Thinner iPad 3 Coming with Low-Power Retina Display?

[MacNewsFix]

Exactly. Just because something may become a bit thicker, does not necessarily mean it became worse.

I look forward to what they come up with this time around. A milimeter here or there, not a big deal.

Exactly.

Isn't it also rumored that Apple is working to shrink the batteries in the next iPad? Perhaps the extra space will make up for any increase in thickness from the screen resulting in a wash.

I'm still on the first generation iPad, still immensely enjoying it, and utilize the heck out of it both during work and downtime. However, should this rumor pan out, I may have to upgrade, as I'm excited at the prospect of what iOS devs can come up with when given the extra pixels/real estate.

 

[andreiru]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

That's more like it.

 

[Navdakilla]

My body is ready!

 

[bp1000]

They have them in Japan though.

Can you guys not put 2 and 2 together?

Why would you want to be spending a few billion dollars in another country.

You could keep it at home and have a lot more cash going into the local economy and create hundreds of thousands of jobs. Plus apple have greater control over manufacturing and therefor better quality products.

It would also mark the beginning of new tech manufacturing which would give the USA more buying power over raw materials. It would reduce chinas monopoly on manufacturing which is key to the emerging technological world.

As I said it can't happen in the USA because the USA isn't geared to educating engineers.

 

[kiljoy616]

So in one rumor iPad 3 going to be thicker and now its thinner. Where are they getting these rumors from the homeless guy in the back alley?

 

[aerok]

Ok. But please don't forget. Apple is now the richest and most successful company in the world.

Huh? Richest? http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505123_162-57275155/top-10-richest-companies-slide-1-of-10/

 

[bp1000]

Huh? Richest? http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505123_162-57275155/top-10-richest-companies-slide-1-of-10/

It has more capital in reserve than most countries but not the richest in the world.

Take a look at the energy companies and medical.

 

[dashiel]

my god, why does everything have to be thinner all the time. starting with the "new" nano, it lost more than half of its features just to make it "smaller".

the iPad 2 is in no way fat and why does it need to be even thinner .... id rather have better specs but thats just me

a 40-50% reduction in width, about the size of the SmartCover folded in half “feels” right. Coupled with a 30% weight reduction and you have a device you can hold for long periods of time in one hand. It’s the one area where the smaller 7" tablets have a slight advantage as eReaders.

On the slightly more esoteric side, thinner/lighter means less packaging, less material, less shipped air. Sounds silly, but those are the sorts of things that Apple thinks about and why they destroy every other CE company when it comes to supply chain management.

Any chance of Siri on here even though some will be wi-fi only? Not that any of us know for sure anyways.

Does anyone know anything about an future Siri or wherever voice assistant on the iPad 3?

I think Siri remains an iPhone only exclusive. It’s such a uniquely personal experience and a phone is one of the few devices you can reasonably assume are owned and used by a single person. Siri will soon learn about your other devices and be able to communicate with them, but I don’t see Siri “living” on those devices.

 

[Kentochan]

I wanna see these resolutions in HDTVs too!

 

[Richardgm]

I don't care about the thinness; give me one lighter and I'm fine.

 

[fxtech]

Apple works forward, not backwards. It's either same thickness or thinner.

Yeah. Personally I won't be happy until the iPad will be thin enough to chop meat with.

 

[ericinboston]

iPad with retina display is the iPad I have been waiting for

Me too...and hopefully with some new software features (the browser is still pretty bad...shopping, carts, and the checkout process fails on so many sites with the iPad currently...my friends and I refuse to actually buy online with an iPad).

Would like to see stereo speakers and more features/flexibility with the photos/slideshow functionality.

 

[yeah]

Here is what can make a new iPad better:

Better cameras

 

[neutrino23]

Just did a lot of Googling on the topic of IGZO and displays. Overall there is a huge amount of effort being put into alternative display technologies centering on LCDs and OLEDs. Many companies are showing prototypes of ~300ppi displays.

I couldn't find anything definitive but it seems that in addition to being inexpensive and reliable and easy to manufacture an IGZO display will have good viewing angles. Not sure about dynamic range and color rendition.

One blog claimed that Sharp has plans to use the IGZO technology together with OLEDs in coming years. IGZO refers to the technology of the thin film transistor which is needed to drive either an LCD or an OLED.

It is not surprising that there are conflicting rumors. Apple has probably been making dozens of different prototypes to test out the different technologies.

I don't think the GPU will be a barrier to producing a high resolution iPad 3. If needed Apple can display static images or do slower screen updates at full resolution and display games at lower resolutions.

 

[dBeats]

I think the best part of my iPad 1 is the battery life. It still gets hours and hours of use between charges, almost impossible amounts of time. If the iPad 3 retina display sucks that battery dry in 4 hours, well I have no use for it. I already have that device, it's called a laptop! So yay for energy efficient retina displays!

Tom

 

[HarryKeogh]

I do everything with my iPad. I love it more than life itself (no hyperbole...if I had to choose between life and an iPad I choose the iPad even though I'll be dead).

But the one thing that will really take it to the next level is a better display. I never use the cameras, I never notice it being slow, the battery life is ridiculous. But when surfing the web or reading comics the fuzziness bugs me.

The iPad 3 is going to rock. Yes, shut up and take my money.

 

[MisterK]

Some thoughts on iPad 3

Doubling the resolution is far more important than hitting the 300dpi mark on an iPad. You generally hold an iPad further from your face than an iPhone, so "retina" isn't quite needed. I also don't mind if the iPad did add a couple of millimetres, but I'd love to see more weight shaved off. Remember that rumour about Apple looking into carbon fibre or something? That would be awesome.

I'd love to see next year bringing NFC to both iPhones and iPads. I don't need to be able to use my iPad as a credit card, but I think it would be fantastic if retailers could use iPads to RECEIVE NFC credit card purchases with no extra equipment. That would make the iPad even more of a no-brainer as a point of sale machine. I'm in San Francisco (obviously a bubble) but there is a LOT of iPads in retail out here. I'm sure Apple and iOS developers could come up with a few more clever uses of NFC (or borrow some of Google's).

I can also see Apple doing more of their "ignoring accidental touches" stuff around the edges of the screen and narrowing that bezel. I don't mind the bezel, but they have to keep this stuff looking as futuristic as possible.

 

[ThunderSkunk]

Beyond obvious improvements to existing cams, chips, ram, etc, other hardware upgrades for the future:

NFC
Thunderbolt Interface
Mini Projector
Wacom digitizer layer (since Steve's no longer in charge)
3d Display
Photovoltaics internal & back cover
Holographic Projector
Missile Launcher...

The iPad has room to grow.

Though I'd put money down that these will only materialize as add-on attachments or not at all.

 

[Rocketman]

But a new report from Jeffries analyst Peter Misek and shared by Forbes claims that Apple will not be using IPS on the iPad 3, and has in fact invested $500 million to $1 billion in new equipment to allow Sharp to produce the required displays using technology permitting a thinner and lower-power design.

http://www.sel.co.jp/en/02_RandD/2_index.html

"We actively develop and propose innovative products based on the development of amorphous silicon solar batteries."

http://www.sel.co.jp/en/saitmap_html/kennkyuukaihatu/sitemap_ekisyou.html

"Through further application of this technology, we also succeeded in forming CPU on plastic substrate and driving wireless circuit using the CPU. We are determined to challenge the advancement of the new industrial fields“transparent electronics” and “soft LSI”."

Thunderskunk uttered:

NFC
Thunderbolt Interface
Mini Projector
Wacom digitizer layer (since Steve's no longer in charge)
3d Display
Photovoltaics internal & back cover
Holographic Projector
Missile Launcher...

I would emphasize solar recharging display, NFC Tx/Rx, Thunderbolt, and of course the missile launcher.

Rocketman

 

[JDW]

IGZO Technology

IGZO Technology Details (translation from the original Japanese):
http://translate.google.com/transla...wCg&prev=/search?q=IGZO+LCD&hl=en&prmd=imvnsu

 

[Bodypainter]

Am I the only one who thinks that 4x retina display would be a bit too much and unrealistic?

This would need a lot more power to for the graphic card and the display itself. I want a higher resolution but 4x higher is way too much. I'd even be happy with 2x resolution if the battery life keeps being the same and the thing would be lighter and thinner.

 

[D.T.]

Quote-o-rama...

Siri will soon learn about your other devices and be able to communicate with them, but I don’t see Siri “living” on those devices.

Hopefully Siri will sweet talk our vacuum into running itself

I wanna see these resolutions in HDTVs too!

I think panels that size and resolution would be way to expensive for the consumer TV market (even the higher-end-ish market), and if a TV is only really intended to consume video content, and maybe some lite game/surfing, anything over 1920x1080 kind of seems like a waste.

more features/flexibility with the photos/slideshow functionality.

+1

For a device so perfectly suited to show pictures, there's a serious deficiency in cataloging, management, etc. I guess maybe all that's intended to be done on the "host PC" through iPhoto, but now with the "cut the cable" future, I think there needs to be improvements at the device level (and a web interface for managing iCloud/photostreams).

Just did a lot of Googling on the topic [...]

Nice quick summary, thanks.

I think the best part of my iPad 1 is the battery life. It still gets hours and hours of use between charges, almost impossible amounts of time.

Yeah, just a little charge time whenever I think about it, and it's just always available. Battery life in mobile devices has become my priority, if it's not up and running, it's worthless.

I'd love to see next year bringing NFC to both iPhones and iPads. I don't need to be able to use my iPad as a credit card, but I think it would be fantastic if retailers could use iPads to RECEIVE NFC credit card purchases with no extra equipment.

Neat concept.

 

[PhantomZone]

lightgate...its bound to happen

 

[ProwlingTiger]

I wasn't able to find any info on this, but perhaps some expert can weigh in: How do IGZO panels compare to ISP panels? Or do we simply not have that info yet?

 

[haravikk]

I'm definitely more interested in lower power consumption than I am in higher resolution; to me the resolution of the iPad 2 is perfectly adequate, more may be nice, but I wouldn't consider it necessary.

Battery life however is important to me, as I feel that performance-wise the iPad 2 is at an excellent level of usability (with sufficient developer care at least) so while performance improvements at the same power consumption would be good, again I'd much rather see power consumption reduced as much as possible.

I don't know about the majority, but to me the portability of a portable device is crucial, and battery life is the most important factor in this, as there's no use running Unreal Engine 3 games if you run out of juice away from a suitable charging point.