New Images of iPad Air 2 Parts Show Touch ID Home Button Cable, Logic Board With A8X Chip, and More

[lk400]

Nope, the 6+ has slightly smaller screen elements due to the downscaling. Everything is rendered at 1125x2001 and then downscaled to 1080x1920, so text on the 6+ is about 87% the size as that of the 6.

Don't get me wrong, both the 6 and 6+ have excellent displays. It's just that the higher pixel density makes the 6+ stand out. The 6 is about two years behind all of the other high-end smartphones in this regard.

That may be right but holding the two phones side by side right now the Wikipedia page text is a little larger on the 6+. I can only report on what I observe with my eyes.

If the 6 is 2 years behind, then not a lot has changed in 2 years as the difference is very barely noticeable.

 

[rGiskard]

That may be right but holding the two phones side by side right now the Wikipedia page text is a little larger on the 6+. I can only report on what I observe with my eyes.

If the 6 is 2 years behind, then not a lot has changed in 2 years as the difference is very barely noticeable.

Well that's confusing. I wonder if Apple is scaling text differently?

Can you compare a standard interface element, such as a folder on the home screen?

If the 6 is 2 years behind, then not a lot has changed in 2 years as the difference is very barely noticeable.

Well I spent a few minutes comparing them using the same stock display pics and video Apple had loaded, and the 6+ had way more impressive display of fine detail. Maybe it's more noticable with certain content.

 

[lk400]

Ooops, you're right, it's 1242x2208.


Rendered pixels show the text at the same size. Then the 6+ scales it down to 87% of the rendered size. That's what the link says. Could be the link is wrong, I suppose, but I've not seen anything else suggesting otherwise.

Read the entire link, all the way down to the "Physical Device" section.

Edit: here's a better link.

Edit2: solved for diagonal, got a points per inch of 162.8 for the 6 versus 153.5 for the 6+. So the 6+ is indeed rendering slightly larger elements and text, but not enough to compensate for the downscaling.

Yes and I'm not relying on any links or infographics, just sitting here with a 6 and 6+ in my hands and stating what I observe.

----------

Well that's confusing. I wonder if Apple is scaling text differently?

Can you compare a standard interface element, such as a folder on the home screen?



Well I spent a few minutes comparing them using the same stock display pics and video Apple had loaded, and the 6+ had way more impressive display of fine detail. Maybe it's more noticable with certain content.

Icons also look noticeably smaller on the 6.

And totally agree - with some things the 6+ is noticeably better. Images and video do look better on it. Others there's no noticeably difference to me.

 

[Analog Kid]

Considering Androids reloads with 4G of memory, the issue is obviously not just memory. That's all.

2G may or may not fix this purported issue, if indeed there is some fixing to be had. Aggressive memory management of Safari (or Webkit) seems to be the cause of this rather than simply a lack of memory. The fact that reloading doesn't seem to be much worse on an Ipad 2 than an Ipad Air seems to demonstrate this.

How big do you think those web pages are? I could load 20 tabs on a 128 megabit computer with XP in the early 2000s without even swapping to disk (yes, I could verify this). I know web pages are bigger these days but come on!

BTW, If someone says they don't have the issue, are you calling them liars because you have the issue. Is that how it goes? Anecdotes only work one way!

I'm OK with Apple putting 2G in an Ipad because there is more a case for it than on a phone; but, overstating your case is not going to convince me that the current situation is catastrophic.

Wow, what a clear, well balanced post.

The only thing I'd add is that I'm pretty confident that Apple has a well qualified engineering team who are much more deeply aware of what limits performance than anyone on this forum. Their goal is to make the best use of our dollars-- if they get it wrong then Samsung runs ads and people change platforms.

They have $X, Y cubic mm, and Z Watt hours of battery. Better believe they're working hard to make the best use of all three... They may be optimizing to different priorities than any one person complaining, but they certainly aren't overlooking something obvious.

 

[rGiskard]

Yes and I'm not relying on any links or infographics, just sitting here with a 6 and 6+ in my hands and stating what I observe.

I believe you. Now I need to figure out the source of the difference.

 

[Tzerlag]

I'm already getting used to the position of sleep/wake button on iPhone 6 such that I forget where it is on my iPad air.

I hate to say that an anti reflective screen and touchID could push me to upgrade....

 

[iMacmatician]

Ooops, you're right, it's 1242x2208.


Rendered pixels show the text at the same size. Then the 6+ scales it down to 87% of the rendered size. That's what the link says. Could be the link is wrong, I suppose, but I've not seen anything else suggesting otherwise.

Read the entire link, all the way down to the "Physical Device" section.

Edit: here's a better link.

Edit2: solved for diagonal, got a points per inch of 162.8 for the 6 versus 153.5 for the 6+. So the 6+ is indeed rendering slightly larger elements and text, but not enough to compensate for the downscaling.

Yes and I'm not relying on any links or infographics, just sitting here with a 6 and 6+ in my hands and stating what I observe.

The link isn't wrong. The solution to this problem is that the 87% scaling is the scaling from "logical" (out of 1242x2208) pixels to physical (out of 1080x1920) pixels. That downsampling step only changes how many pixels are used to display the image, it does not change the physical size of the image on the display (versus a hypothetical 1242x2208 physical pixel 5.5" iPhone). The physical size of the image is only defined at the Physical Device step.

You can think of it this way. Fix the 1242x2208 "logical" (virtual) resolution and vary the physical resolution of the 5.5" iPhone. The fixed "logical" resolution means that the same amount of content will be displayed regardless of the physical resolution, which implies that all images will remain the same size. But the scaling factor between the Rendered Pixels and Displayed Pixels stages varies as physical resolution varies. For example, the factor is 87% for 1080x1920 and 43% for 540x960. So the image in the 540x960 device is displayed with half as many pixels per dimension as the 1080x1920 device, but the pixels are in turn twice as big (per dimension) so the physical image size remains unchanged.

 

[rGiskard]

Wow, what a clear, well balanced post.

The only thing I'd add is that I'm pretty confident that Apple has a well qualified engineering team who are much more deeply aware of what limits performance than anyone on this forum. Their goal is to make the best use of our dollars-- if they get it wrong then Samsung runs ads and people change platforms.

They have $X, Y cubic mm, and Z Watt hours of battery. Better believe they're working hard to make the best use of all three... They may be optimizing to different priorities than any one person complaining, but they certainly aren't overlooking something obvious.

I believe it's better to judge for ourselves the best use of our dollars. Having blind faith in an engineering team is a dubious proposition. They do make mistakes, due to bad testing, bad goals, or lack of time. For all we know, someone at Apple told the Safari software engineers to optimize for single tab performance, because their market research says 90% of users never use more than a single tab. That's actually my experience - most people give me a blank look when I ask them how multi-tab performance is. They have no idea!

FWIW, my suspicion is that Safari doesn't aggresively cache pages due to concerns about NAND endurance. If that's the true reason, then acceptable multi-tab performance (for me, 10 tabs open w/o reloading) would take a crazy amount of RAM, like 8GB, to avoid reloading. Not gonna happen anytime soon.

However it should be possible to at least save user text field inputs when pages are reloaded. That would be a reasonable design goal IMO and it would satisfy most of the complaints for more RAM.

Another posibility is to use higher endurance NAND. For what we pay for NAND upgrades you would think they're using high end SLC NAND, but my guess is they are using TLC NAND to pad their margins, then optimize iOS to maximize NAND endurance. As a result, Safari reloads instead of caching, lol.

----------

The link isn't wrong. The solution to this problem is that the 87% scaling is the scaling from "logical" (out of 1242x2208) pixels to physical (out of 1080x1920) pixels. That downsampling step only changes how many pixels are used to display the image, it does not change the physical size of the image on the display (versus a hypothetical 1242x2208 physical pixel 5.5" iPhone). The physical size of the image is only defined at the Physical Device step.

That may be the case, but the link shows a decrease in physical size displayed after downscaling. Based on what others are seeing in real life, I now think the link is wrong.

The 6+ has about 94% as many points per inch as the 6. That would explain the size difference observed by ik400. So you're right, the downscaling is occuring without a change in actual size.

 

[iMacmatician]

That may be the case, but the link shows a decrease in physical size displayed after downscaling. Based on what others are seeing in real life, I now think the link is wrong.

The 6+ has about 94% as many points per inch as the 6. That would explain the size difference observed by ik400. So you're right, the downscaling is occuring without a change in actual size.

We're probably splitting hairs at this point, but I don't think the infographic is "wrong," in the sense that for each "magnifying glass" circle, the relationship between the letter size and pixel size appears to be correct. But at the Physical Device step the sizes of the magnifying glass circles are not changed to reflect the differences in the points per inch of the respective devices, so the level of "magnification" is different for the third circle compared to the other two.

So I would say the graphic is at least quite misleading in that respect.

 

[Casiotone]

The link isn't wrong. The solution to this problem is that the 87% scaling is the scaling from "logical" (out of 1242x2208) pixels to physical (out of 1080x1920) pixels. That downsampling step only changes how many pixels are used to display the image, it does not change the physical size of the image on the display (versus a hypothetical 1242x2208 physical pixel 5.5" iPhone). The physical size of the image is only defined at the Physical Device step.

You can think of it this way. Fix the 1242x2208 "logical" (virtual) resolution and vary the physical resolution of the 5.5" iPhone. The fixed "logical" resolution means that the same amount of content will be displayed regardless of the physical resolution, which implies that all images will remain the same size. But the scaling factor between the Rendered Pixels and Displayed Pixels stages varies as physical resolution varies. For example, the factor is 87% for 1080x1920 and 43% for 540x960.

Sorry but the paintcodeapp link is wrong. It was published before the 6 plus started shipping.

Their conclusion that an element of a given point size will appear smaller on the 6 plus is simply not true and can be verified quite easily if you're a developer. I wish they would fix the article since it's misleading.

Edit: I don't want to imply that what you're trying to explain is wrong, as I'm not sure what you're trying to explain. The paincodeapp conclusion is wrong though, and it seemed like you were trying to say they were not at the time I was posting.

Edit 2: I figured out how it works a while ago but I'm trying to find a way to explain it without confusing people even more.

 

[lk400]

I believe you. Now I need to figure out the source of the difference.

I'm quite interested to know too!

 

[Sith Vol]

This thing is gonna scream! Can't wait for the 16th.

 

[Casiotone]

Well that's confusing. I wonder if Apple is scaling text differently?

Can you compare a standard interface element, such as a folder on the home screen?



Well I spent a few minutes comparing them using the same stock display pics and video Apple had loaded, and the 6+ had way more impressive display of fine detail. Maybe it's more noticable with certain content.

But you're looking at stuff that is shown using more pixels on the 5.5" screen simply because it's larger. Of course it will look more defined since more pixels are used to draw it, but that would also happen on a 326 PPI iPhone 6 plus.

I'm not denying that 401 PPI makes a difference, but I think the higher resolution and size plays a bigger role by adding details to the same content.

 

[iMacmatician]

Their conclusion that an element of a given point size will appear smaller on the 6 plus is simply not true and can be verified quite easily if you're a developer. I wish they would fix the article since it's misleading.

Edit: I don't want to imply that what you're trying to explain is wrong, as I'm not sure what you're trying to explain. The paincodeapp conclusion is wrong though, and it seemed like you were trying to say they were not at the time I was posting.

Sorry, explanations aren't my strong suit.

Are you referring to the part where they say "The downscaling ratio is 1920 / 2208 = 1080 / 1242 = 20 / 23. That means every 23 pixels from the original render have to be mapped to 20 physical pixels. In other words the image is scaled down to approximately 87% of its original size"? I took that to mean that the number of pixels of the scaled image is 87% (per dimension) of the number of pixels of the rendered image, not that the physical size of the image is reduced. I was led to that conclusion partly because of the picture below that shows that 23 pixels of a 5.5" 1242x2208 display is the same length as 20 pixels of the 5.5" 1080x1920 display.

By my understanding, the only factors that affect the physical size of objects on a display are the point resolution (which can depend on things like display scaling) and the physical size of the display. (If I'm wrong please let me know. I'm assuming that things like buttons use the same number of points across all devices.)

Oh, and I now see where that 1125x2001 number came from.

 

[rGiskard]

I'm quite interested to know too!

Basically, what iMacmatician said. I was being a colossal idiot, lol. I just went with the chart instead of thinking about it. Painted code's chart is a bit off regarding how downscaling works...

The downscaling doesn't change size, since the contents are still displayed on a 5.5" display. It's an entirely transparent step to both users and developers.

The cause of the size difference is in the "points per inch", points being a logical construct based on the first iPhone display's resolution. The iPhone 6 has ~163 points per inch, while the 6+ has ~153.5 points per inch. With fewer points per inch, everything is slightly larger on the 6+.

This guy explains it better than I can. He also has a primer on how pixel density relates to point density.

 

[inscrewtable]

Posts like this annoy the crap out of me.

I can't see that as a source of irritation. That's what this site is about isn't it, leaked rumours and then comments on the rumours. As far as annoying posts go it's the stupid friggen photos with supposedly 'witty' captions that are then posted as full size in line photos. We could do with some sort of policy about that.

 

[Casiotone]

Basically, what iMacmatician said. I was being a colossal idiot, lol. I just went with the chart instead of thinking about it. Painted code's chart is a bit off regarding how downscaling works...

The downscaling doesn't change size, since the contents are still displayed on a 5.5" display. It's an entirely transparent step to both users and developers.

The cause of the size difference is in the "points per inch", points being a logical construct based on the first iPhone display's resolution. The iPhone 6 has ~163 points per inch, while the 6+ has ~153.5 points per inch. With fewer points per inch, everything is slightly larger on the 6+.

This guy explains it better than I can. He also has a primer on how pixel density relates to point density.

You're exactly right and found a better way to explain it than I was about to.

On the iPhone 6 plus, an UI element of a given point size will appear 1.06x larger than on the other iPhones.

I arrived at the same conclusion through other means.

If the iPhone 6 plus was displaying its 1242x2208 content on its 5.5" screen with perfect 1:1 pixel mapping, the screen density would be around 460 PPI.

But with a scaling factor of 3x, 489 PPI would be needed to keep the UI size the same as other iPhones that use the 2x scaling factor (326 PPI x 1.5=489)

So 489/460 = 1.06 just like 163/153.5 = 1.06...

 

[Zedcars]

Come on guys, rotation lock is in control centre since ios 7 and if you hold the volume button (to lower sound) for 1 sec it mutes. Not hard at all. That mute buttom is the most useless part of the iPad by far, on iPhones maybe a bit more useful.

Except for the fact that if you have a case on your device, as many do, it means you have to:

1. Lift the cover
2. Unlock the iPad
3. Swipe up from the bottom
4. Select the mute button
5. Close the cover

As opposed to using 1 simple toggle switch.

And the pseudo-solution Apple have implemented to hold the down volume button is not very satisfactory because a) it takes longer, b) if you have a cover then you are left wondering if it has actually muted it (so you end up having to lift the cover to check, and c) if you want to lower the volume from loud to quiet without muting it, it means you can't just hold the down volume button - you have to press it repeatedly to reach the desired volume.

Just terrible implementation.

 

[lk400]

Posts like this annoy the crap out of me. Just because YOU don't use a feature doesn't mean there's no one else in the world that DOES. I happen to like having the switch to lock my phone. It's CONVENIENT. God forbid things be easy and functional - because THINNESS is the ONLY thing that matters.

You appear to get annoyed easily. I didn't do any of the things you appear to be mad about. Can you point me to where I said I don't use the feature therefore nobody else in the world does? Where I said that thinness (I don't even use that word because it's nonsensical) matters? You have jumped to an aggressively stated conclusion based on your own bias, and it's quite offensive.

I simply offered an alternative interpretation that perhaps apple, the company who makes the thing, is refining a design by removing something that the majority of people don't use. If that's the case - I have no idea. I don't use the switch on my iPads - you do. That's great. If the company believes that most don't - then you may be out of luck as they won't keep the feature just for you. Or maybe most use it and they' keep it. Who knows.

My post was just a response to someone who was seemingly angry at apple removing this switch for thickness. I pointed out that this was just the authors opinion.

 

[Casiotone]

Sorry, explanations aren't my strong suit.

Are you referring to the part where they say "The downscaling ratio is 1920 / 2208 = 1080 / 1242 = 20 / 23. That means every 23 pixels from the original render have to be mapped to 20 physical pixels. In other words the image is scaled down to approximately 87% of its original size"? I took that to mean that the number of pixels of the scaled image is 87% (per dimension) of the number of pixels of the rendered image, not that the physical size of the image is reduced. I was led to that conclusion partly because of the picture below that shows that 23 pixels of a 5.5" 1242x2208 display is the same length as 20 pixels of the 5.5" 1080x1920 display.

By my understanding, the only factors that affect the physical size of objects on a display are the point resolution (which can depend on things like display scaling) and the physical size of the display. (If I'm wrong please let me know. I'm assuming that things like buttons use the same number of points across all devices.)

Oh, and I now see where that 1125x2001 number came from.

You're right, ultimately points and screen size will give you the physical size of UI elements and the rest is irrelevant.

So according to rGiskard's calculations (and mine, which gave the same result) a point is 1.06x larger on the iPhone 6 plus compared to other iPhones.

The paincodeapp page is misleading as the "physical size" graphic gives the impression that a point will appear at 87% the size of the other iPhones, which is simply not true. http://www.paintcodeapp.com/news/iphone-6-screens-demystified

I already told them about this mistake but I guess they won't bother to fix it since they sell a tool that promises "true resolution independence" to developers when in reality they don't really need it since the point/physical size ratio difference is minuscule.

 

[Donoban]

Except for the fact that if you have a case on your device, as many do, it means you have to:

1. Lift the cover
2. Unlock the iPad
3. Swipe up from the bottom
4. Select the mute button
5. Close the cover

As opposed to using 1 simple toggle switch.

And the pseudo-solution Apple have implemented to hold the down volume button is not very satisfactory because a) it takes longer, b) if you have a cover then you are left wondering if it has actually muted it (so you end up having to lift the cover to check, and c) if you want to lower the volume from loud to quiet without muting it, it means you can't just hold the down volume button - you have to press it repeatedly to reach the desired volume.

Just terrible implementation.

There will be a mute button on the new iPad, just relax brah. Lolz

 

[macs4nw]

no mac mini part leaks?
finally, doubling down is working

Gosh, I hope you're right and so with NeoChecco's assessment below, cause there's only one alternative explanation…..

I think that the real reason why there is no leak about the Mac mini is because they are assembling it in the US like the Mac Pro, in order to have full control on production line.

 

[majkom]

mac mini is same case as mac pro - no leaks, made in usa only other alternative, mac mini is dead

 

[jon3543]

Who do you contact and how much does it cost to get the clear pictures?

 

[s2mikey]

Considering Androids reloads with 4G of memory, the issue is obviously not just memory. That's all.

2G may or may not fix this purported issue, if indeed there is some fixing to be had. Aggressive memory management of Safari (or Webkit) seems to be the cause of this rather than simply a lack of memory. The fact that reloading doesn't seem to be much worse on an Ipad 2 than an Ipad Air seems to demonstrate this.

How big do you think those web pages are? I could load 20 tabs on a 128 megabit computer with XP in the early 2000s without even swapping to disk (yes, I could verify this). I know web pages are bigger these days but come on!

BTW, If someone says they don't have the issue, are you calling them liars because you have the issue. Is that how it goes? Anecdotes only work one way!

I'm OK with Apple putting 2G in an Ipad because there is more a case for it than on a phone; but, overstating your case is not going to convince me that the current situation is catastrophic.

Yes, yes, yes. You seem to get it regarding this issue. It's not just RAM and may not be RAM at all that's causing safaris behavior. This issue does NOT affect all users equally, even if we do have several tabs open. I have tried time and time again to replicate this reload issue on my Air and it just never happens. I can start entering text into fields on a tab, switch to another tab and then go back and my text is STILL there. How can this be?

I'm not saying people are lying about it and I beileve them when they say they have issues. But, they should also believe those of us that do not have issues.