Apple rejected OLED screen for next iPhone, developed backup handset - Page 2

If you're talking about the ARs test, it hasn't been "debunked". Show some links to your statement. That test was well done, and shows actual failings of the display.

Oh admit it. You just forgot to start your post with "Rumor has it that..." instead of "My testing.."

The Zune is a great example. Apple can't simply adopt a tech even if it is better on all relevant fronts if it's impossible for the tech to produced in quantities that satisfy Apple's needs. If you look at the Q&A this article links to they specifically state that SMD couldn't barely fill half of Apple's needs.



Is this like the iPhone and the text box, where you have to put your finger on text in the box and then drag down to get to the end? If so, it is a bit of pain and still less than ideal and slower than I would expect.

Yes, lets go with that. "Rumor has it..." is what I meant I write. I'm not even aware that v4.0 is in Betas yet.

AMOLEDs are improving along with every other LED technology. It's expected that by sometime 2011 they will be much better. The current generation is already better than the one used in the Zune.


For the AMOLEDs that don't use the tech used in the Samsung display, and therefor the one from the Nexus One, color isn't a problem of the display itself. It's a problem of the way the display is being driven.

It's similar to when going into a store that sells Tvs where the saturation is turned up so that skin tones look orange. A lot of people like high saturation even though it isn't accurate. I prefer accuracy. It isn't as impressive to most people who don't know better, but it's much better in the long run.

I don't think this is really true though.

- AMOLED displays have *somewhat* overcome the power requirements problem, and the refresh rate problem but that's all.

- "Super" AMOLED displays have *somewhat* overcome the problem of the display being unreadable in direct sunlight, but the last I heard they weren't even close to the performance of a good IPS panel on the same issue.

The main issues with OLED displays from Apple's point of view are poor colour reproduction, poor readability of text specifically, and poor readability in direct sunlight. Only the third issue has been *somewhat* mitigated by the very latest and best Super AMOLED screens. The technology really just isn't there yet.


IMO the biggest problem with discussions of OLED technology is that different people have different capabilities in terms of their ability to detect colours. The real explanation for OLED screens not being used is that they just aren't that good, but it's a hard thing to tell someone that. You have to tell someone (potentially a customer), that even though they can't see the difference, that there is in fact a difference and other people (with essentially better eyes or a more discerning vision), can tell the difference.

There is just no way to frame that without making it sound like an insult (it's not intended to be by me of course).

So what happens is Apple remains mostly silent on the issue. This means a lot of consumers are looking at the OLED screens (which may look great to them) and wondering why Apple isn't using them. The reason they aren't using them is that the colours are all over-saturated and the and the contrast is wonky, but no one wants to say it out loud. (except me! )

PS - I am seriously not trying to be offensive to anyone who likes OLED here, but instead trying to explain some of the background motivations as I see them.

Yes, I've posted on that too. Despite some here who knee jerk support every decision Apple makes, this wasn't one of their best. On my iPad, I can see running out of RAM using just one program, if it's a photo editor. That's likely one reason why Apple has limited, so far, the size of the images it will use and display, and why some programs such as the otherwise superb Sketchbook Pro are limited to 1024 x 1024 images.

There's a big difference between what the market leader has to do, and what a losing company has to do. MS needed to make a big splash with the Zune HD, and so the newer "cool" technology of an AMOLED was just the thing. Apple doesn't need to use something to try to keep their products selling well. While the Zune competes with the iPod Touch, the iPod Touch doesn't compete with the Zune, if you know what I mean. And that's already a generation behind.

Same thing for the phone. I much prefer Apple use the best tech, not the latest. There's plenty of time for that when it's up to snuff.

If Apple is going to the IPS screen then most of the objections will has disappeared. The only real difference will be in the blacks, and even there, IPS is better than other LCD tech. The LCD will still be more readable outdoors, where even my aging 3G works ok when at the setting I use it at, and decent at the highest one. That's better than any current AMOLED, and more important than better blacks indoors.

Yeah, I guess you are right there. But the other hand, the time for a car to go from launching the idea to the car at the dealer is 18 months ... Sounds weird that it should be about the same time for a phone.


I get it now, good thinking by the way!


The date for the GM last year, was that the day they build it or they released it? Because the last beta was released in early may (IIRC it was on the 9th). So there was plenty of time to build the thing and install it on the phones.

Doesn't work. You have an iPad; try it. The entire screen scrolls down instead. I can't find a way to do it.

In addition, PCmag's site has a problem as well. You know they have two scrolling areas. The top one is a horizontal scroll, where you click on the arrow at either end of the scrolling display. That works with a tap.

But, the bottom vertical scroll bar at the right side doesn't work at all. If you tap it, for a moment it highlights to show it was tapped, but nothing happens. You can't drag it down, as again, the whole screen scrolls. I've written about it but no response.

Web designers are going to need to fix these problems as touch devices become more prevalent.

ps.

I just went back to that post on my iPad. Some other odd things. In addition to the scroll bar not showing up, odd in itself, and not being able to scroll the text in the box, even odder, there is something else.

If I hold the iPad vertically, and use two fingers (I thought that maybe if I touched the screen outside the box, and tried to scroll with another inside the box, the text would scroll, but it doesn't), then the screen also scrolls vertically. If the iPad is horizontal, the screen enlarges, just like using two fingers to do that as one is moving away from the other.

But, in the vertical mode, if I tap the box for the cursor and the keyboard pops up, the the screen also enlarges with two fingers being used. Weird!

I wish I could, but I returned mine. The issue with Safari reloading pages was a deal breaker.

This "minor upgrade backup" rumor is absurd.

They've been field testing the next-generation design for months. If they had some supply constraints, they'd simply delay the international release, just like they did with the iPad and as they have done before with previous iPhones.

Steve has already reassured one person by e-mail that WWDC is going to be "awesome."

You don't provide "awesome" by shipping a minor upgrade to last year's design. We have seen the handset that Steve should be announcing in a few weeks.

If anything, this alleged 3GS-like prototype is a respin of the current model, destined to be the entry-level offering.

Maybe because Apple doesn't play the game of "other people are doing x, so we must do x even if it's bad for our customers".

Apple is focused on the quality of the customer experience. They're not going to adopt a technology simply because some other product uses it. They're ESPECIALLY not going to adopt a technology simply because a loser like Zune uses it.


Maybe because that's not what the iPad is designed for? While it's possible to use it for other tihngs, Apple has no obligation to do things to make it easier for things that it wasn't meant to do.

There would be a significant tradeoff if they doubled the amount of RAM. First, the cost would go up (if they can even get 512 MB in the form that they're using as part of the A4 chip). Then, power consumption would go up, reducing battery life. Finally, heat generation would go up. Since the RAM is part of the A4 chip, that might require reducing the clock speed of the processor to avoid overheating.

It's easy to say "MORE RAM". It's harder to actually do it - and deal with the compromises.

Really? That's such a minor thing. I hardly notice it.

You mean like the way Apple defenders a while back were claiming that nobody can see the difference between a 6 bits-per-color display or 8 bits-per-color display, and anybody who claimed that Apple was using inferior LCD panels were just whiners? Now that Apple seems to have changed their tune and now they specifically mention wide gamut displays in their newer laptops, are Apple defenders going to change their story as well?

It's obviously designed to do much more than the iPhone/Touch is. Don't agree with Apple when they make bad decisions.

It's easy to add more RAM. This isn't some major research project, just buy bigger chips, they're available. Apple obviously decided to do this to save some money, likely the same reason why there's no camera yet.

What compromises? There aren't any, technologically.

Until Apple has a dual core Cortex 9 running at 1.25GHZ or higher, we won't see virtual memory used which would obviate the need for more RAM. So we need more RAM. We're seeing it in a number of newer phones, as much as 1GB. It eases multitasking, even the semi version that Apple has implemented. Why limit what can be done, unless they're just trying to protect their MacBook sales?

And Apple says they don't do that. I'm not sure I believe it.

Well, it depends on whom the computers are intended for. The 24" iMac had an IPS display since it first came out, and a lot of pros use it for photo and movie editing. The smaller models aren't used that way, so Apple had a good reason for not bothering to use the much more expensive panels in them. But IPS panels have come down in price as have all display panels. So they now cost the same as the worse TN displays used to. The speed of IPS displays, always a weak point, has also improved markedly. Apple normally gives more for the same price over time, and this fits within their usual upgrade policy.

The same thing is true for laptops. As display panel prices continue to drop, at any given price point, Apple can give better IQ parts.

I'd question "useless". It's legible if you turn up the brightness. But I will grant that with the brightness down to the lowest settings, it's useless in direct sunglight.

And even there it's a trade-off. Indoors, I'd take the Nexus One screen over the iPhone 3GS anyday. It'll be interesting to see how much better the iPhone 4G screen is (compared to the competition).

It's my understanding that it's AMOLED not Super AMOLED.

And it's mine that it uses the Samsung screen.

I've had the HTC Incredible for about a month and I thought the screen was dim in sunlight when I first tried to use it outside but the auto brightness wasn't on and it was set about halfway. Once I turned on the auto brightness it hasn't been an issue.

Not even close. Production time from concept to dealer floor is more like 4 years for cars. Of course, that doesn't tell you anything about how long it takes for phones.


All we have is YOUR opinion that Apple made a bad decision with no evidence to back it up. So who is more likely to know how an unreleased iPhone performs - Apple or you?



I gave you three issues - and you chose to ignore them.

1. Availability. We don't even know for sure if 512 MB is possible in the format (part of the A4 package) Apple has chosen.

2. Power usage. Doubling the amount of RAM would increase power usage and reduce battery life.

3. Heat. Doubling the amount of RAM means more heat generation. Since it's part of the A4 package, that could be a problem - possibly even requiring a reduction of CPU speed - with consequent harm for ALL customers.

Then, of course, there's the non-technical reason - cost.

What evidence do you have that increasing the RAM would provide enough advantage to offset those disadvantages? Since my iPad already responds instantaneously to my commands, it's not clear that there would be ANY benefit to counter all those disadvantages, much less sufficient benefit to justify the change.

Once again, do you think Apple is stupid? Do you think that it never occurred to them to consider 512 MB of RAM? They just arbitrarily picked 256 MB and stuck it in there without any tests or evaluation? That's the only logical conclusion from your insistence that not adding more RAM was a mistake - that you know more about this than Apple and somehow know all the costs and tradeoffs. That is, of course, patently absurd.

FWIW, GSMArena says AMOLED:

http://www.gsmarena.com/htc_google_nexus_one-3069.php

Do you know where you read it was Super AMOLED? Could it simply be an older Samsung screen?

Absolutely! I post many replies from my iPhone to various forums. They often require me to have to grab a link or image as "proof" or simply do a little research to make sure I have the details accurate. if i lose everything i am writing when I switch pages then I get really annoyed. Having to Select All and then Copy every time i wish to switch a page or leave Safari is too much rigmarole for my tastes.

I hear Atomic browser doesn't do this, and it has tabs, not pages. I may get an iPad 3G after the G4 iPhone, but I may just wait until the iPad OS gets updated. While I hate the low RAM and wonder how it will deal with v4.0's multitasking, this does seem to be a Safari issue.

I am not working in that industry, but some people familiar with it have told me these things. I guess it depends on the model and where you live (US or EU), but it appears 18 months is the time frame for the faster projects. Could also be that I misunderstood what he meant and that the guy only spoke about a part of the process. I think he meant time to market though, which to me means concept to dealer.

Now who was saying Apple should use AMOLED on the iPhone? If the HTC Droid can't sell enough on one carrier I have to one wonder how the iPhone could possibly get the 30 million(?) they need to cover their needs.

•

http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/...ted/2010-05-26

18 months is in the right range for PROTOTYPE to market (assuming that there are no major problems). Concept to market is much, much longer.

That's an easy thing to post on your part. Yes, I do know something bout these issues, do you? I doubt it.

Apple doesn't always make the best decisions. If you can't understand that, there's no point in talking further about it.


I didn't ignore anything.

The only issue that's a real one is the cost, which I have mentioned here.

The others are non issues. As far as power and heat are concerned, larger chips of newer generations, which have been out for some time now, use about the same amount of power, and produce about the same amount of heat at the older chips do. You should know that. Heat isn't an issue for the iPad. Do you have one? I have the 3G 64GB model, and it never even gets warm after four or five hours of continuous use. That's even been noted by surprised reviewers. There is lots of room inside, unlike the iPhone, which is crammed. The aluminum acts as a good heat sink for the little heat that is produced.

Well, this is such a passive/aggressive kind of statement and uses such loaded terms ("Apple defenders"), that it's hard to respond to properly. I also don't know the details of that situation as well.

Apple, like most companies focusses on what the customer sees, not necessarily on specs and they use (mostly) high end panels and have led the industry in many respects with the quality of their displays. Apple has a large amount of artists and designers using their gear and those people *need* true colour reproduction, can tell when it's "off" and will be very vocal about it to Apple as well.

The issue you are referring to is *kind* of the same in that they were using a lower quality display for their entry level MacBooks for a while because they were cheaper, but I don't remember anyone at the time bringing up any evidence that the difference was actually noticeable to end users. There would be some users capable of noticing the difference perhaps, but then those users would not likely be buying an entry level laptop. In any case they reversed themselves on the issue and overall, Apple still uses much higher quality displays than most other manufacturers, which is kind of the point.

OLED on the other hand is easily detectable as "not true colour" by a much larger percentage of the population. All you have to do is look at it and you can see the colours are not right.

It's not an issue of using tricky technology to fool the eye into thinking it's seeing the right colours. The OLED screen simply presents rather wildly "off" colours and makes no attempts to correct them because the target market is people that *like* the over saturated colours. That's a big difference.

Are you sure about this, relative to the iPhone?

My understanding was that the new handset, like the iPad, is using a SoC (System-on-a-Chip). The RAM is part of the package. Just buying bigger chips might not be the option like it is with a desktop computer.

"nearly useless." .. I'll agree that It's usable on the highest setting but I find unacceptable that the screen must be turned to max, even automatically, in order for it to be usable outside. Like I said though, in ideal lighting, the Nexus screen is far more attractive than the 3GS.

Super AMOLED isn't a category, it's marketing name. I'm not sure if that would be used in the specs.

Here's a quote from Ars article on the Nexus One screen. The link is below.


That's what's in the Samsung Super AMOLED screen. Which while, at first, I was enthusiastic about the Samsung screen, with the extra brightness and efficiency, I lost interest in it. It would be a bad choice for an Apple product.

By the way, some are knocking the article about the Nexus screen for being inaccurate. That's not the Ars article they're talking about, it's the one the blogger did. Ars is correct, as is the scientifically worked article from the display testing company, who is very respected in the field. That testing company has come up with the tests and software the display industry uses for their own in house testing of their products.There's no argument about what the Nexus screen is, or how it works.

Even Google admits the screen relies upon human perceptual acuity for it's lack of proper pixels. I just hope other manufacturers don't follow this trend.

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/...-and-hacks.ars

It's not super AMOLED.

There are now bunches of browsers. I have one that shows two screens at once. It's called Double Up. Other than that feature, it's a pretty simple app. I hope it will get upgraded over time to become useful. But it does have its uses now at times.

Overall though, my iPad is a very useful device, and I wouldn't part with it.

They don't always make the best decision, but that is generally only known in retrospect. Today, we're trying to PREDICT what the best decision is. That means the reader has to decide who is more believable - Apple with their years of experience and all their experts or some anonymous loud-mouth on AI.

The decision is actually quite simple.


So you ARE ignoring the technical issues.

Going from 256 MB to 512 MB on a SOC design is immensely different than going from 32 to 64 GB FLASH memory. The fact that you are glossing over that indicates either that you don't know what you're talking about or you're intentionally misrepresenting the facts. Not to mention that it's foolish to compare 512 MB of current technology to 256 MB of past technology. Whatever RAM Apple chooses will be the same technology regardless of size. It's not like they can use a 2012 version of 512 MB and are forced to use a 2008 version of 256 MB, after all.

Let's look at facts:

Does 512 MB use more electricity than 256 MB? Obviously, the answer is yes - at any given state of technology.

Does 512 MB generate more heat than 256 MB? Again, obviously yes.

Does 512 MB cost more than 256 MB? Yes

Is 512 MB even possible on SOC at today's state of technology? You don't know, but Apple presumably does.

So, there are plenty of real potential problems. Now, let's take that to the logical conclusion. There are several possible options:

1. Apple never even considered 512 MB and you are the first to suggest it. That is so absurd that it can be ignored.

2. Apple considered 512 MB and evaluated it, but decided that 256 was more desirable for some reason.

Which of the two is more plausible? Clearly, #2. Your insistence that Apple should have used 512 MB and could have done so without difficulty is tantamount to a claim that you know more aobut this subject than Apple - which is, again, patently absurd.

The RAM is not part of the package, as far as I know, and even if it were, the fact that a number of other phones have 512 and now one even will have 1GB means it's not a problem. The customer requests which level of RAM they would want, as they do with other specs. Besides, Apple has had a hand in deciding what goes into their devices from the beginning. As their one model sells vastly better than any other manufacturer's individual model, the size of those sales make a custom request cost less than it may seem.

You know that from where?

So the problem is that you don't have any idea what you're talking about.

On the iPad, at least, the RAM is part of the SOC package. So your entire argument is based on not having any clue what you're babbling about.

A lot has been written about multitasking on phones, and that would apply even more so for the tablet. 256MB RAM is considered to be minimal. If more were available, the programs wouldn't have to be turned off in the background. Working with larger images would be easier, etc.

I hope for your sake you're not calling me "anonymous loud-mouth". I use my own name, and my background can be found in the profile. I don't know who you are though.


I'm not ignoring any of them, you're making up your own.


You've ignored reality again. You really don't understand the issues here. The FACT is that there are several phones out with 512MB, and one coming out with 1GB. Those are the FACTS.

Your facts aren't real. You'e just pretending to be logical.

Everywhere. It was never marketed as super AMOLED because it's not super AMOLED like the Samsung Wave or the forthcoming Galaxy S.