Rumored 'iPad mini' event to focus on iBooks, report says - Page 2

Yes to "content consumption".

Actually, tech IS created in a bubble.

Jony Ive is at the center, and I've heard it's an absolute bastard to get in and out of without a security pass.

 

My bad! was talking about reading on my old g4 PowerBook. To tell you the truth, I didn't realize iOS didn't have anti-aliasing, because their dot pitch is so fine anyway. Seriously, the pixels on the 9.7" XGA iPad are unresolvable unless you hold it too close and look for them—and I'm over 4 powers farsighted, which means my glasses magnify everything quite a bit.

I wonder why it's not on there. Perhaps too resource heavy to figure all that out? Or because they are using a finite number of pixels that they don't need it because there is wide variety of scalable windows and placement like with desktop OSes? I'm not a font guy so this stuff is very much over my head.

True. But you also don't see them putting in specs just to say its there. So if a retina display etc is deemed overkill and spec wanking, they generally don't do it.

I wouldn't be shocked if we see some iTunes Store updates in terms of content deals etc, even perhaps a nice Apple TV box

 

1) it does not have to be retina to compete.  See I can baldly assert things as well.

2) Eliminating the 3GS does not open any doors for a new third resolution.  The 3GS is the same for most devs (i.e. non OpenGL ones) as the 4 and 4S.  320x480 POINTS.  Just as the iPad, iPad 2 and iPad 3 are all 1024x768 POINTS.  The actual new third resolution (320x568 points) is to support the iPhone 5.  Adding yet another so quickly would be kinda bad for devs.

3) I would prefer they not drop the iPad 2 but slot the mini in between iPad 2 and iPod Touch in the lineup.

 

If I did my math right* a 44x44 point target on the iPad is 0.33" and about 0.27" on the iPad mini (and iPhones).  44x44 is the suggested minimum size for a tappable UI element in the HIG.

 

7.85" @ 1024x768 @ 163 PPI lines up for screen size, screen resolution and HIG recommendation for minimum sizes.

 

It is vaguely possible to do a scale factor of 3 and start with 320x568 (or 320x480) and end up with a physical 960x1704 (or 960x1440) iPad mini using the iPhone 5 (or 4) point layout.  Mmmm...using a pixel density of 264 results in a 3.6"x6.45" device or 7.39" diagonal that is compatible with iPhone 5 apps.  Uh, no.  1024x768 despite the non-retina resolution makes a lot more sense to me.

 

--

 

* it is not just possible but actually likely I screwed up the math somewhere...

Edited by nht - 10/12/12 at 6:50pm

 

Maybe all these rumors are true. Remember the one that the much-anticipated Apple "TV" was really a new high-tech remote? Maybe the iPad Mini is a Kindle-killer eReader, with iBook Store, and also a remote that knows (or can learn) the control codes of any TV, stream video over Wi-Fi and AirPlay it to a Wi-Fi dongle you plug into your TV's HDMI. It could calibrate your TV by looking at it with the camera and twiddling the settings. Content supplied by the much-rumored Apple "Cable" network.

 

Hey, a guy can dream.

Just that it was not a variation on the iPhone. It was always part of the iPod line up. The iPad mini name means it is part of the iPad line up. Hardware characteristics aside, just the name of the product line. Just like the aTV runs iOS and has similarities but you don't compare it to other iOS devices spec-wise.

Perhaps not for content, but I have heard the exact opposite from educators in that arena who say that a smaller lighter tablet would be preferred for smaller hands.

Hand size has little to do with it in my opinion because the ideal setting for education, especially for young children, is to have the device sitting on a table where they are seated, the device is not held. The large screen allows for large buttons that mimic all previously tested and approved early childhood learning tools.

It has no phone HW in it so it can't be an iPhone but it's surely the same OS, same base HW, some look from the front, same UI, etc. What was just an iPod app on the iPhone became two apps on the Touch known as Music and Videos, but it's much more than just a PMP, yet didn't warrant it's only category. I'd argue they really just expanded the PMP category to include the phone-less iPhone which puts it a lot closer to a PDA and than a PMP. It's one of the reasons I thought a small, cheap tablet could be classified as an iPod Touch but seeing as the iPod event is over I'd say it's going to be in the iPad category.

Anti-aliasing is simply "smoothing" the spaces between the pixels at the edge of characters, which is particularly helpful for readability of smaller type on lower resolution displays. I believe it generally requires licensing tho as a patented feature. AFAIK it's not at all resource heavy. As an example Garmin has used it for years on their PND's with very low-end processors and minimal memory.

Edited by Gatorguy - 10/12/12 at 7:46pm

 

"How much sexier," you ask? How about the new iPad Mini sitting in your lap and reading you the text in Barbara Eden's voice? 

 

You won't fall asleep, that's for sure!

 

I would agree with you but then why do the schools hand little kids pencils and markers the diameter of mop handles??

Well, that certainly makes sense, all I can say is the educators I've spoken to have suggested otherwise. I'm not sure it makes much difference for 6-12. However, whether or not they discontinue the iPad 2 commercially does not mean they won't continue to offer it to the educational market (the e-Mac is one such example), nor that they won't offer the third gen iPad at a lower price point once the 4th gen is released. I guess my point about discontinuing the iPad 2 has more to do with moving everything to retina which could theoretically happen across all product lines (excluding the 17" and higher displays) by next year. But if the mini-tablet is in fact designed to be a lower price-point competitor, then they run out of room pretty quickly trying to distinguish the value for price between the Touch, mini-tablet, and iPad 2. Something has to go, and it seems like the mini-tablet is the obvious choice to consolidate the fast-becoming-obsolete Touch, and the low end iPad offering, while also competing with the 7" tablet market. Apple does not need to compete with the low-end 10" market.

Did iSheldon finally get the boot? I see people quoting him but his posts are gone. TallestSkill, thanks for cleaning up his trolling if he's gone.

I need a 7 inch tablet! I was very tempted by Nexus 7 but is useless without 3G. If the iPad mini has 3G is an instant buy for me. I don't care about retina display. I want 3G, great battery life, powerful processor and a lot of memory. It's a Ultra mobile computer for me, not a book reader.

Apple please take the DRM off the ebooks, then I will buy more. I will buy movies regardless, but there is just something distasteful about it wrt books.

 

You removed DRM from songs and the bottom did not fall out of the market. And hasn't the court just ruled that Google is allowed to scan entire libraries without breaching copyright? Please just get rid of it.

I think this Ipad Book has nothing to do with specs, so no retina, accelerometer or camera, but all has to do with demographics. I think we'll see interactive epubs with extended javascript support.

No it wasn't. As usual you impart your negativity onto everything.
I do remember the presentation as if was yesterday as I knew it would be revolutionary.
I don't think Steve Jobs said "look folks we have created an e-reader".
But that is what you are implying, and don't try and squirm your way out of it.

 

The term retina display was coined to express the notion that the display is pretty much as good as it gets because of the limitations in the human retina not being able to 

detect pixels which were any more miniscule (when held at the appropriate distance). There is little point in going so far beyond 'retina resolution' as 326dpi. (1) higher cost (2) extra pixels means harder work for the graphics processor, again more expense, and more heat and juice drawn from a smaller batter than the 9.7" iPad.

 

I think they'll stay at 163dpi this time, maybe with anti-reflective finish. Not retina - but better than the iPad 1 & 2.

 

If the iPad is being focused on the eReader market (I'm not altogether convinced but this is the premise of the article), then there are implications for other things than the screen. We can expect it to be light, with good battery life. But processing power is not a priority for iBooks, so we could well see A5 levels of performance rather than the A6 speed of the iPhone 5.

So where will I be excited iPad mini or iBook?

 

That's one way to look at it. The other perspective is that why not discontinue "obsolete" production capacity.

 

I don't know about the veracity of rumors. But I know that these so-called low yields are not hurting Apple's margins. And they are not hurting the suppliers enough, or else they'd refuse to swallow the costs. For sure, the low yields are not stopping Apple from manufacturing and selling the highest number of devices using that display.

 

 

I agree with both points. I am simply suggesting that 163 ppi is not a foregone conclusion, even if I believe it is more practical and likely. At 163 ppi, the iPad Air will fall well short of the 216 ppi on Nexus 7 and 254 ppi on Kindle Fire HD. It would surprise me if Apple will undercut Amazon or Google in price. So how will this product be positioned?

Why would Apple announce a device that has a lower ppi than Fire HD or Nexus 7 but most likely would be more expensive? To me that comes across as arrogant - Apple thinking they can release something that's just "good enough" and people will buy it because its got an apple logo on it. Yeah I know display isn't everything but its a pretty big deal with tablets, especially if you're positioning the tablet for books and education.

Can you explain how the capacity for production can be "obsolete"? If you need any production then production isn't obsolete.


You don't think selling less products than you could otherwise sell doesn't hurt a company? You could have an apple stand that is profitable but if you can't get to an entire orchard to pick more apples that there is a demand for then you are not making as much money as possible.

But lets look at margins. You're talking about not just taking the 4" iPhone 5 displays that are rumoured to a be key component that Apple can't get produced fast enough and putting that same tech into what is rumoured to be a low cost tablet. A tablet that will have a lower profit margin... and that is even without considering the additional cost for yield issues of producing the same display at 4.27x the area. Everything about that idea says it's not a smart move.

If we're talking about a 7.85" 4:3 display then a 163 or 326 PPI are a foregone conclusion because the only reason for that specific size and aspect ratio are for using a resolution that is already found on the iPad. There is unequivocally no argument to support that size. The latter is foolish if you except this to be a lightweight (one-handed), cost effective tablet that can compete with the current 7" tablets. In fact, the idea of the 326 PPI display on the 7.85" iPad mini would make it considerably more costly to make over the iPad (3) because of the increased difficulty. It's just not feasible to think that anything other than 163 PPI makes sense if you believe the 7.85" rumour.

 

 

Marketing

 

Except in this case "good enough" would be better than anything on the market.

 

And no, I'm not rooting for the stupid thing, I'm saying that the corners people believe Apple is cutting are the corners that have to be cut to make a smaller tablet.

 

If the stupid thing comes out, people will complain about it, get this, for being EXACTLY WHAT THEY WANTED IT TO BE. You mark my words.

 

No, thank you, Apple has not destroyed the tablet, phone, PMP, and ultralight computer market thanks to "marketing".

Why does the PPI have to be higher? Why does it have to be less expensive based solely on the PPI? Why are you ignoring that a 7.85" 4:3 display has about 40% more area than a 7" 16:9 display? Why is 163 PPI, which is about 20% higher than the still selling iPad 2, such an awful resolution against products that aren't yet on sale? Since when has Apple competed on specs over the user experience?

 

They have not destroy anything except applications

Apple may say they don't compete on spec but I think that's BS. Apple has a heavy focus on retina displays, they're beefing up their capabilities in chip design. Apple is all about making what they feel Is a superior product. I don't see how coming out with a product that had an inferior display cuts it, the last thing they want is someone reviewing it and saying the display on the Fire or Nexus is better. Display trumps real estate IMO.

 

No, but you will never convince the eInk folks that their display isn't superior even though there are no actual facts to back them up.  

 

There is a long held popular misconception that LCD screens are bad for reading or bad for your eyes or both.  If you look into it you will find it has no factual support at all.  

 

There are also lots of folks like me who find eInk screens to be hard on their eyes, but since this is absolute heresy to even mention it, this also is denied and ridiculed.  

I thought it was Apple's motto to create what they feel are the best possible products, not just something that's "good enough". If Apple is going to release something that's just "good enough" so they can meet some price target and still keep decent margins then why even bother. We have the iPad 2, so just keep selling that then.

Ever since I got my iPad my Nook has been collecting dust. Only time I use it is if I'm outside in direct sunlight. To me that's the only benefit of eink

So you think Apple is using Retina displays solely because they can advertise the pixel density and not because it actually makes the user experience better? Yet you've ignored that they don't have the highest capacity RAM or highest number of CPU cycles or even the fact that the iPhone 3GS was falling behind other phones in PPI and resolution because they didn't simply bump the spec willy nilly to make a spec sheet look better at the risk of hurting the user experience. No, they balanced the pros and cons only releasing the Retina display when it made sense because scaling the resolution by 2x was best for developers and customers. If you think Apple cares about a spec sheet over the totality of the device then you don't understand Apple at all.

If that is the case then explain to me the 4th gen iPod Touch that had a vastly inferior display than the iPhone? Are you going to tell use the iPod Touch is somehow different but an iPad mini should be speced so high that it would have to be more expensive than the current iPad (3).

 

So you don't consider owning 90% of the tablet market, 75% of the PMP market, 33% of the phone market (with six models), and having the cheapest and unquestionably best ultrabook to be… good.

 

Exactly. They wouldn't make something "good enough" if they made it, but it's THEIR definition that matters.

 

People also forget that most of the buying public doesn't actually give a sh*t about "retina" displays either .  The "Retina display" is a marketing term, whereas most of the comments here are treating it like it was a spec instead.  What it means to the consumer is "great screen" or maybe "so fine you can't see the pixels" but in truth the average customer isn't looking for pixels and doesn't care.  As long as when they pick it up the words "great screen" go through their minds, that's all that's necessary.  I think this will happen whether it's 1024x768 or whether it's ten times higher resolution.  Because ... Apple. 

 

I have given away my old iPhones and my old iPads to people who have never had one before and they absolutely gush over the "wonderful screen" (on the 3G!) and how "light it is" (the original iPad!).  All the tech blogs will carp if it's only 1024x768 but then just like with every other Apple product, the public will go out an buy it in droves and love it to death regardless.  

 

There are lots of folks out there right now who are using "old" "crappy" screens on the 3G and 3Gs who are completely aware of the existence of the iPhone 4, 4s, and 5, who just don't care about the fact that their screen is technically not as good.  There are millions of people out there using iPad 2 right now who don't give a crap about the fact that their screen is technically inferior either.  

 

True enough.  Direct sunlight is hard even on the iPad 3 screen with the brightness cranked.  It wasn't even possible on the iPad 2 or the original.  

 

Probably because it is.

 

 

It wouldn't happen at 1024x768 because of the PPI.

 

 

People don't know what they want until you show it to them.