Next revision iPad

[wrkactjob]

iPhone 4 is cool and all but does seem to be obsoleting the iPad the moment it's come out...

Hmmm not sure my eyes could stand Reading War and Peace on a 3.5" screen!

 

[barkomatic]

iPhone 4 is cool and all but does seem to be obsoleting the iPad the moment it's come out...

Apple always does this. They stagger new features so that one device does not incorporate them all at once. Keeps you buying!

I like my iPad screen but I can certainly see where a higher resolution would have been preferbable. Maybe not as high as the iPhone 4, but at least a little better than it is.

 

[ArmCortexA8]

I think Apple will bring out a slightly smaller iPad. iPad Jr., perhaps.
- 960 x 640 7" IPS screen.
- $100 cheaper than the 9" with same memory.
- WiFi only. Identical iOS to the 2010 Touch.
- Will work with same accessories as the 9" iPad.

Why this constant push by consumers to get less hardware for their dollar? I think the size should remain the same or slightly increased to 10" with a slightly thinner bezel. I would not sacrifice quality, and want things better and larger or equivalent, not smaller.

 

[xraytech]

I was considering the same thing and I am glad that I didn't wait, nothing like waiting 6mos, 12mos or 18mos and trying to justify why your waiting. I did that with the wii and will not do it again.
If there is a product out there that I like I will get it and use it and probably upgrade to the next generation just as I have with PCs in the past.

Amen brother!!!

I say, "Buy now over speculation"

 

[matticus008]

You can't just multiply out 6 or 7 times the current price to get what it would cost.

As I said, no, you can't, because LCD pricing ramps on a logarithmic scale, not a linear one. Making a display 7 times larger costs much, much more than 7 times the price.

Based on the numbers you gave - I would ESTIMATE (wild guess here) that the cost would be more between 100-150.

Not even remotely realistic. If it were to launch today, the price would be closer to $400-500.

Scaling up is massively expensive. That's why there are displays at 3.0" at 320ppi, but 3.2" displays cap out at 285ppi, and 3.5" displays previously set the record at ~260ppi. What you can do economically is scale down.
The early 17" widescreens were regular 19" 4:3 panels shaved down, which is why they were highly economical to buy.

It's also why commercial pricing clusters together on the low end--today a 19" and a 22" monitor could easily be within a few dollars of each other, but you start to push beyond 24" and prices start to skyrocket. The cut down versions are economical versions of the max-size products; not the other way around (i.e., the large products are not expensive versions of the small one). The larger, more expensive products are more profitable in dollars, but not because they're marked up at a higher percentage--they're priced as low as possible to sell the most they can.

As you said - considerably more... but not to the extreme you outlined.

What I outlined is highly conservative and not extreme in the least.

It's a common mistake, but display products cost more per unit scaling up, not less. It's not just a matter of adding them together (which would reduce prices because of volume ramping), but doing it in a continuous way, which is much harder and much lower-yielding. The reason glass windows were made in grids of individual lites for so long was because it was a fraction of the price of making a continuous pane the same size. The same principle applies in displays.

 

[melchior]

one thing that does not get much talk is that the ipad was developed in secret separately from the the iphone 4 secret development. now that they know what each other are doing it would not be outrageous to think that apple makes an ipad revision sooner than later depending on costs.

whether this will happen i am on the fence.