Remember those reports that the iPad 3 would be with us this year? We can laugh now, but that’s what many people were saying earlier in the year. Now we’re getting rather more realistic information on the 2012 tablet – including the chance it won’t have a true Retina display.
While it’s easy to forget given the enormous sales it has enjoyed, many people were distinctly underwhelmed when the iPad 2 turned up.
In a situation that was eerily mirrored by the iPhone 4S seven months later, people griped over the lack of a new screen, with Apple opting instead to boost the internal components. Because of that, we’re expecting the iPad 3 to feature something special on the display front.
Recent rumours seem to support that idea, but we we may still not get the 9.7-inch Retina display we’re all after.
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Retina correction
According to Cnet, the intention is indeed to give the iPad 3 a Retina display-like resolution. In the iPhone 4S (and the iPhone 4 before it) that means a 960 x 640 resolution, but of course that’s a fairly small 3.5-inch screen. To achieve a similar effect on the iPad 3′s 9.7-inch display Apple’s going to have to pack in loads more pixels.
Apple’s definition of a ‘Retina display’ is one in which your eye can’t make out individual pixels – which is said to be around 300 ppi (pixels per inch) and above. Doing the maths reveals that simply doubling the iPhone 4S’s resolution won’t be enough to achieve this mark – 1920 x 1280 on a 9.7-inch display gives 237 ppi.
Apple needs to go higher, but it’s emerged that the efforts of its screen-producing partners, Samsung and LG, are falling short. At present the companies can produce 2048 x 1536 displays, which is double that of the iPad and iPad 2. However, that still only produces a pixel density of 254ppi – well short of the 300ppi goal.
Production difficulties
Even then, there are reported difficulties in producing such displays in the numbers required. According to Cnet’s source, the manufacturers “have production plans for 2,048×1,536 displays. Starting in November. But those are only plans at this point”. The issue is that “this is a quantum leap in pixel density. This hasn’t been done before.”
According to the same source, the alternative would be a 1600 x 1200 display – but this would be a major issue for app compatibility. A simple doubling of the resolution would mean that developers could update their apps at leisure to take advantage of the extra sharpness (as happened when the iPhone 4 came along), but this compromise would mean compulsory changes. We can’t see it happening for that reason.
Would you be disappointed by an iPad 3 without a Retina display? Or would double the iPad 2′s resolution be enough? Would you stand for the same screen in a third successive iPad generation? Let us know below.
