook, then an iphone4 and I'm holding off for the iPad 2.
I am kind of brainwashed now and I became a believer
i'm sure the display resolution will be true for the ipad 2 and if true it will redefine the entire display market. Is it not what Apple always wants, redefine and lead?
While Apple might want to redefine and lead, the problem is that they are not actually designing or producing any of the relevant components: RAM, LCD panel, CPU or GPU (not the architecture), battery. The desire is just not enough. If they want to lead they should become a technology company. They are not. They are a software company.