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I'm not a stickler for graphics or anything of that ilk and the iPad 1 looks fine to me - then again I only really work from it.
 
while the display is OK on the original ipad its not great. when on some websites I would strain to read some of the pixilated print. Once you get one with a better display you will laugh at this.
 
....

How does Android scale it's apps ? I have heard that it does a nice job scaling phone apps on the Tab. Can iOS be tweaked to do a better job of scaling?

They may scale well...but unfortunately they can't sell any of them;)

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-20029598-17.html

I enjoy the iPad, but I have no desire for a higher resolution display. It seems that the items Apple focuses on are so random. Areas that give them bragging rights, and jack up the Apple Tax.

Why not play catch up after YEARS of limiting the MBP with a pathetic low-res display. Then insulting anyone with basic knowledge by conning some people into believing the 2010 15" MBP actually has a hi-res display as an option, just because Apple says it does. It's laughable. The reality is the "hi-res" is nothing more than medium res. I know I have one. Next to my true hi-res full HD 15" ThinkPad, the MBP display is grainy and off colored. That's not a complaint just a fact. At least it's better than my 2009 MBP was.

Poor Apple they've fabricated stories & lied for so long, they believe their own BS.

This is absolutely ridiculous! And a very mis-informed response, which also begs the question of whether or not you actually are an owner of said gear. Apple has continuously pushed display boundaries. To this day, the 23" ACD is still an excellent monitor...and it was released in 2002! With full HD (1920x1080) resolution...in those days, this was very rare! The 30" ACD in my opinion is an icon:) Issues aside (Backlight bleed, color/gamma shift, et al), it's been an outstanding performer in my studio for the past half decade.

Apple's displays in their laptops have always, always been "prettier" in my opinion than their Window's counterparts (I was a Windows user for 20 years). In fact, one of the very reasons I bought my first Mac in 2006 after so many years on PC. I work with a gentleman who had a Dell laptop from 2007, the same year...I bought my first MBP 15". His Dell is toast....completely invisible screen without plugging it in to the wall...even then, the dimness requires shutting the ambient light in the room off. I sold him my MBP and he couldn't be happier. Apple has ALWAYS lead the pack in display technology when it comes to consumer computer platforms. I'm not comparing Mac displays to Eizo or high end NEC professional, color accurate monitors....but their consumer displays...regardless if you're a fan of glossy or not, are definitely front runners in the industry. There are no "Lies"....every company has their own proprietary "Marketing Speak"....however, Apple backs it up. 1680x1050 is phenomenal resolution for a 15" monitor. There are plenty of arguments in the home theater world of whether or not there's actually ANY difference at all in under 55" screens between 720p and 1080p. These laptop screens are significantly smaller. Pushing the envelope is good...but they certainly have to keep the product affordable as well. 1920x1080 on a 15" screen would be cool and it WILL happen....but it's NOT necessary for an excellent computing experience!

I'm a graduate student and so I can't afford to buy an iPad just to surf the web and play angry birds. I need it to actually perform a function for me that will improve the quality of my life and make me more productive or make something easier/more convenient. If I can take the 400 lb stack of scientific papers I have on my desk and read the PDF files on an iPad instead of paper, that would be a huge benefit. I could bring them ALL everywhere with me instead of picking one or two and later finding out they weren't what I was looking for. I have a 13" macbook pro but the screen isn't quite good enough to read papers on all day. I prefer to have a copy in front of me that I can interact with, highlight, make notes on, etc... With a good PDF reader I can do that on the iPad 1, but I want it to be a big improvement and a retina display would make doing a lot of reading much easier on my eyes and more enjoyable.

Also if I want to start reading books on it, the iPad 1 won't cut it. The shiny and reflective screen on the iPad 1 makes it not worth it for me, but if it had a shiny reflective screen AND a retina display, I could live with it (the positives would outweigh the negatives at least).

Have you ever actually used an iPad? I've got two...one for me, one for wife and son to share:) And I'm 40 years old this year...I flew jets in the military for 11 years and continue to maintain my pilot's license in the civilian world. At my peak, my eyes were 20/15...or 20/20...perfect or better than. At 37 years old, about 3 years ago...it was almost overnight. My vision went from perfect to crap! Both far and near...and I now need scripts for both near and far vision. That said, I use the iPad every day for reading...it has completely replaced my magazine subscriptions and all of my book reading with Kindle and iBooks. Zinio does and incredible job of sharpening text...Kindle and iBooks does a phenomenal job...as a college student, I can't imagine someone not being able to read the text. "Shiny, reflective screen?" Are you kidding me? This is ridiculous...unless you spend your study/writing hours outside, in the sun...this is a complete, non-issue.

My wife and I run and audio and video production company these days and pay our mortgage with our earnings...and to a lesser extent, still and graphic production. We rely solely on our Macs for color reproduction...while, granted, we have color calibrated monitors (yes, several are glossy) as well as a calibrated standard Sony LCD for the final "Look" when it finally is distributed. I love all of my Mac monitors. I've got a couple 23" ACDs...a 24" and one of the new 27" monitors...as well as a slew of MacBook Pros and an Air as well as a couple of iMacs and a MacPro "MotherShip". (We do weddings, speaking functions, and different trade shows, concerts, festivals and corporate functions....the iMacs are our primary performance computer, the laptops are the contingency:)). From the older matte monitors on the Powerbooks and older MBPS...to the new glossy ACDs or whatever they're called these days...they absolutely kick BUTT! You can easily see the improvements over the generations, and sure...there are a couple of bucks to be paid for the "Apple" Badge, but if you look around at comparable IPS displays that look this good! And that's key:) They are generally in the same price neighborhood....I'm sorry, I should shut up now...point is, the iPad looks excellent! You'd have had a hard time a short three years ago...thru the past 3 decades with monitor resolution. Did you ever spend time with standard def TV? What about a cell phone, pre "Retina"? Any kind of Palm pilot, calculator or eInk readers previous to the latest generations? The iPad is incredible. Can it get better? You bet! But it's VERY good right now and your concerns aren't valid WHEN it comes to your "reading"...however, earlier you mentioned your extensive writing and pdf management...while I disagree you can't "create" on an iPad, there are certainly some inefficiencies. If it's not a relatively small project, the ergonomics of a tactile keyboard on a laptop are preferable in my opinion.

YMMV

I myself wouldn't say the screen looks horrible - but text does look very bad. On computers & laptops you can see pixels, but those desktop OSes do a much better job at smoothing text. Just looking at the time or something in the status bar of an iPad and the font/text doesn't look good.



Exactly.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. You're just plain WRONG! Again, see above. What in the world did you do before the latest generation of monitors? Visual definition of TV? Even movies and the transition from film (That's gotta kill ya with it deficiencies!!!), standard def TV? What about computer monitors that have JUST RECENTLY become affordable to the masses at 1920x1080/1200? Is that ALL you can look at? The iPad again has absolutely outstanding resolution and readability at this point in the game. It's awesome, compared to anything on the market that does what it does...sorry man, but you reek of someone who is completely clueless, or completely broke...and hence, jealous you're not able to afford one...and feel the need to belittle it. You're just wrong! Sorry man:rolleyes:

Text clarity for small text. 10 point text (in Evernote) on the 9.7" iPad 1 screen is very difficult to read but it is perfectly readable on the 3.5" iPhone 4 screen. It's all down to ppi.

Why do I want better clarity for small text? I do a lot of spreadsheet viewing on my iPad and if I could read smaller text more clearly then I could zoom out more and see my annual spreadsheets with 12 monthly columns all on the screen at the same time instead of needing to zoom in to get readable text to a point where I need to pan left and right across the months.

For anything involving text then, the more readable the display makes small text, the less one has to zoom in to read the smallest stuff and the more one can get on a single screen without needing to scrolling around to see it all.

Games? Video? Photographs? Personally I don't really care, for me it's all about text apps.

- Julian

Now this! This works...Julian is obviously a spread sheet king...and it seems there is a real benefit to him for increased resolution. It makes sense, and I'm absolutely ALL for better resolution and increased dpi/ppi (?) The double up would be excellent...quadruple, even better...just as RED is pushing the boundaries while capturing 3 and 4k resolution video...the 5dmk2 is shooting 22 megapixels, and we're still watching motion at TWO MEGAPIXELS on our 103" Plasma TV's:) You bet! All I've gone on about earlier...doesn't matter, I'm ALL for innovation....and just as the iPhone 4 really blew the 2g, 3g, and 3gs screens out of the water...I'm sure in the future, the same will happen with the ipad...While it's incremental, or overnight (next update)....to me, the relevancy is that we had NO IDEA how good it could get when we all owned our 3g/3gs iPhones. There were NO threads bitching about resolution...not until we actually saw how GOOD it can get with the iPhone 4. Apple knows this. If they can do it in the iPad, don't you think they would? Especially knowing how well the Iphone 4 sold? I'm thinking "Absolutely!"...no less than 75 "Pad" devices debuted at CES...I'm sure Apple would like nothing more than to separate itself even further from the pack. They did the same in the infant days of the iPod. Look at the differences in years 1-4....from black and white to color with decent resolution video and album art and EQs and connectability to your deck in your car to....you get the point. They can OWN the market in less than 5 years time IF they spend the money/R&D NOW to further themselves to the point no one can afford to try to play catch up...other than mega companies like Microsoft....and for them, it may make more sense to develop software for the product instead of trying to battle it on the hardware side.

Again...sorry to ramble. Julian it makes sense for:) I agree!



Not for me. I've been clamoring for higher-res displays on ALL computers for years. The IP4 was the first device that actually had an acceptably sharp display. I still bought an iPad, but every time I use it, I sigh because it is so fuzzy. Perhaps if your eyesight isn't so good, it doesn't matter, but for me, at normal 'on my lap' reading distances, the iPad could just be so much better.

Wow...again, "Because it's so fuzzy?????" Are you freakin kidding me? Now go ahead and site the fact I admitted I had *****ty vision:) Seriously? If you have BAD vision, shouldn't crappy looking visuals actually look worse? I've spent the money to get an excellent pair of prescription reading glasses from a highly respected Eye Doc in town...I can assure you, with my specs on, I can see as well as a 12 year old, 20/20 kid. And the iPad has NO fuzziness about it. I would strongly suggest you return yours. You got a dud! Seriously!!!

J
 
Wrong, wrong, wrong. You're just plain WRONG! Again, see above. What in the world did you do before the latest generation of monitors? Visual definition of TV? Even movies and the transition from film (That's gotta kill ya with it deficiencies!!!), standard def TV?

What the heck are you talking about? What does TV/movies have to do with what I said? I was simply commenting on the smoothing of fonts/text in iOS on the iPad compared to a desktop OS. Video and text are two very different things when talking about resolution and font/text smoothing.

What about computer monitors that have JUST RECENTLY become affordable to the masses at 1920x1080/1200? Is that ALL you can look at?

I've used many LCDs over the past 10 years. Of course none have had crazy 300 ppi measurement, so you're always able to see pixels, but the OS does a very good job of font smoothing.

The iPad again has absolutely outstanding resolution and readability at this point in the game.

No no no.. wrong wrong wong.. absolutely outstanding? lol. 1024x768 is great on 10" display (I honestly wouldn't expect more at this point), but far from absolutely outstanding. the iphone 4 with 960x640 on a 3.5" screen I would describe as absolutely outstanding.

It's awesome, compared to anything on the market that does what it does...sorry man, but you reek of someone who is completely clueless, or completely broke...and hence, jealous you're not able to afford one...and feel the need to belittle it. You're just wrong! Sorry man:rolleyes:

I never said the iPad isn't awesome (I'm a big fan of it). Actually whether or not its awesome, better than other tablets, is irrelevant to my point.
 
For those old enough to remember: Remember when you had a cassette Walkman and it sounded just fine... Until you got a CD player. The difference didn't really become apparent until you went back and listened to a cassette again - they sounded awful.

The retina display is like that - you don't appreciate it until you spend a little time with it and then compare it to the old screen - especially for reading text.

Retina displays completely remove resolution as a meaningful statistic since you can't see the pixels anymore. Size is all that matters now... And that's a good thing. We shouldn't have to see the individual pixels. We just want to see graphics and text.
 
For those old enough to remember: Remember when you had a cassette Walkman and it sounded just fine... Until you got a CD player. The difference didn't really become apparent until you went back and listened to a cassette again - they sounded awful.

The retina display is like that - you don't appreciate it until you spend a little time with it and then compare it to the old screen - especially for reading text.

Retina displays completely remove resolution as a meaningful statistic since you can't see the pixels anymore. Size is all that matters now... And that's a good thing. We shouldn't have to see the individual pixels. We just want to see graphics and text.

I get what you are saying, but I have to say this isn't how *everyone* feels about these things. Yes, CDs often sound clearer than cassette, but I never felt casette players were so awful compared to CDs that I never wanted to listen to a cassette again. What prompted to me to switch to CDs was ease of handling and the ability to shuffle music, not the sound quality. And as far as seeing pixels, I don't see pixels on the iPad, or on the older iPhones for that matter. I do think retina displays are clearer and easier to read than earlier displays, but iPad displays look perfectly fine to my eyes, even when I use it side by side with my 4th gen iPod touch, and I prefer reading on my ipad, since bigger screen means more text per page. If ipad2 has a better display than the current gen iPad, I'll be happy about that, but if it's the same display, thats perfectly fine, too.
 
Sorry, but having to discuss about this is ridiculous. People who don't see the significant difference between the current iPad display and a potential "Retina" one either haven't spent a few hours with an iPhone 4 and then got back to their iPad or have a bad eyesight. I also thought the iPad (and 3GS) display is brilliant - until the day I got my iPhone 4 ... Now, my iPad looks like a kiddie toy in comparison. At this point, a display update like this would be the most significant upgrade to the iPad I can imagine.

Also, I always hear that people hold their iPad much further away than their iPhone - is this really the case? From my personal experience, I don't hold the iPhone much nearer to my eyes than the iPad ... (at least I think so, haven't done exact tests ...)
 
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To put it simply, it's much nicer on the eyes. From browsing the web, to watching 1080p video, to gaming, it'll all look much better.

For example, Infinity Blade has too many jaggies on an iPad for my liking, the iPhone 3GS is barely OK, and I'm sure the iPhone 4 would be brilliant. To get rid of (most) jaggies without AA we need a retina display.
 
I'm a graduate student and so I can't afford to buy an iPad just to surf the web and play angry birds. I need it to actually perform a function for me that will improve the quality of my life and make me more productive or make something easier/more convenient. If I can take the 400 lb stack of scientific papers I have on my desk and read the PDF files on an iPad instead of paper, that would be a huge benefit. I could bring them ALL everywhere with me instead of picking one or two and later finding out they weren't what I was looking for. I have a 13" macbook pro but the screen isn't quite good enough to read papers on all day. I prefer to have a copy in front of me that I can interact with, highlight, make notes on, etc... With a good PDF reader I can do that on the iPad 1, but I want it to be a big improvement and a retina display would make doing a lot of reading much easier on my eyes and more enjoyable.

Also if I want to start reading books on it, the iPad 1 won't cut it. The shiny and reflective screen on the iPad 1 makes it not worth it for me, but if it had a shiny reflective screen AND a retina display, I could live with it (the positives would outweigh the negatives at least).
In your case then, why don't you get something cheaper like a Kindle that is perfect for reading PDFs on, non-reflective, lets you annotate, and has an amazing battery life. No? Why not?
 
People who don't see the significant difference between the current iPad display and a potential "Retina" one either haven't spent a few hours with an iPhone 4 and then got back to their iPad or have a bad eyesight.

Oh, I'll admit to having bad eyesight, but so do most people over 40. :rolleyes:

Also, I always hear that people hold their iPad much further away than their iPhone - is this really the case? From my personal experience, I don't hold the iPhone much nearer to my eyes than the iPad ... (at least I think so, haven't done exact tests ...)

Again, I'm guessing this is because you have very good eye sight. I need to hold iPhone/iPod touch much closer to my face than an iPad, because otherwise I can't make out the details.
 
Hi Night Spring, my response wasn't directly aimed at you, but when I read things here like the Retina effect being "psychosomatic" or that a Retina display on an iPad would be "another random thing Apple focuses on to jack up the Apple tax" - thats just ********. I'm pretty sure at least the poster of the second statememt doesn't own an IPhone 4 and an iPad in combinytion ... I think we can both agree that the current iPad display is relatively good for 2010/11 standard, but Retina is a significant improvement. For some more important than to others. For me, the display quality on a multimedia device like the iPad is one of the main, if not THE main important thing. (of course, it also has to have a very good software like iOS.)
 
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Hi Night Spring, my response wasn't directly aimed at you, but when I read things here like the Retina effect being "psychosomatic" or that a Retina display on an iPad would be "another radom thing Apple focuses on to jack up the Apple tax" - thats just ********. I think we can both agree that the current iPad display is relatively good for 2010/11 standard, but Retina is a significant improvement. For some more important than to others.

Thanks for the clarification. I too think the posts you mention go too far. I'm sure for people with good enough vision to see the pixels on the current iPad screen, retina display is a significant improvement. And I certainly have no objection to Apple incorporating a better display on the iPad, as long as they can do it without significant price increase or negative effect like shorter battery life. But then there are people who say things like "You must be crazy not to want retina dispay." I guess I just wanted to say no, I'm not crazy, I just don't have perfect eye sight.
 
Everyone seems very pleased with the display of the iPad. But it does not seem that you own an iPhone 4. Had you owned an iPhone 4 had you really not said that you are happy with the display of the iPad.

An iPad is a lot like an iPhone since you are using both very close to your eyes. But that you don`t do with your 50 " TV, MBP or iMac ..

iPad 2 will get updated hardware regardless. I think the update with iPad 2 will stop there ...
But the most important thing after the update of the hardware is a Retina screen! That's the whole point of the iPad - the screen.

Updated hardware and a Retina screen that will make no one will want to buy anything other than an iPad. But it will not happen with iPad 2 ..
 
Yet, the display on the current iPad is just fine! No, I daresay more than fine! The current iPad's pixel-per-inch is a whopping 132 -- thats just about equivalent to the new MacBook Air 11" with the sharp resolution. It's better than every MacBook and MBP. Better than every iMac. Better or similar to the best monitors for sale today.

I agree. Super high DPI doesn't matter to me at all.

I would rather have a bigger screen. I would take a 12" 1400x1050 screen over a 10" 2048x1536 one every time.
 
Without retina display, the iPad looks like a big iPod touch. I tried one for the first time last weekend, and I wasn't very impressed. The graphics were too blocky and I didn't get the WOW-feeling at all.
 
Q: Why do you want a Retina Display?
A: Because it is awesome ! And we wait some awesome features from Apple (sorry Apple but we already got used to it)
 
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Why? I say why not? Technology such as the iPad is not so much on the basis of need. You can watch a movie on VHS and still get the entertainment value being presented to you but if the technology is there why not improve the experience with sharper images. I love watching movies on my iPhone 4 more than on my 32" monitor.
 
A retina display means resolution no longer matters. Only physical size of screen and UI widgets matter. That's how it should be.

Nobody in the past worried about the pixels per inch in film, or the resolution of a pencil sketch, or text printed on paper by a physical printing press. They only cared about font size (physical size), page size, etc.

And let's face it, reading text on a retina display is easier on the eyes than on a display where you can distinguish the pixels that make up the text.

When people here say things like "I would rather have a bigger screen. I would take a 12" 1400x1050 screen over a 10" 2048x1536 one every time" is a stopgap until we get to retina level screens on all devices. I'll bet that person would rather have a 12" screen at a resolution higher than 1400x1050 if available.
 
I love watching movies on my iPhone 4 more than on my 32" monitor.

Well, I don't. No matter how sharp the iPhone screen is, the images are just too small for me to enjoy a movie.

When people here say things like "I would rather have a bigger screen. I would take a 12" 1400x1050 screen over a 10" 2048x1536 one every time" is a stopgap until we get to retina level screens on all devices. I'll bet that person would rather have a 12" screen at a resolution higher than 1400x1050 if available.

Sure, bigger screen with higher resolution would always be nice. But assuming that the technology isn't quite there yet, and we can have one but not the other, some people would prefer to have smaller screen with higher res, and others want bigger screen even if that meant the resolution is lower. It's a personal preference.

As I said above, I'd rather watch movies on a low res, 36 inch monitor than an iphone4. If the 36 inch monitor was so low res that the movie was unwatchable, and there was no other monitor available, I'd probably do somtething else other than watch a movie, because movies on the small iPhone screen just isn't a very good experience for me, despite the retina display. Same with books. I read books on my iPod touch 4 when in situations where the iPad is too big and awkward to take out, but I prefer to read on my iPad, because I can have more text on screen, even though the resolution is lower.
 
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The real question is: Why would you not want a retina display?
Exactly.

Some people will just moan for the sake of moaning, and hate to accept that displays are quite quickly going to get to a point where pixel density is such that it really doesn't need to increase, and horizontal/vertical resolution becomes a non-isssue. No longer will page elements be measured in number of pixels, because it will be irrelevant - things will either be drawn in physical dimensions (cm, mm etc.) or relative dimensions (% of screen etc.)

I can remember when 1080p came over to the UK, and it was very expensive and only available on larger TVs. People were crying then over how pointless it was, and even more pointless on smaller 32" screens and why would people want it etc. Funny how most of those people will have a 1080p TV now...maybe they didn't want it, but it's the way things go, so either accept it and see the clear positives, or just stay home and ignore the world going by as you stubbornly refuse to accept that the tech you just bought is out of date already.
 
And as far as seeing pixels, I don't see pixels on the iPad, or on the older iPhones for that matter.

Well, that explains it. My eyesight is far from perfect, but I can easily spot the pixels on an older iPhone and iPad.
 
Well, that explains it. My eyesight is far from perfect, but I can easily spot the pixels on an older iPhone and iPad.

I can see them but only if I go out of my way to do so. At normal usage distances I don't see pixels on either the iPad or old iPhone and I have better than 20/20 vision.

But I don't hold devices 12" from my face. More like 16"-20".

For me the iP4 Retina display is only the most minor of cosmetic differences compared to the previous version.

There are a lot more things I would rather have than a "retina" display.

1: A bigger display to actually fit more on the screen, like full page PDFs.
2: More RAM.
3: More powerful CPU.
4: SD slot and file system.
5: USB
6: OS enhancements: Make it more of a standalone device

Sure when you run out of functional things to add, you can add cosmetic fluff like pixel density, but it is very low on my list.
 
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