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My iPhone 4's screen has spoiled me for the iPad
- Thread starter MikeyTree
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Funny thing is that my iPhone 4 with QUADRUPLE the resolution of my 3GS has better battery life than the 3GS. What was your point again?
And next year's iPad will have double the memory and a custom Cortex A9-based CPU that could sport multiple cores. I don't think it will be a problem.
Reading lots of rumors about a 7" iPad coming to market having 1024 x 768 "retina" resolution. A 7" diagonal screen w/ 4:3 aspect ratio measures 5.6"(w) x 4.2"(h), or 183 dpi. Scaling this up to a 9.7" iPad at the same 183 dpi gives you 7.8"(w) x 5.8"(h) at 1426 x 1060. That's roughly double the number of total pixels than the current iPad, and totally doable.
Given the increased distances at which people hold their iPads, this bump in resolution may be enough for Apple to label it as a "retina" display using the "indistinguishable pixels at normal viewing distance" argument. I want an iPad but held off until the 2nd generation. If the 9.7" doesn't see a resolution increase, I won't buy it. There's no reason we can't have improved resolution at that size in the next model.
Given the increased distances at which people hold their iPads, this bump in resolution may be enough for Apple to label it as a "retina" display using the "indistinguishable pixels at normal viewing distance" argument. I want an iPad but held off until the 2nd generation. If the 9.7" doesn't see a resolution increase, I won't buy it. There's no reason we can't have improved resolution at that size in the next model.
The iPhone 3gs and the iPad don't have the same pixel density. 2048x1536 on a 9.7" display is only 264 PPI. To get to the retina display PPI you would have to go to 2560x1920. That's 625% increase in pixels and you've blown past 1080P and even 2K video resolutions.
That means the GPU has to handle 625% more data than the current one, and 800% more data than the iPhone 4. That's a pretty damn big increase. A native resolution video (not that you're likely to find that anytime soon) at 24fps max out at 354 megabytes per second. The iphone 4 only has to push a max of 44MB/s to display the same frame rate at native resolution. You would need a GPU on par with a decent desktop graphics card, not to mention a huge increase in video memory to get any sort of decent performance out of it if you want to use it for games or video and not just for text. And let's not even get into what all the scaled up content is going to look like. You think iphone apps look like crap running full screen now, imagine them scaled up to this resolution! iPhone 4 apps would have to be scaled up 3x to go full screen.
Even 1080p video would be at 177% at full screen. Can you imagine what Netflix would look like? blah!
So yea, it would make for gorgeous text, but at the expense of video, battery, and cost. No thanks.
That means the GPU has to handle 625% more data than the current one, and 800% more data than the iPhone 4. That's a pretty damn big increase. A native resolution video (not that you're likely to find that anytime soon) at 24fps max out at 354 megabytes per second. The iphone 4 only has to push a max of 44MB/s to display the same frame rate at native resolution. You would need a GPU on par with a decent desktop graphics card, not to mention a huge increase in video memory to get any sort of decent performance out of it if you want to use it for games or video and not just for text. And let's not even get into what all the scaled up content is going to look like. You think iphone apps look like crap running full screen now, imagine them scaled up to this resolution! iPhone 4 apps would have to be scaled up 3x to go full screen.
Even 1080p video would be at 177% at full screen. Can you imagine what Netflix would look like? blah!
So yea, it would make for gorgeous text, but at the expense of video, battery, and cost. No thanks.
Retina iPads will happen...someday
I believe they will have retina displays on the iPad in the future but not today.
There's too many device fragmentation considering the graphical resources will have to be bumped up to 2048x1536 of all existing iPad apps and the just iPad was released a few months ago.
There will be a time of a "display transision" like how the iPhone 4 has transitioned from 480x320 to 960x640. There are still a lot of iPhone apps that haven't been updated to match iPhone 4 resolution. It will take time.
The PowerVR GPU that exists on all iOS devices currently has to be able to push and maintain pixel performance at that resolution. They probably have prototypes that won't be released 2-3 years later.
You know how Apple releases products? They ROLL. Release new models with a few core feature at a time and make it great, no rushing unlike other companies who put everything at once.
Just recap with the iPhone's hardware changes:
1G - initial release
2G - Added 3G speed, GPS
3G - "3GS" Speed and RAM upgrade, Compass, 3.2MP camera.
4G - "iPhone 4" Retina Display, Facetime, Gyroscope, Improved Rear Camera, Wifi N
iPad just had its initial release. iPad 2G with a camera make sense, NOW they have FaceTime implemented. A 7" inch iPad is a possibility, now that you can have a similar but not quite Retina Display by shrinking pixels of the same resolution. iPad 3G could have Retina Displays, who knows....
I believe they will have retina displays on the iPad in the future but not today.
There's too many device fragmentation considering the graphical resources will have to be bumped up to 2048x1536 of all existing iPad apps and the just iPad was released a few months ago.
There will be a time of a "display transision" like how the iPhone 4 has transitioned from 480x320 to 960x640. There are still a lot of iPhone apps that haven't been updated to match iPhone 4 resolution. It will take time.
The PowerVR GPU that exists on all iOS devices currently has to be able to push and maintain pixel performance at that resolution. They probably have prototypes that won't be released 2-3 years later.
You know how Apple releases products? They ROLL. Release new models with a few core feature at a time and make it great, no rushing unlike other companies who put everything at once.
Just recap with the iPhone's hardware changes:
1G - initial release
2G - Added 3G speed, GPS
3G - "3GS" Speed and RAM upgrade, Compass, 3.2MP camera.
4G - "iPhone 4" Retina Display, Facetime, Gyroscope, Improved Rear Camera, Wifi N
iPad just had its initial release. iPad 2G with a camera make sense, NOW they have FaceTime implemented. A 7" inch iPad is a possibility, now that you can have a similar but not quite Retina Display by shrinking pixels of the same resolution. iPad 3G could have Retina Displays, who knows....