iPhone 4 apps will fill iPad screen, get VGA output - Page 2

According to Dr. Soneira's calculations everyone can hold the iPhone 3GS 3 feet away from their eyes before they can no longer differentiate a pixel.

You can try this at home. How far away does any current iPhone or Touch have to be before you can't see separate pixels? I bet it's well less than 3 feet for almost everybody.

Are you sure he's not actually referring to a "more satisfying aspect ratio". If that is the newest alias of who I think it is, he's complained about the iPhone and iPad not having a 16:9 aspect ratio like an HDTV and therefore stated it was "crap" for watching anything on. Though I seem to recall movies are typically filmed in 1:1.85 or 1:2.35 aspect ratio, thus making his claim even more bogus.

26" by mine.

I'm going by what he stated. I was talking about resolution, and his answer responded to that post.

I really don't want to see 16:9 resolutions in our phones. That's a horrible idea. The ONLY thing it's better for is modern video. Everything else is better off with a squarer display. That crappy 16:9 ratio is one reason the Zune has to use two screens to get the same amount of info on the screen as the Touch gets in one. Poor interface design is another.

Video isn't everything, and still photos from compact digital cameras, as well as those on phones isn't 16:9, so there's wasted space there.

Nothing is going to satisfy everyone. But I just don't find it practical. People were even brainlessly complaining that the iPad wasn't 16:9.

Hey, the AppleTV outputs 720p via component, doesn't it? Including rented HD movies.

My old MBP also doesn't have HDMI but can rent SOME HD movies (and buy any HD TV show) and display on my DVI-or-VGA-connected plasma. Not as many movies as the AppleTV though, but it's there.

So what's the deal with the iPad not being able to output to the levels of ONE of the above?

Well, there are many times i'm reading on the iPhone. Some web pages and PDF files (etc) cram too many characters per line to read at all, even in landscape mode. So, I end up zooming to the point where I have to scroll back and forth to read each line. If the screen were the same width but came in a 16:9 ratio, I would be more likely to be able to read a full line in landscape mode without zooming/panning.

And, yes, for me the old iPhone already has a retina display! Will iPHone 4 be wasted on the likes of me?

That wouldn't solve many problems. Apple is providing a far higher resolution screen. THAT will solve your problem. Assuming that any small screen is good for certain kinds of reading. I'm now using my iPad for reading PDF's. And, yes, the ratio is far better than 16:9 would be for that purpose.

As for web pages, most are still based in the letter or sometimes A4 paper size. I always double tap for a column, and that wouldn't change for a 16:9 screen.

I thought you just said that you needed more resolution in the horizontal view? Otherwise, what would be the purpose of the 16:9 display? Here, you'll get it. And if you can't see more than 480 anyway, what would be the purpose of 16:9?

Actually apps won't become unusable when scaling down because iOS is based on Mac OS X which has resolution independence so in theory at least it should remain fully useable.

As the iPhone's screen is more precise it should even be more useable.

Actually, for my eyes, it's not the number of pixels per character that's the limiting factor, it's the size of the character. I could actually read more easily on a bigger screen with less ppi than I could on the same size with more ppi. Capiche?

Because an expected 10 million iPhone 4s sold by the end of this year will be a small market?

But yes, doubtful there will be many iPhone 4 only apps.

But didn't you know trolls have green kryptonite aided vision?

Commenter from Discover Magazine article makes very astute post...

103. Hiram Says:
June 10th, 2010 at 8:21 pm

If you look at or listen to the quote, we will see that Jobs says “around” 10- 12″ and “around 300 pixels” Then others infer the definitive statements, of definitely exceeding all human perception. When I heard that statement, with two “arounds” in it, I interpret that as “being damn close to if not exceeding the limit”. However, when making a statement this vague, you can guarantee the spec nerds will go nuts, once again not getting the point that the exact specs are not what is important, but the effect on the user experience.

The funny thing is that these “expert” nerds are actually less perceptive than the casual non-tech user, when the nerds never see the forest with their nose against the tree.

Why does only one company look at the big picture?

No RI in OS X yet, and no RI in IOS 4 as far as we know.

And yet, as if by magic, Android won't suffer fragmentation and stratification?

yeah, right....

The difference in horizontal length between a 3.5" diag. display, and a 4.3" diag. display is, even accounting for the difference in ratio between the two, about .7", according to quick and rough calculations. The iPhone display is now 3" long. That would give you about a 23% increase. Would that make a serious enough difference? Remember that that's the biggest display now used, except for the Dell Streak, which isn't out yet, and is said to be too big to be comfortable as a phone. Most other 16:9 displays are just a bit bigger than the iPhone display diag. but only about .25" to .30" bigger horizontally. That wouldn't help at all.

Because you have to be extremely confident to ignore all the critics who think they know better?

Let's face it, Apple only makes it look easy. If it was as simple as just marketing or sprinkling some kool-aid around, there would be far more companies as successful as Apple.

When Steve speaks about passion in designing products that they wanted to use first, you can tell. There is no design by committee, poll or stockholder demands

Apple has a singular vision and they execute it as close to perfection as humanly possible before moving on. I find it ironic that those who criticize Apple for cut and paste don't realize that the delay Apple took in cut in paste is exactly why they are successful over those who had the checkbox on the feature list before Apple. Apple doesn't just check the box on a feature list, they check the box on the experience list. That's something exponentially harder to do - yet as a consumer of their products, infinitely more satisfying.

That focus is why I predominately use Apple products over others. Other companies just need to step up their game. HP, so far, seems to be the only one who might understand with their WebOS purchase. We'll have to see if it really ends up in a cutting edge tablet or just ends up as an improvement to the built in interface on their printers

I'm pretty sure Motion JPEG has better quality and is easier to work with (less cpu horsepower required) than AVCHD but at the cost of larger file sizes.

To be specific...

. . . Device:. iPhone. . EVO 4G. . . Difference
Aspect Ratio:. 1.5(3:2). 1.78(16:9). —
. . Diagonal:. 3.5". . . 4.3". . . . 0.8"
. . . .Width:. 2.91". . .3.75". . . .0.84"
. . . Height:. 1.94". . .2.11". . . .0.17" If that is a problem for his perhaps a larger display is the solution for him, but it's not an "aspect ratio issue" which would only increase the width of the iPhone by 0.14" if they maintained 3.5" on the diagonal.



Android still hasn't gotten it right in v2.2. I do wish they'd offer a rich System Notification service. I find WebOS' implementation to be excellent, hopefully they are using their recent hire of the WebOS guy to work on that, I just hope I don't have to wait until iOS v5.0 to get it.

Well, it's good to see my finger method of calculation was pretty close; only off by a 0.14". I think that MAY be enough to make a bit of a difference, but not all that much. Smaller screens will make no difference at all, really.

I was hoping that Apple would have squeaked a bit larger screen in the phone this time.


I thought that Apple would have done something on notifications this time. I was slightly disappointed there. Maybe that guy will work on it. Possibly, we may see something before next year.

I don't think that'd really work. I'd love to have hdmi on my iPhone to show off a media portfolio, but I get annoyed enough when a call interrupts my song while I'm on the road listening to my iPhone through my car stereo. I couldn't stand for that to happen part way through a movie. Or have a text come in while watching YouTube videos.

Turn on airplane mode.

He's not actually correct on this one. I think it's a good name, and a marketting concept that will resonate with people etc, but on a purely pedantic and anal assessment he is wrong. All this talk of 20/20 vision, your average persons eyesight, perfect eyesight etc isn't a part of the equation. What Jobs was was that around 300 (Let's give him +- 10% and go for 270 - 330 ppi was "the limit" of the human retina. The limit, not the average.

Now, if you ask me the limit of human speed so far is Usain Bolt. However your average man is probably 50% slower than him over 100 meters.

So it's a great marketing term, that whilst not being 100% accurate is probably good enough to stand up to it's claims. I think this is where Apple shine. They've taken a vastly complex subject (as proven by the pseudo-scientific back and forth arguments and discussions) and distilled it into a non technical message - 4 times more detail than your existing phone, so good your eyes can't pick fault. Compare that to some of the android manufacturers who still blind the public with science and specs. OK, Apple use terms like IPS etc during their keynotes (audience of geeks) but when it get's to the high street, that's all gone and they sell on the features, not the specs. We all know what OLED is, jonny highstreet might not, and might not care to. Meanwhile everyone understands Apple's message.

That's come across a bit fanboy, but I think it's true. There is a lot of fair discussion to be made on the relative merits of LCD/OLED, contrast ratios, colour reproduction and all that, but 95% of consumers don't care about the how, just about the what. And Apple tends to distill and clarify the message in ways everyone else don't understand is even important yet.

Tech kit eh? Reviewed by geeks, but bought by your dad.

I think the content creators should adapt to these mobile times we live in and author more fluid layouts.

Apple now has iOS devices with 3 resolutions out there. I wonder whether they will just let 320x480 die or if they will continue to use it on a smaller iPhone. Smaller display with slightly higher ppi, smaller bezel - iPhone nano. In many situation the regular iPhone is too big and too "precious" to carry around, I would love to have an alternative.

I 100% agree, but I think that games and text will be stunning on such a high res definition, even on a small screen. About games, the only way to "hide pixels" is to use an anti alias filter. This filter is not easy to be handled by a graphic chip but an antialiased polygon looks ten times better than a non antialiased one. The only alternative way to "hide pixels" is to increase the resolution, and this is what the so called "retina" display does.

I think you are so incredibly right that I think Apple must be building an *app* named 'Apple TV' and going to do exactly what you propose.

More in general, I think next holiday everything should be in place for Apple to start offering Apple TV not as a device, but as a concept. The hardware you still need to buy then should depend on the hardware you already have in place.

Depending on if you already have an iMac, a MacBook, a Mac mini, an iPad or an iPhone or no TV and Apple hardware at all, you might be buying an AirPort device with or without some memory, a dock, a video adapter, an alleged track pad, or the alleged complete Apple TV set.

Yeah. What a strange quote. The iPad has the worst PPI of any iOS device Apple sells. According to that list, it at least matches or beats most of Apple's laptop or desktop displays, but I don't think that's what they meant.

An app called Apple TV: I LOVE IT AND I WANT IT!!! even if I already have an Apple Tv

Even if they did, you'd need cosmetic surgery to sharpen your finger tips to be 10x more precise.

Touch interfaces are defined by the size of the touchable areas. The resolution (dpi) of the device doesn't matter, you'll end up with a sharper interface with a higher dpi.

A bigger display allows you to have more touchable area on the screen, and thus more interface elements.

When displaying iPhone apps on the iPad, the touch areas become a lot larger (in 2x zoom mode), which is okay, even if it makes the application appear a bit like a Duplo version. Hopefully iOS 4 apps will be allows to scale to the iPad display as well in zoomed mode

I think it will make a huge difference. We'll see when the new iPhone debuts.

Given everything Apple is all about, I think the iPhone deserves to have the best screen in the industry.

I don't think his report talked about anything that everybody can see. I think he was talking about the effects upon normal vision.

So what will become of iPad 'HD' apps, that will end up just using all their assets virtually unchanged from (presumably much cheaper) iPhone source apps?

Hopefully we'll just see every app becoming a universal app, smart enough to format properly for any device.

The iPhone is 16:10, IIRC. It is very close to a regular screen, with a little more height in landscape.

Is the new screen more precise? Is the digitizer different?

That is way too complex for Apple's target demographic.

Apple sells you one device with one i/o that hooks up one way. Their new target customers are the people who constantly had 12:00 flashing on their VCR.

16:10? are u sure... I think 16:10 is even larger than a 16:9... 1900 x 1200 is a 16:10 ration... and downscaling it should get a 320 x 202 but I'm not 100% sure...

Somebody check me out. I did the arithmetic, and I come up with 16:10.667