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iPad 2 screen resolution, no change? Why?

MacGiver

MacGiver

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Aug 12, 2007
946
214
France
So no change??? Same resolution? This is to me the dissappointing part....
Is that a marketing strategy like the iPhone they did not upgrade the resolution till iP4 or is it tech limtation? Maybe but I am sure they could have done a bit better in terms of resolution...
 
Last edited:
It's a technical limitation I would imagine. The screens are just too expensive for them to make it in volume. Expect them next year/generation. To be honest while screen resolution is a big deal to me, it being thinner, lighter, and faster (not necessarily in that order) was most important to me.

I know most people think the first iPad is pretty fast, but I have always found that certain things, especially web browsing, did not compare to using a real computer in terms of speed. Plus I always felt the GPU was pretty behind in terms of gaming, and now it should be pretty awesome.

Plus it is definitely gonna have more RAM, so Safari won't have to reload as much when switching tabs.
 
I understand your frustration but keep in mind that similarly priced android tablets have a lower screen resolution than the ipad 1. I believe right now, the xoom is the exception.
 
Upping the resolution would cause issues with existing apps, developers would have to rescale gfx for all existing applications - you could double the resolution iPhone 4 style (i.e Retina) but there are so many reasons why this would be difficult.

This post sums it up quite well;

http://blog.nelso.com/2011/01/problem-with-retina-display-on-ipad-2.html

I think that resolution is going to be a sticking point on the ipad for a while...

C.
 
You can up the resolution slightly(1280x960) whilst keeping the 4:3 aspect ratio, but the only way to avoid any issues, is to double the resolution. A 2048x1536 resolution, would be too expensive, to produce in volume today.
 
thetruth1985 said:
I understand your frustration but keep in mind that similarly priced android tablets have a lower screen resolution than the ipad 1. I believe right now, the xoom is the exception.
Click to expand...

jabingla2810 said:
Cost.

They really wanted to hit that $499 price point.
Click to expand...

ovrlrd said:
It's a technical limitation I would imagine. The screens are just too expensive for them to make it in volume. Expect them next year/generation. To be honest while screen resolution is a big deal to me, it being thinner, lighter, and faster (not necessarily in that order) was most important to me.

I know most people think the first iPad is pretty fast, but I have always found that certain things, especially web browsing, did not compare to using a real computer in terms of speed. Plus I always felt the GPU was pretty behind in terms of gaming, and now it should be pretty awesome.

Plus it is definitely gonna have more RAM, so Safari won't have to reload as much when switching tabs.
Click to expand...

MacGiver said:
So no change??? Same resolution? This is to me the dissappointing part....
Is that a marketing strategy like the iPhone they did not upgrade the resolution till iP4 or is it tech limtation? Maybe but I am sure they could have done a bit better in terms of resolution...
Click to expand...

You're all wrong....For marketing purposes, next iPad will have a better res screen....don't you guys get apple by now? lol...they need something else to entice you to buy the next version

Carl Bembridge said:
Upping the resolution would cause issues with existing apps, developers would have to rescale gfx for all existing applications - you could double the resolution iPhone 4 style (i.e Retina) but there are so many reasons why this would be difficult.

This post sums it up quite well;

http://blog.nelso.com/2011/01/problem-with-retina-display-on-ipad-2.html

I think that resolution is going to be a sticking point on the ipad for a while...

C.
Click to expand...

That post on that site is actually off the mark.

> But almost no content (forget about
> video for a second) is currently created
> with a 3 megapixel, 260 dpi display in mind

That is fundamentally untrue. Other than video, ALL content is made for that display. We just think of it as "print" content. Books, magazines, business correspondence, photographic prints, and anything that comes out of a printer match that resolution. Even a lowly business letter has more and smaller dots on it than an iPad with Retina Display. Safari/WebKit will happily render the Web at that resolution.

When a screen gets up into 300 dpi territory, you stop treating it like a screen device (authoring in pixels) and start treating it like a print device (authoring in inches). iOS devices encourage this because they have fixed screen sizes in inches, so they are akin to a paper size:

• "Letter" 8.5x11 300 dpi
• "Tabloid" 11x17 300 dpi
• "iPhone" 2x3 160/320 dpi
• "iPad" 6x8 130/260 dpi

The truth is, if we were to conceptualize an electronic device to replace print, we would start with a 300 dpi display as the fundamental feature, because that is a fundamental "magic number" in print. Most artwork is made at that resolution, the resolution ruler is marked at multiples of 300, and it fools a 20/20 eye at typical reading distance into not being able to see the dots. The lower-resolution displays in iPhone original/3G/3GS and iPad 3G (and any future iPads with low-res display) are hacks … stepping stones to the Retina Displays that the devices are "supposed" to have to fulfill their function as paper replacements. It's a very elegant compromise because it is short-term and there is almost no pain to transition from the low-res to high-res screen, either for users or developers. The high-res screen emulates the low-res screen (4 pixels in place of 1) from day one and then apps gradually take advantage of the enhanced sharpness that has been made available to them. Soon, the low-res devices are retired as part of the regular product life cycle.

So an iPad with Retina Display is REQUIRED by book, magazine, and other "print" content. It's required for photography, where people are commonly making 12 megapixel or 18 megapixel images that have way more dots than an iPad with Retina Display. And even for video, always the lowest-res content, HD is now old hat. The next size up is "4K" (4000 pixels horizontally), and it is commonly made now, and is even supported by YouTube already. That has to be downscaled for iPad with Retina Display.

The only question on this is what year it will arrive. Can they get it done in the 2011 iPad, or 2012? Whenever it arrives, the content will exploit it immediately.
 
iDisk said:
...

The only question on this is what year it will arrive. Can they get it done in the 2011 iPad, or 2012? Whenever it arrives, the content will exploit it immediately.
Click to expand...

I can see where you are coming from in regards to applications etc, I'm sure newspaper/magazine apps etc will have no problem porting over its high dpi content, but what about the web?

A website surely isn't going contain imagery of that quality? So the site would look quite odd with gorgeous crisp text and horrible aliased images (think none retina apps on iPhone 4) - i honestly don't see how that problem is going to be overcome, unless the iPad becomes more about applications and less about the web experience.

C.
 
I think its because in part they want to save something for the iPad 3 and also the cost of those displays right now are high.
 
iDisk said:
You're all wrong....For marketing purposes, next iPad will have a better res screen....don't you guys get apple by now? lol...they need something else to entice you to buy the next version
Click to expand...

  1. Occam's razor - The simplest explanation is the more likely accurate one. So trying to trump up some conspiracy theory about Apple holding back high res display for marketing reasons, why not look to the obvious one. It costs a lot to make the displays. I am not saying Apple doesn't want stuff to entice people to buy a new one, but wouldn't getting the most sales now instead of later be more important in terms of owning the competition? If Apple had a high res display in the iPad 2 it would sell probably about twice as more as it will now without one, simply because there is people who will wait for it to have a high res display.
  2. You talk about high DPI displays, and list some pretty important facts that people do tend to forget. However you forget about one important fact, the web is not high DPI. While you can easily scale drawn elements (text, some borders, vector graphics, etc) to high DPI, good ol' standard images are going to be stretched to fit this high DPI. That means you will end up with tons of websites looking awful when stretched to fit it. This isn't a big deal on the iPhone 4 because the final resolution is still not high enough for the images to be stretched. With the iPad however, it would pose a huge problem for web developers, who would have to make changes to their website to fit the iPad 2, and also cost them more bandwidth to send out high resolution source imagery.
  3. Similarly App developers would have to a lot of time working on their Apps to fit the new high DPI. Working with high resolution artwork is not impossible, but it definitely is a lot harder than working with the kind of resolution that is on the iPhone 4 (it's not that different from working on an iPad app really). This will put a lot more cost on developers, and raise the price of Apps for a time (remember when the iPad launched and developers made a quick buck off of "HD" versions of their apps). I am not disagreeing with you that a lot of apps won't have much of a problem doing this, but it still costs developers time (and therefor money). I will agree that this factor is the least limiting, and wouldn't stop Apple from doing it.

So yeah ultimately, it's not just a simple issue and not at all something that Apple can pull off this soon. It would not even surprise me if the next iPad didn't have a high res display, with the amount of cost that it would put on Apple. If you think the higher res displays are cheap (in terms of making them in mass production at high volume vs the cost of the current displays) then you are kidding yourself.
 
For what I and most use the iPad for the current resolution is more than enough. A faster graphics engine is great and with the same resolution it should be very fast.:eek:
 
Because this isn't the last iPad they are making. Also, why does iPad need retina display? Your mind does, but technically, it makes 0 sense in terms of costs and availability. It will take hits on battery life as well.

Don't expect retina display anytime so soon. iPhone and ipad are very different.

If iPad gets retina display, it will surpass 15 inch and 17 inch MBP's resolution. That sure makes a lot of sense.
 
MacGiver said:
So no change??? Same resolution? This is to me the dissappointing part....
Is that a marketing strategy like the iPhone they did not upgrade the resolution till iP4 or is it tech limtation? Maybe but I am sure they could have done a bit better in terms of resolution...
Click to expand...

*sigh* this question AGAIN? Haven't we been dealing with this ever since the iPhone 4 came out? Okay, let's see if we can hit the main reasons in one post and this can just be linked to the next time this is raised in about 15 minutes from now:

1) Cost of screen: the manufacturing costs for a retina display panel (i.e. double the vertical and horizontal resolution of the current panel) would be considerably higher than the 1024 x 768 panel. This would significantly affect the price of the iPad at a time when everyone else is seemingly struggling to match it.

2) Cost of components: It's not just the screen, you'd need to be able to drive a panel with a resolution of 2,048 x 1,536. This needs more video memory, more system memory, faster CPU and faster GPU. All of that costs money and jacks up the price of the iPad.

3) Availability of components: It's fair to say that a 10" 2,048 x 1,536 screen isn't exactly a standard component at the moment. It's going to be tricky to make in volume and no-one's really tooled up to do it. Producing it to the volume required for the iPad could be very difficult indeed. This applies across the board for CPU and GPU improvements as well.

4) Battery life: The screen itself would likely drain a bit more power than the current unit, the increased hardware spec required to run it a fair bit more. All of that has an impact on battery life and that's one of the key weapons the iPad has, Apple wouldn't jepordise that.

Think that covers the main technical reasons, hope it answers the question.
 
You are disappointed because you hoped for unrealistic situations. Sane people might have had a glimmer of hope for a higher res display, but would not expect one. I for one see in the iPad 2 exactly what I logically expected. New CPU, smaller. And thats about it.

TO drop a bombshell, I don't even expect a high res screen in the iPad3. It seems more likely that the iPad4 will have something like it.

Currently no screens of that size in that resolution can be made cost effectively. I'm willing to state that a 9.7" "Retina" display would cost $500 by itself, let alone the rest of the iPad.

My advice to all you people that were hoping and praying for a high res screen is to get realistic about tech. Apple is not wizardry.
 
Xeperu said:
You are disappointed because you hoped for unrealistic situations. Sane people might have had a glimmer of hope for a higher res display, but would not expect one. I for one see in the iPad 2 exactly what I logically expected. New CPU, smaller. And thats about it.

TO drop a bombshell, I don't even expect a high res screen in the iPad3. It seems more likely that the iPad4 will have something like it.

Currently no screens of that size in that resolution can be made cost effectively. I'm willing to state that a 9.7" "Retina" display would cost $500 by itself, let alone the rest of the iPad.

My advice to all you people that were hoping and praying for a high res screen is to get realistic about tech. Apple is not wizardry.
Click to expand...

Amen.
 
Technical reasons...

When the iPhones went from 3GS to 4 with retina display, software had to be adapted to be able to profit from the gained resolution, but at the same time they kept the same aspect ratio to make it easy for the devs.
But it still was work for the iOS apps developers.

If you were to change the iPad screen resolution you would want to keep the same aspect ratio to, again, make it easy for the devs to adapt their software.
The Xoom has 30% more pixels but has different aspect ratio. In reality it has a only 13% better resolution, which is measured by the PPI. But even a small increase in resolution (13% compared to the whooping 100% increase in resolution the iPhone 4 brought from the 3GS) would require the devs to adapt their softwares... unless... the OS APIs would take care of the resolution problem... a tech Apple has been working on for ages but doesn't feel is ready right now.

More importantly this round of tablets (no matter what company they'll come from) and phones are going to bring multi-core CPUs and GPUs, which will only be useful if the devs rewrite a little bit (or a huge chunk) of their softwares to use the new capacities.
Apple has pushed Grand Central Dispatch last year already to iOS devs so their apps could be ready for multi-core CPUs (while improving also the way asynchronous task were handled).
For Apple this adaptation needs to be the focus of devs this year. And even if Apple has made it easier with GCD (compared to other platform where you would need to dig deeper), it still is work.

Look at was has happened in the desktop world. For years now we have had multi-core CPUs, but even today most performances improvements are due to the OS trying to schedule tasks on different cores. We could have seen way better performances if the devs had adapted their softwares with true concurrency and distribution, but it is a work so tedious that besides scientific and benchmarking softwares we haven't seen much investment in it.

On the iOS ecosystem it would have been too much for most developers to handle the rewrite of code for multi-core systems while also having to modify graphics.

Again it isn't the specs that are going to make a difference but how the apps are going to use them and in this Apple has an impressive advance.
 
For all of the posts regarding costs of a higher resolution screen, where are you citing your information? Do you know the exact figures a doubled resolution screen would cost? Do you have ties with Samsung (Or whoever makes them)? Or is everyone simply "guessing" and "assuming" that a doubled resolution screen would be insanely expensive?

I do agree, at this point, a doubled resolution screen would be 'more' expensive and would require a beast of an iPad 2 to run so to keep the same prices it was omitted.

But I do not agree with people stating that the iPad 3 will not get a higher resolution display. We do not know the intricacies of Apple's relationship with their screen suppliers. Ifixit may claim the price is $x per screen, but Apple's price is guaranteed to be lower. The point is, it may seem expensive to us, but who knows what they can accomplish.

I'm sure they already have an iPad in development right now with the memory and processor that runs a higher resolution screen. Later this year, prices will drop and it will be possible.
 
Cost issue.
Battery life issue.
ARM processor not supporting graphics pipe and graphics performance issue.
Manufacturing and availability issue.
 
skafia said:
For all of the posts regarding costs of a higher resolution screen, where are you citing your information? Do you know the exact figures a doubled resolution screen would cost? Do you have ties with Samsung (Or whoever makes them)? Or is everyone simply "guessing" and "assuming" that a doubled resolution screen would be insanely expensive?

I do agree, at this point, a doubled resolution screen would be 'more' expensive and would require a beast of an iPad 2 to run so to keep the same prices it was omitted.

But I do not agree with people stating that the iPad 3 will not get a higher resolution display. We do not know the intricacies of Apple's relationship with their screen suppliers. Ifixit may claim the price is $x per screen, but Apple's price is guaranteed to be lower. The point is, it may seem expensive to us, but who knows what they can accomplish.

I'm sure they already have an iPad in development right now with the memory and processor that runs a higher resolution screen. Later this year, prices will drop and it will be possible.
Click to expand...

The iP3 will likely have the same screen. Would be fine with me.:p
 
Stealthipad said:
The iP3 will likely have the same screen. Would be fine with me.:p
Click to expand...

Agreed, no competitor has come close to rivaling the iPad, so why would they increase spend more money to put a higher res screen in when there is no need to.

When someone brings out a product which is a true rival to the iPad, then we will see the big changes coming into effect.
 
I assume they just cant produce a near "retina display" at that size, in volume at the right cost for now. Its not like the competition are much different pixel density wise. Maybe next year
 
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