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Never gonna be a Retina display on iPad...
- Thread starter waloshin
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That was a well discussed fact when th Retina display came out. Try MRoogle, you will find tons of this same thread all over the iPad forums.
You wouldn't need to match the PPI because the average viewing distance on an iPad is likely twice that of an iPhone or iPod touch.
I disagree totally with the "never" bit. It'll definitely happen, and when it does the iPad will take a great leap in usability for office productivity apps. As smaller and smaller font sizes become readable without needing to zoom in then one can see more of a spreadsheet on screen and that makes a real difference in how easy it is to work with. I mostly do spreadsheet stuff but I suspect that the same would hold for word processing or presentation editing. For me the big debate about retina is not "if" but "when".
I've responded often in these forums when people say (wrongly in my opinion) that the very next iPad will surely have a retina display (which for the iPad I think that most people take as quadrupling the pixel count like was done on the iPhone 3GS to 4 upgrade). I still believe that the screen would be horribly expensive to manufacture right now, if possible at all, because the yields on the current process would have to be improved massively to get the same price points.
I've also posted about the CPU/GPU implications but this article from Engadget (http://www.engadget.com/2010/11/18/qualcomm-teases-28nm-dual-core-snapdragons-pixel-punching-adren/) has made me think that we're actually a lot closer than a lot of people (including me) thought to getting there. The new 28nm Snapdragon talked about in that article is claiming 5 times the CPU performance, 4 times the GPU performance (which is exactly what's needed) and all that at a lower power draw vs the previous generation (75% of the power).
There are a few unknowns in the above regarding power draw. Is that just the idle figure or also at load? It's relative to the QSD8672 part and I don't know if that is a horrible power hog; 75% of pretty bad would still be bad. However that Engadget article does make me soften my view slightly on when the CPU/GPU power will be available at acceptable power drain to enable a retina display. I'm still shooting for 2012 or 2013 for shipping devices.
- Julian
I've responded often in these forums when people say (wrongly in my opinion) that the very next iPad will surely have a retina display (which for the iPad I think that most people take as quadrupling the pixel count like was done on the iPhone 3GS to 4 upgrade). I still believe that the screen would be horribly expensive to manufacture right now, if possible at all, because the yields on the current process would have to be improved massively to get the same price points.
I've also posted about the CPU/GPU implications but this article from Engadget (http://www.engadget.com/2010/11/18/qualcomm-teases-28nm-dual-core-snapdragons-pixel-punching-adren/) has made me think that we're actually a lot closer than a lot of people (including me) thought to getting there. The new 28nm Snapdragon talked about in that article is claiming 5 times the CPU performance, 4 times the GPU performance (which is exactly what's needed) and all that at a lower power draw vs the previous generation (75% of the power).
There are a few unknowns in the above regarding power draw. Is that just the idle figure or also at load? It's relative to the QSD8672 part and I don't know if that is a horrible power hog; 75% of pretty bad would still be bad. However that Engadget article does make me soften my view slightly on when the CPU/GPU power will be available at acceptable power drain to enable a retina display. I'm still shooting for 2012 or 2013 for shipping devices.
- Julian
On a 9.7" display, 2048x1576 would give approximately 266dpi which is below the iPhone 4's 326dpi but would still be a hugely impressive display.
I'm pretty sure the iPad will, one day, have this as a resolution but I don't think it will be the next revision or the one after that: 2013 or 2014 is my prediction for seeing a display of that resolution on the iPad
I'm pretty sure the iPad will, one day, have this as a resolution but I don't think it will be the next revision or the one after that: 2013 or 2014 is my prediction for seeing a display of that resolution on the iPad
It's more likely they won't double the iPad resolution, but multiply it by 1.5. They will have to get the programming done to have apps work with that though. I don't think we'll see a higher resolution for a couple more generations.
Most iOS Apps use points instead of pixels. Programming in pixels is strongly discouraged in the interface guides, and all of the graphics and drawing API's in iOS 3 and up use points rather than pixels. Using points keeps everything nice and resolution independent.
There may be some games, that "optimize" around the guidelines that need work, but most should operate at different resolutions with minimal tweaks.
Apparently it's some kind of uber-resilient zombie undead horse.
Yes, lots of iOS apps are moving to points, which is a great step in the right direction. Unfortunately a lot of games are still running at old school pixels for resolution. After seeing what Android has done to its community with its fragmentation (just look at articles for Angry Birds on Android), I'd hate to see that happen to the App Store.
It'll get there eventually. But as usual, don't expect it in v2. I plan on buying my husband the v2 and keeping my original iPad for another year until v3 comes out. v2 won't be as "magical" for me to need to upgrade to.
retina display is a marketing term
when are you people going to realize that the term "retina display" is a marketing term that Apple made up. It doesn't really exist. It's like Kraft calling something "The cheesiest". It doesn't mean anything. It is a term used in their advertising. The iPad will definitely have better resolution as time goes on. However, I don't expect them to double the resolution by April.
when are you people going to realize that the term "retina display" is a marketing term that Apple made up. It doesn't really exist. It's like Kraft calling something "The cheesiest". It doesn't mean anything. It is a term used in their advertising. The iPad will definitely have better resolution as time goes on. However, I don't expect them to double the resolution by April.
But that's the point that the last few posts were coming to. In order to upgrade the resolution without breaking all of the existing apps, the "new and improved" iPad would have to either be a straight doubling of resolution (which, as everyone concurs, would be too expensive and too processor intensive), or use a fractional multiplier and risk making lots of apps look bad. Either way, developers would need time to fix their apps, so if a higher-resolution display is coming, we'll hear about it well before it ships.
LOL
After reading the thread, I imagined an ad for iPad 2 with the tagline, "Apple iPad 2 - it's the cheesiest!"
Well, the trick for higher resolution displays will boil down to a power and thermally efficient mobile GPU chip. The display tech and APIs are basically already there. Once the costs come down, we'll start seeing steps in that direction. I'm not betting on a resolution bump for iPad 2 though.
After reading the thread, I imagined an ad for iPad 2 with the tagline, "Apple iPad 2 - it's the cheesiest!"
Well, the trick for higher resolution displays will boil down to a power and thermally efficient mobile GPU chip. The display tech and APIs are basically already there. Once the costs come down, we'll start seeing steps in that direction. I'm not betting on a resolution bump for iPad 2 though.
^^ What he said.
For now, too expensive, too much battery and CPU/Graphics load, and too soon to ask developers to support yet another resolution. Also, imagine how much space each app would take when packaged with the artwork needed to run natively at that res.
I don't believe that we are going to see a Retina display on the iPad any time soon. Maybe a slightly highr resolution and an IPS panel, but that's it. The new iPad as I predict will be thinner, lighter, have two cameras and offer more RAM and a faster processor. That's about it.
Wirelessly posted (iPhone 4: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)
The iPad already has an IPS panel.
petvas said:
The iPad already has an IPS panel.
