Post WWDC Notes: iPhone 4 Display, Faster Upload Speed

[blizaine]

This new display would make the iPad even better than the great product it already is.

wow, an iPad with a "retina display" would have to be about the same resolution as the 27" iMac. higher for the vertical because of the 4:3 aspect

The current iPad is 132ppi. The same size screen @ 326ppi would be 2529x1896! It may be while before Apple is able to do this.

 

[carlgo]

This jump in iPhone display technology really decreases my desire to get an iPad. I would use the iPad mostly for reading medical journals (which are all available in high-res PDF's). After seeing the iPhone 4 demo - and then using an iPad for a half-hour to read PDF's - lack of resolution of the iPad was pretty disappointing. I agree with earlier posts wondering how Apple is going to demo iPhone 4's and iPad's next to each other in the store.

The display tech (and graphics chip tech) may not be ready yet for an iPad-sized screen >300ppi, but this will be amazing someday...

And then the long-rumored retina display 52" Apple TV. In 3D as well, of course. Only $19999 at your friendly Apple store. Matching gas flame speakers extra.

Actually, I wish they had experimented with the antenna on the iPhone 4. That actually may be the deciding factor for millions of potential buyers who are attracted by the other specs.

 

[TheJae]

Hopefully we'd be able to save higher res images to our album from iphoto.

 

[Rocketman]

FaceTime is a lingering connection high bandwidth application, which is why it is wifi only for now.

For the majority of packet upload and download activities of a 4th generation handtop computer, the 15x network speed access will reduce network usage "time" about 90%.

If your phone sends and receives at a crawl it spends a lot of "time" negotiating connections and sending packets. This vast speed increase will free up a whole bunch of network time and actually make AT&T look great!

Now if they can eliminate voice service entirely and switch 100% to VoIP on the handset, we would be screaming. At low cost. Hence the delay to abandon cellular voice. It is a profit center.

Rocketman

 

[Tjiva]

This isn't helping

I'm very excited about this new display, but it's become clear that we're not really going to really understand how good it looks until we see an actual iPhone 4 display with our own eyes.

Seeing a giant blow-up of a blurry graphic is... well, not exactly the same thing.

 

[Minimoose 360]

We close-readers are very pleased.


(Many of times I've been lying in my bed and whatnot with the phone very close to my face. Now all we need is a lock screen position button .)

EDIT: Or better yet, a lock screen position four finger hand gesture! (Which could actually be done.)

 

[tbrinkma]

Basically the same measurement... units per inch. Regarding the marketing of the new iphone 4 screen, it's not laser quality but definitely headed in the right direction and much better than 96 dpi screen res. Typically laser quality is 600 dpi at the low end and 2400 dpi at the high end. 300-450 dpi is considered print resolution.

DPI and PPI are 'basically the same measurement' in the same sense that MPH and kph are 'basically the same measurement'. You need such high DPI counts in printing because multiple dots are required to form various single 'pixel' shades and colors. If you want a 50% gray on screen, you feed a pixel 128,128,128 for its R,G,B components. If you want a 50% gray on paper, the printer lays down a dithering pattern consisting of dozens of black dots with white spaces between them. (I gave a much more detailed response in another thread to someone else's longer, but just as misinformed statement in another thread. If you really care, you can probably find it. I don't post all that much.)

 

[wizard]

I'm still torn in the same way.

Love the display. I was toying with getting an iPad but honestly I'm glad I waited to get this (my first iPhone!)

Counting down the days...

I've been looking at the 3G iPad as a better alternative for me. Mainly because of the much bigger display. My pocketable needs could be taken care of with a Touch. However the iPhone 4 is very compelling when judged against my old 3G.

The big problem here is AT&Ts new data plans. If I use the platform like I do now I would likely save money. However I don't see that happening but rather see data usage going up. The reality is I could save lots of cash buy dropping iPhone and looking at cheaper cell offerings. I haven't run all the numbers yet but I probably could easily pay for a new iPad and Touch with the cash saved in a year.

Dave

 

[Powerbooky]

So true, the data cap is lame. I remember when the original iPhone came out Steve made a BIG DEAL of saying how he fought for unlimited data so people could use their iPhone without any worry. He wanted the best experience. Not anymore!

Steve probably still fights for that. The phone companies just do what they want to. Actually, ever since the first iPhone came out, AT&T and every other company (also in Europe) hardly invested in the capacity of their networks. They just smelled the money around iPhone. Now that the wireless networks "suddenly" have come to an overload, they want us to pay for that.... again.

Even better news would be Holland beating Denmark, but that is not apple related.....

If it is not Apple related... why the need to mention it at all on Macrumors? Dutch soccer crap is never any kind of news anyway.

 

[firewood]

And then the long-rumored retina display 52" Apple TV.

Retina quality resolution depends on viewing distance. The iPhone Retina display is designed for someone with average vision at a 12 inch viewing distance. The typical viewing distance for a 52" TV would be more like 12 to 20 feet, thus only requiring 20 or 30 dpi. And 20 dpi at 52" is pretty close to 1080P. Thus you can already get a "Retina quality" TV at Best Buy for under $2K.

 

[marksman]

Steve probably still fights for that. The phone companies just do what they want to. Actually, ever since the first iPhone came out, AT&T and every other company (also in Europe) hardly invested in the capacity of their networks. They just smelled the money around iPhone. Now that the wireless networks "suddenly" have come to an overload, they want us to pay for that.... again.

I suspect AT&T's accountants would disagree with your claim.

What people seem to miss is regardless if AT&T had all the bandwidth in the world, it still costs them money. Having more available bandwidth doesn't magically make it less expensive. Wireless bandwidth is a finite resource. It costs money to use.

People have this illogical notion that by spending more money adding more bandwidth, bandwidth becomes free. That doesn't make any sense.

 

[SimonTheSoundMa]

It would be nice to see some kind of dock with 12"-13" lens for watching videos

AKA the iPad.

 

[SimonTheSoundMa]

Anyone with a recent DSLR camera can test this. Take the Canon 550D, it has a 720x480 screen that is 3 inches. That's 288ppi.

I have a 50D which is 640x480 on a 3 inch screen, so ppi is lower. From 15cm from my face, I cannot see the pixels.

List of PPIs on screens: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_displays_by_pixel_density

I was going to look at my friends Sony Ericsson X1, which has 312ppi, however I forgot to ask today. iPhone 4 is slightly higher at 326ppi. Again, Apple are not the first, their competitors are already there. X1 has been out since Q3 of 2008.

 

[MacTheSpoon]

It's nice, but I would still rather have a larger screen. Making the display sharper is solving a problem that didn't exist. Who thinks their current iPhone display isn't sharp enough?? Anyone ever thought it was a problem?? I'd rather they extended the screen out closer to the top and bottom and made it more widescreen. Or better yet, use the "retina display" but extend the screen as well.

 

[pubwvj]

Good E'noff

I can't see the pixels on the older iPhones, iPodTouches or even my PowerBookG4 so it's more than good enough for me. Life looks so real!

 

[iLoveMyApple]

That's amazing!

 

[ThunderSkunk]

Looking forward to seeing this retina display (terrible name) extended to the MBP line.

As long as the iPhone remains tied to AT&T, it's not something I'll buy again.

 

[MacAgnostic]

The current iPad is 132ppi. The same size screen @ 326ppi would be 2529x1896! It may be while before Apple is able to do this.

Do you view your iPad at 10-12 inches? A more practical distance would be about 18-24 inches.
You would only need about 220ppi, 1920x1440 (or 1920x1280 to be exactly 4x iPhone 4 pixels).

 

[iPadPublisher]

HSUPA is a biggie for me. On my nexus one i get like ~2 Mbps upload speed whereas on iphone 3gs i used to get like ~300 Kbps.

Will we see any improved speeds right away, or is this all dependent on upgrades at AT&T that haven't happened yet?

 

[tmoore44]

Laser quality? For the screen?

Steve used the term laser quality in the keynote describing how crisp the text appears.

 

[lilo777]

Apple's Worldwide Developer's Conference wrapped up at the end of last week. The conference kicked off with a flurry of announcements surrounding Apple's new iPhone 4. The response to those who had actual hands-on time with the upcoming iPhone has been overwhelmingly positive with a particular focus on the high quality of the display. Several people we spoke to echoed Steve Jobs' comments that it will be hard to go back once you start using the 326 dpi display.

I did not know that iPhone 3GS had such a terrible display. Look at this picture! How anyone can read this? But seriously. I see many people being very creative coming up with all kinds of misleading pictures to prove the greatness of new display. Obviously it is a much better display. It was time, Apple was lagging behind the competitors in display quality for quite a while. Now they caught up and pulled ahead. I am not sure that there will be a big difference (or any at all) when visually comparing iPhone 4 screen with the Droid one's though (which is also much better than iPhone 3GS). Look at the picture above. As I understand, to come up with this shameful trick someone shrunk the web page to make the font so small that the letter is just 2 pixel high and then they used a macro lens to show how bad the picture is. Of course it is bad. However, with the font of this size, even if rendered perfectly, the text is still so small that nobody will be able to see it. Remember those old TV sets with small screens and magnifying glasses in front of them? Unless someone is going to use a magnifying glass in front of iPhone 4, nobody will be able to see the level of details delivered by this screen. The resolution will be wasted. Apple had to use this type of screen in order to get backward compatibility for old applications (easy 2x scaling). In terms of picture quality, there is absolutely no harm in having such high resolution (yes we probably go beyond the threshold where extra resolution does not a help a bit - but, as I said no harm there, we get the best picture quality human eye is able to perceive), there is however a little penalty in terms of RAM usage and graphics performance (the need to store and move all those pixels that we can not see).

 

[Chip NoVaMac]

So true, the data cap is lame. I remember when the original iPhone came out Steve made a BIG DEAL of saying how he fought for unlimited data so people could use their iPhone without any worry. He wanted the best experience. Not anymore!

Agree; but in three years of my iPhone here I have averaged only 300mb a month its seems on average. Though in a torture test of my iPad at the beginning of the month I have gotten to 3.5GB already.

On the fence about data caps. On one hand it helps the rest of the network. But then here are those out there that 3G is the only option. It would suck if the network was dragged down by abusers.

 

[Glideslope]

The screen is irrelevant. It all depends on the new antenna design.

Period.

 

[Kahnyl]

The detail in the signal bars in that screenshot is incredible.

 

[PhxBlue]

If that display doesn't make it into the iPod touch in September there will be copious amounts of heck to pay. It looks outstanding.

LOL (<--I really did!) nice wordage!