Next iPhone Screen Resolution Confirmed at 960x640

[matticus008]

Right. The problem is that while labels like "extreme," "plus," or "premium" don't imply anything, "HD" does.

No, they all imply quite a bit (or there would be no point in using them), but they all mean nothing. "HD" doesn't mean anything, regardless of what the casual association is. That's what makes it a buzzword.

It's just a pair of letters. It's no claim about any aspect of the device's specifications and not even a claim of "high definition" anything. Like it or not (and for the record, I don't), 'HD' is the new 'Extreme'.

For 1080p, the H.264-decoder-chip must support Level 4.1 and pretty much High Profile for efficiency. That's a whole different league.

Not at all. The SGX535 already supports it. Apple doesn't currently implement it, but that's a totally separate issue.

Unless Apple customized the design to remove it, the 535 can handle 1080p with ease.

Japanese phones have had 3xx dpi screens for years now.

Take my old 920SH from 2007- 3.2" FWVGA screen. 306 dpi.

SH906i from 2008. 3.0" FWVGA. 326 dpi.

Nothing groundbreaking here when a two/three year old phone has similar DPIs.

Those are 3 inch displays. The pixel density dropoff is rapid as size increases, as those figures directly attest. Until now, nothing above 280ppi has been feasible on the 3.5-4 inch scale, and nothing IPS above 200ppi has existed at all in any size. 320-330ppi at this scale and in IPS is a major achievement.

~2" displays have been made at 300-330ppi for many years by Sharp for professional viewfinders. They were able to scale that to ~3" economically for a few models made in fairly limited numbers (it helps that they don't have to pay a markup to themselves).

There's quite a bit of novelty in this and the display manufacturer deserves a lot of credit here.

 

[ranReloaded]

This is great news.

My only concern is that I still have the same Mac with the same dpi, which means the iPhone Simulator will be 4x bigger on the screen (possibly won't fit portrait in my 24inch iMac), and thus won't give you as good an idea of the overall look as does now. Hopefully Apple enables a 4x down-sampling option to allow viewing the Simulator in a size closer to real life.

 

[gnasher729]

No, "old" apps will not be blurred. And if you think about it for a second, you'll know why Both iPhones have the same screen size, so if you pixel-quadruple a low-res app, it will just look like on a iPhone 3GS, because four pixels on the new device will be just the same size as one pixel on the new device!

And any games that use anti-aliasing _should_ look better because they can draw at twice the resolution instead of anti-aliasing + pixel doubling.

 

[gnasher729]

That's why you can compress a signal so far that it looks worse than a DVD and still call it "HDTV", and why you can just scale and crop or stretch old NTSC content and send it out on an HD channel. It's also why displays at odd resolutions (like 1366x768 and 1920x1200) are "HD" even with odd scaling settings--as long as there are at least 720 true lines on short side of the display in a physical 16:9 box (with rectangular pixels, that can be less than 1280 pixels), it can be considered HD under that definition.

I think one DVD maker got fined for selling 16:9 (wide screen DVDs) that were actually old 4:3 material, bits cut off at the top and bottom so they were left with 4:2.25, and then scaling it up - so the customer paid for wide screen but got 4:3 with bits cut off at lower quality.

And some people use Handbrake to convert DVDs to h.264 at 1920x1080 size

 

[diamond.g]

And any games that use anti-aliasing _should_ look better because they can draw at twice the resolution instead of anti-aliasing + pixel doubling.

Do any games on the iPhone use AA or AF? I seem to remember reading somewhere that Apple hadn't exposed those features.

 

[ranReloaded]

Do any games on the iPhone use AA or AF? I seem to remember reading somewhere that Apple hadn't exposed those features.

AFAIK, the graphics card on the 3GS (don't know about 3G) has hardware support for 3D multisampling (antialiasing), but not on offscreen buffers. And Apple has implemented OpenGL on the iPhone in such a way that you don't get access to the real screen, but instead render everything to an off-screen texture that get's composited (and the GPU doesn't support antialiasing on those). That's how the OS can super-impose the Mute/Volume indicator, Alert Views, etc. (You can not by-pass them).

...or so I herd. correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[ranReloaded]

Do any games on the iPhone use AA or AF? I seem to remember reading somewhere that Apple hadn't exposed those features.

...now, to answer your question, I think there ARE games that do a certain amount of antialiasing, some full-screen. There was this race game that would jitter the odd-frames by one pixel, achieving "temporal antialiasing" (at the expense of frame rate). It works if you achieve 60fps or more. Others do multiple passes and blend them together. Everything done in software.

 

[Rocketman]

in my country , contact lens sellers put HD behind the name of their products. Clearly HD is overused. I don't want it on my next iPhone lest the resolution is 1280 x 720!

The display resolution may be lower than 1080p, but the output resolution may actually be 1080p, on a phone.

Rocketman

 

[Baadshah]

Awesome, cant wait for the new iphone. 8 Days left

 

[DifferentialApp]

Awesome, cant wait for the new iphone. 8 Days left

Haha exactly! When school is finally done, we will finally know what the new iPhone will really be! What a great reward for the end of school.

 

[retroneo]

From your own delightfully cherry-picked link....

So, I guess if you are an Aussie, and you really want to scale back your expectations of what is considered HD, then sure. This new phone is TOTALLY a high-def device. But, all of us normal, sensible people will still scoff and laugh at you.

That was a fake Wiki edit btw and has since been corrected...

TV was 576i from day one (1950s bw / 70s colour) here in australia and was never considered HD.

HD broadcasting started in Sep 2007 and were always 1080p from day one.
(Although one channel publicly protested the HD licensing conditions for a year by transcoding a 720p signal into 1080p)

 

[SactoGuy18]

Hopefully, the 4G iPod touch is essentially a 4G iPhone that uses this 960x640 screen (minus the cellphone functionlaity) AND offer up to 128 GB storage. Downloaded movies are going to look spectacular on this device.

 

[kernkraft]

I am genuinely excited about this news. 320dpi sounds excellent, that is printing quality. I assume that the iPod Touch will remain close to the current 3GS with the current screen resolution.

Having said that, Apple needs to up its effort. My 3G feels so dated and run-down, despite the fact that this one is actually less than a year old.

A decent, slightly larger high resolution screen, better volume, better battery life and a better camera would probably push me into selling the 3G. Add an easy jailbreak to that list and I'll be tempted to buy a new iPhone.

 

[gmanist1000]

This is a little off-topic, but is anyone hoping for a better vibrate in the new iPhone? I hate when I receive a text message and I only get 1 tiny little vibrate that I can never feel.

 

[cwwilson]

Awww diddums, I just pre-ordered the EVO and now this

Maybe the new iPhone will be more sexy than I thought. Did I make a mistake by jumping the gun?

Roll on June 7th.

 

[tigress666]

This is a little off-topic, but is anyone hoping for a better vibrate in the new iPhone? I hate when I receive a text message and I only get 1 tiny little vibrate that I can never feel.

I dunno, I tend to be more likely to notice my phone is vibrating in my purse than the fact that it is ringing. So the vibrate function seems fine to me.

 

[MrCheeto]

The problem may be baggy pockets. Do you have baggy pants, ya hoodlum?!

 

[nagromme]

I always believed Gruber on this, and then seeing the same processor as the iPad (thus able to offer high-pixel performance) encouraged me further. I’ll be buying the new iPhone ASAP!

I used to mind that the iPhone didn’t support sub-pixel AA (which could, in theory either adapt to orientation or else turn off in landscape mode). It will soon be a moot point!

 

[mabaker]

It all feels like back in 2004 being middle in the discussion of PC vs Mac.

Both platforms are good enough. Ironically Apple’s OS scores BECAUSE its OS is rather restricted and controlled and the result is a rather seamless polished experience and excellent speed.

Android is Android, kinda Symbian on steroids with nice customization abilities. Yet it doesn’t feel Apple-esque one tiny bit. It feels new, on its own without raining on Apple’s parade.

/ posted from my n97.

 

[LeoNobilis]

What use???

Here's a microscopic image of the screen compared to current gene screen and nexus!

All you doubters may have to eat your words (and there are a bunch of you...that digitimes thread was filled with people claiming that they were going to use 720x480...that's just ridiculous)

Apple is officially going to have the illest display on phones...doesn't get any better than 330ppi...I am so stoked about this screen..(in case you couldn't tell)..

http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/29/iphone-4g-put-under-a-microscope-960-x-640-looks-like-a-lock/

The resolution alone is nothing: the screen of the 4th generation iPhone is even smaller than that of its predecessor! What use of the improved screen resolution when its dimensions are no greater (even smaller, in fact)! A bit of a gimmick made to entice the gullible to the platform!
Of course, if the resolution increase went along with a screen dimensions increase (to, say, 5.5"), that would be quite a progress! But a 3.2"-3.5" screen… to me, iPhones are very nice LadyPhones, nothing more!
Also, the whole iPhone 4G design impresses me as nothing short nor long of than a symbiosis of an iPhone and a 4 year old Sony Ericsson cameraphone. Not exactly very original!.. 64 GB capacity (if materialised this summer) is a good move, however.

 

[hefeglass]

Wow, you really have no idea what you are talking about.

With my vision, I'll definitely be able to notice a difference between the old iPhone screen and new one. A slightly larger screen..like 4.3 at the most would be ok...but i have a feeling apple will go there in a next version or so.
The higher resolution will make text very sharp and allow one with decent vision to read some web pages without even zooming in! Once apps are rewritten...the graphics will be just as sharp as the text...I can't wait to see this new screen in person.
And honestly, a 5.5 in screen is just absurd...nobody wants a phone that big..

 

[Steve Ballmer]

Is there anything we *aren't* gonna know about the next iPhone?!
I don't wanna know in advance. I like surprises!

Then stop visiting the Internet until WWDC has passed.

 

[troop231]

Then stop visiting the Internet until WWDC has passed.

Developers Developers Developers (repeat x5) Mr. Ballmer please revive the courier

 

[Max(IT)]

Then stop visiting the Internet until WWDC has passed.

Hello Steve! Are we going to see you at the WWDC ?

 

[ChrisGonzales90]

I do hope for a slightly larger screen. Why go smaller? They want to complete with android, and many of those phones have large 4.1 inch screens...