Another report claims Apple's iPad 2 will sport a high-res display - Page 3

I'm not sure that blowing text up to giant sizes properly demonstrates the issue. With a font that large, it's easy to focus on the big black areas and ignore the relatively tiny jaggies on its edges. I think it's actually more potentially problematic at smaller sizes. However, I read quite a bit on my iPad (using relatively smallish fonts) and the resolution is not at all a problem for me. Not that I wouldn't welcome an iPad "Retina Display", but I don't think we'll be seeing one this year.

Me as well, but maybe the way to put it is "hoping Gruber's sources are wrong."


Out of this excellent reasoning, only this question: Don't they have to mention this expense in the earnings call?


I also got a glif, even though I'm still waiting for the Verizon iPhone! I was imagining the glif-like thing we'll need for the iPad just yesterday. I hope those guys are on it right now.


Those pixels, or lack of them, get into your neurons. Steve said it would be impossible to go back to earlier displays.

I think they're going to do it. But I won't be disappointed if they don't. Honest.

You only say this 'cause you love me.

I am 71 and have been looking at computer screens/terminals since 1967.

I like the iPad -- but usually the text is too small for these 71-year-old eyes.

I usually zoom -- but that means I have to pan back and forth to read long lines of text in a paragraph.

For example, the text in these forums.

I wish the iPad (or AI) had an option to zoom text, but reflow it within the horizontal width of the screen (or within the boundaries of a frame or field).

Of course it is true! It has to be!

I don't care if it will waste a potential performance upgrade by eating up the additional resources of the iPad 2, and I don't care if you think it is not worth.

I want it because such a beautiful IPS hi-res display would B L O W my mind

I mean, the iPad screen isn't so awesome, but compare it side-by-side with a MBP or something... It IS amazing already!

I understand completely that scaling images up to anything but an even multiple will usually require anti-aliasing, which slightly blurs edges. But maybe the 2048x1536 images in iBooks are intended to be shrunk down to 1024x768 or, say, 1280x960.

Scaling down and emoving pixels might be easier and better-looking than scaling up and adding pixels. And that could mean sharp images on screens smaller than 2048x1536. Not sure if this is actually true or not. Just a thought.

I've long suspected Apple would do this. It would help convince people who have held out for a lower price to buy. And it will put even more pressure on competitors whose only advantage would be low price.

Combine Apple's cost advantage and high margins with consumer mindshare, and it will be extremely tough for anyone else to make money in the pad computing market. Just ask Ballmer.

I'm convinced. Apple is always ahead of the game and knew about this prior to the original launch. They need a compelling reason to buy a 2nd gen not only nor newbees but repeaters and this is it.

I think the level of announcement all depends on how much of an upgrade iPad 2 is. If they are just bumping the memory and processor, and adding a camera, they may just put it up on the Apple store and have a press release. If they go with the retina screen and other cooler features (SD card slot, gyroscopes, etc.), then they will need to have a small event to show off all the new tech. Either way, I don't see Steve being a part of this while on medical leave, unless they facetime him while he's at home on the couch with his new iPad. He will put on a black turtleneck just for the 2 minute chat though

I think they do have to disclose their expenses but I don't think they had to give the level of detail they did. It was mentioned as an example of what they're doing with their cash reserves. I think it was Cook who said it was an investment in a particular type of component and likened it to their investments in CPUs and flash memory (but clearly suggested it didn't belong to either category). I don't think he had to say any of that.

If the iPad upgrades parallel what Apple does for Mac upgrades, then don't expect too much from iPad 2.

Well, it depends on the app -- iBooks reflows the text when you "zoom" (change the font size) -- but I assume you mean in Safari. I agree that there are definitely times when I would prefer to be able to change the viewport width myself, or change the default font size, rather than zooming and panning.

Logic tells me you are right...

But, my damn intuition tells me different ...

... The Bard of Avon said it best:

There is a tide in the affairs of men.
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.

300 dpi is what most offset printing uses. It's pretty much the max as the substrate (paper) becomes the determining factor. Even with a coated stock there is going to be a bit of 'dot gain' - ink will spread out about 5 to 20% depending.

A "high quality magazine" isn't using a higher resolution then a normal one - they just use better paper. Tighter rosetta's with less dot gain.

I've already linked to this, but it didn't seem to make any impression, so I'm going to link to it again.

Again, it's a look at the likly time frame of an iPad sized "Retina" display within the context of Moore's Law.

People seem to be figuring that Apple could get this done is they're willing to invest heavily, or take a hit on margins, or buy up supply, or something. But the semiconductor industry doesn't really work that way. If all it took was money to leapfrog everyone and release 2013's technology today, don't you think some deep pocket folks would do it more often?

The main point of the linked article is that advances in silicon process mean some pretty predictable advances in LCD resolution. It all comes down to rejection rate. It's not that it's entirely impossible to fabricate 10" screens at 4X current iPad pixel density, it's that until such processes have been up and running for a while there are high rejection rates-- the fabs have to iron out the wrinkles in cramming that many more transistors onto the wafers while keeping the density of imperfections within manageable levels.

So no doubt there are 2048x1536 prototype iPads in Cupertino. The problem is, if the manufacturing process is running at a 50% rejection rate, those panels are astronomically expensive. And there's really no way to get those rejection rates down besides actually making a shitload of panels and sweating the details. Which means you can't just show up at your suppliers door with a wad of cash and say "Jump ahead a generation." It takes what it takes, and what it takes is time and experience.

And yes, I know the iPhone screen was a jump, but there actually had been incremental increases in that size screen happening all along. Smaller screen mean more of the wafer can be used even is some number of them are rejected. There hasn't been any movement at all to higher resolution screens in an iPad size that I've seen, much less a huge leap like what is being discussed.

Anyway, read the article, it makes a pretty good case.

300 dpi is max for raster images. You can supply a higher res file, but when the file goes through a rip, it's going to knock it down to 300. Vector images are different. However, on a magazine even vector images are converted because of the 4 plate system for cmyk.
It is possible to have vector image printing on top of raster images- requiring extra plates to be made. You see this from time to time. Usually with solid shapes and a special ink.

Et tu, Brute?

Nice to run across this here. I hope Eric Schmidt doesn't read AI, else his resolve be steeled and h.264 more doomed. [trying for iambic pentameter]

I'm with this. But the information we are hearing does seem like too much to upgrade at once. Perhaps apple views honeycomb as a marketshare threat and wants to hit this one hard. Regardless, I am expecting apple to find a way to underspec some critical feature so people generally love the device but are more or less forced to upgrade next year.

Take it easy .... you're going to "bust a lung"....

I did read this article last night, but thought the application of Moore's Law was maybe a bit of a reach, but then what do I know about LCD screen making, so I took the easy route back to wishful thinking. But thanks for the link. Grist for the old mill. Otherwise the stones get worn, grinding on themselves . . .

Edit: Just re-read your post above. You argue it better than the article.

The reason for 300 dpi is because of the substrate and dot gain. 300 dpi is what a coated stock can handle without killing the Rosetta.
Newsprint is 150 lpi or up to 220 dpi depending on the quality of the paper.
Flexo printing on a burlap sack can be as low as 14 dpi.

Coated inkjet paper has special (expensive) chemicals on it to sustain a smaller dot... But doesn't use the same method as commercial offset printing.

Imagine a mag printed on an inkjet or dye-sub... The thing would cost $200.
I could get into 'art' printing, like for expensive books, but that again is a different process.

You can lead a horse to water ... but you can't make it drink ........ no matter how many times you link it. lol

DRINK. DRINK YOU BASTARDS. DRINK.

I am not aware of lcds following Moores law. If so, extrapolating backwards, not that long ago they would have had one or two dpi. Clearly the number if transistors on a screen is lower than a normal wafer of that same size.

Assuming an 18 month "generation" Moores law applied retrospectically would imply about 128 times less per inch a decade ago (2^7).


The "generation" therefore can be jumped, since the LCD generations are tardy. Just buy better equipment and more if it. If it works for one machine, then $3.9B will buy you lots of machines.

Actually the term is rosette. I believe you will find that 300 dpi is only in reference to the digital image resolution and has absolutely nothing to do with the resolution of the plate/press/ink on paper. That resolution is normally 2400 dpi. Also newsprint (uncoated web press) traditionally is 85 lpi not 150, although some print at 65.

I am feeling the same. It just seems like the cost would be prohibitive but my gut tells me "Yeah, they're gonna do it somehow".

I think putting it only in a premium iPad HD makes the most sense. This would help with the supply issue and give LG(?) another year to improve yields. And, of course, they could charge a higher price so that Apple does not take a big hit on margins. I've been rethinking the margin issue and in the conference call Oppenheimer guided to 38.5% for the current quarter and said that they hoped to improve margins to the 39-40% range going forward. Even with generally favorable component pricing and improved margins across all the other products, I think it might be impossible to hit these margins if the hi-res display was used in every iPad.

It would help if there were a smaller device that used the same resolution so that they might possibly salvage panels that would not make the 10" cut.

I think this is possible except I think it will be called the iPad HD. Next year when display yields are better, they could then call all their offerings iPad HD.

Couldn't have said it better myself. In fact, I couldn't have said it at all.

My own fuzzy logic says that if it's possible to economically produce 3.5" screens of much higher density, then it should be possible to produce 9.7" screens at somewhat lower density. And then, as you say, use a lot of money to build a plant and buy machines.

If you have to throw a lot of them in the recycle bin, then just charge us more. We'll pay, I guarantee it!

This is why they would bifurcate the line and create a single premium model called iPad HD.

This approach would also mean that Gruber is technically right that we won't see the double-resolution bump on the iPad 2.

Good point, perhaps the article should have made less of Moore's Law and stuck to silicon processes in general. The history of LCD display resolutions (like CPU perfromance) isn't marked by abrupt jumps beyond what anyone had generally imagined plausible; even the iPhone 4 was had just somewhat higher resolution than the incremental improvements that had reached the market since its release.

A 2048x1536 9.7" panel would be such an abrupt jump, certainly for a relatively inexpensive mass market product. I think the best argument against it being plausible is that it has never happened. Again, Apple's not the only CE company in the history of the world with some money to throw around; if skipping a generation of anything were economically feasible but for some upfront money it would happen more often.

Or perhaps I'm wrong. Perhaps there's something genuinely unique in Apple's position as a cash rich company that controls its entire product and seeks competitive advantage through pushing key technologies. It may be that a ton of money up front is actually all you need to leap ahead, but no one was really positioned, till now, to make that a sound investment. Until the iPad there wasn't really any good reason to even want super high res 9.7" screen, unless it was for extremely expensive specialized applications. For all I know you can pay someone to fire up the foundry, work out the kinks, and go into full production at a price point that's sustainable for mass market. But then you'd still have to wonder at how you make a jillion of them, since Apple appears to have had a hard time just getting enough of their plain jane iPad 1 panels, and that's with several sources.

$6.3 Billion could buy a lot of research into screens. I'm thinking it'll happen.

I don't think its even research, its just cold hard getting it done. You can make these things right now, for sure. The trick is in making enough of them, consistently, so that you can get the price down.

I like this last paragraph. Even more if you add "the creative will" to the enabling cash and the seeking of competitive advantage. C'mon LG, do it for Steve! [getting too emotional, going back to work]

My guess is that Phil emcees. He brings Cook out to talk the numbers. The new iPad is revealed by Phil then Mansfield comes on to talk about the hardware changes. Forstall then finishes up with any software developments. Finally, they roll a short clip with Steve extolling the virtues of the new iPad.

I think this provides the perfect opportunity to showcase the talent that Apple has in the executive suite.

They did mention that they made payments in the December quarter and anticipated payments in the March quarter of more than $1B relative to the $3.9B in prepaid expenses.

iPad 2 is going to be great fir everyone who has been patiently waiting for it to land. That much is certain based on the obvious new features (A5, RAM, Cameras).

Whether or not the iPad 2 compells iPad 1 owners to trade up (like the iPhone) immediately upon launch, or at least within 6 months, depends entirely on other factors. With iPad prices in the $500-800 range, its not the easy upgrade you have with iPhone, which is nearly free if you pay $200, and sell your last gen for the same. No, I think (and hope) this means there are some very strong features of iPad 2 that are irresistible to current owners.

And I'm thinking it's this display.

Actually, the 2400 dpi resolution for plates that you speak of is the resolution for vectors. Raster images are 300 dpi. Because magazines consist of both vectors and raster images, rips determine which line screen to apply to each element. Text, for example will be rendered at the rips highest capability, while a 300dpi Photo will be processed at the same dpi.

Newsprint is much higher now then it was 15 years ago. More bleached paper and smoother finish. I worked on a paper a few years ago and we ran 220 through web press. Take a look at some of the junk mail you get. It's some nice paper they are using.

Another vote.

We is potent to obtain a Mardi Gras apportion . . .

Possibly the reason why this has not been done is that it has never been essential. DPI does not really drive the sales of anything much, it is never a major buying point like processor speed ( in software terms it needs resolution independence to make the screen seem clearer and brighter not smaller)

When Apple came out with retina that, too, hadnt been done at the size. They did it and right across the new iPhone line, and increased their demand from 8M to 14M in the next Q ( the Oct Q). Of course some of those sales were 3GS, but many were iPhone 4.

I dont think it would be too hard to do this across some of the line for iPads which dont sell as much as iPhones now anyway - there are always supply constraints in Apple products just after launch, and people will put up with it.

I cant see them doing it across the line.