7 ms·

Understanding the 9.7" iPad Pro's Display: How DCI-P3 and True Tone Work

123 points by techenthusiast 11y ago

Aelinsaar 11y ago
It sounds like True Tone, especially if you're not concerned with pure color accuracy, is a pretty neat trick that actually works.
- MBCook 11y ago
  It's pretty great. It's less accurate, but it seems better for casual (non-photo editing) content since it appears to behave more like a sheet of paper would look. It helps the screen "disappear". I've heard reports that photo editing apps (such as Photos, and 3rd party products) disables TrueTone while they're the foreground app to prevent TrueTone from causing you to mess up the color balance.
- simonh 11y ago
  I'm very happy with it. Like Retina before it, you only really notice it when you don't have it. Very quickly it becomes the 'new normal' and going into settings and switching it off can be a real surprise in many common lighting conditions. Night Shift is a much bigger effect, and isn't calibrated to your environment, but I like it. I know some people think it's too extreme, and it is noticeable. I'm using it on my 6+ right now and it obvious it's on, but again if I switch it off temporarily the blue-whiteness of the un-shifted display looks horribly sickly. But then the warmer colours work particularly well with the HN colour scheme.
  - joshschreuder 11y ago
    I agree, the effect of turning it off is extremely jarring. It's kind of like using f.lux late at night and then turning it off. The blue light becomes blinding.
  - Aelinsaar 11y ago
    "Becomes the new normal" Oh, that's the very best kind of tech!
- jessriedel 11y ago
  Who would care about absolute color accuracy rather than perceived color accuracy? Even if you're a graphic designer operating in a standardized lighting condition, True Tone just becomes equivalent to an uncorrected display. It's like you were reviewing the first pair of shorts you ever had with an elastic band, and you said "Well, it's true the shorts are very comfortable and seems to fit me perfectly. But I'm a Medium, and the shorts don't conform to the definition of that size".
  - wingerlang 11y ago
    I reckon if they send stuff to print media they must case about the real values.
    - jessriedel 11y ago
      If you print something displayed on the screen, then that print will more closely match what you see on the screen if True Tone is being used.
  - ZeroGravitas 11y ago
    That whole section of the review was weird. The analogy I was going to use was optical correction of fonts. Yes some characters are too big or too small by objective measurement, but if the typographer has done their job well they will look consistent to the human eye, with all its foibles.
MBCook 11y ago
I upgraded from an iPad Air 2 to the new 9.7" Pro for Pencil support. I like having great image quality, but the truth is the Air 2 already looks fantastic. I only cared about doodling, I really wasn't expecting much extra out of the screen. WOW. Apple hit it out of the park with this one. There are times using my iPad (which I'm doing right now) where the screen starts to remind me of a Kindle reader. Thanks to retina resolution pictures look fantastic and I can't see any pixels on text. The display is so close to the face of the device (since the gaps and thick screens have been eliminated over the years) that it seems like the pictures on the surface of the device. Now with TrueTone the white point on the display seems to match what's actually in the room. The end result of all this is that, much like a Kindle, the display seems to "disappear". It times you get this interesting little fact were you feel a bit like you're reading a piece of printed plastic. The giveaways that it's a computer screen of been minimized to such a degree that you can almost trick yourself at times. I don't know where I'd find some images that use more than the standard sRGB to see what they really look like on this iPad, but just from what I've seen with normal content I'm quite impressed. I really hope Apple includes this technology in the iPhone 7.
- techenthusiast 11y ago
  It seems like the wallpapers on the new 9.7" iPad Pro are Adobe RGB (displayed as P3). Beyond that, there's probably nothing that the average user can notice yet, at least until iTunes UHD content comes this year or next year.
  - gulpahum 11y ago
    Apple is bringing P3 support to Safari. There is already media query to check for P3 screen, which is useful to switch between P3 and sRGB images. https://drafts.csswg.org/mediaqueries-4/#color-gamut https://drafts.csswg.org/mediaqueries-4/#color-gamut They might also add support for css colors in P3 color space. (css colors are currently always sRGB).
- Theodores 11y ago
  I kept reading through the article, ploughing through the graphs but at no stage did the author write anything that conveyed how good it was in terms I could relate to. Some things need to be written about subjectively rather than objectively. Thanks for putting in to words what the article didn't do, to explain that it is a truly great display on this tablet.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
mattparcher 11y ago
Also see Craig Hockenberry piece, for more on the implications of all this for developers and designers: http://blog.iconfactory.com/2016/04/looking-at-the-future/ http://blog.iconfactory.com/2016/04/looking-at-the-future/ One of his key points: As a developer, you’ll quickly realize that the scope of these changes will make your update to Retina graphics look like a walk in the park. Craig is also currently working on a book “that helps you understand color in laymen’s terms, use color management with step-by-step instructions for popular apps like Photoshop, and guides you with the work necessary to create great looking web and native apps.”
- j_s 11y ago
  Sign up for newsletter here on the bottom of the page to know when the book is finished: https://abookapart.com/ https://abookapart.com/
colanderman 11y ago
Why DCI-P3 and not Adobe RGB? While they're roughly the same gamut size, with P3 having more crimsons and Adobe more aquas, Adobe actually covers most of the CMYK color space, while P3 does not (it is lacking in the aquas, like sRGB), and Adobe has a larger gamut in the highlights (due to its less saturated, and therefore brighter, red primary). Not to mention the fact that Adobe RGB has long been established (albeit not terribly widely used) in the graphics/photo industry. As another poster mentioned, even Apple couldn't find any P3 images to use as wallpapers, so settled on Adobe RGB ones instead. What's their goal? Are they aiming for better compatibility with digital cinema?
- sliverstorm 11y ago
  It always seems to me, Apple loves dodging the established choice. Firewire, Thunderbolt, I swear the list is long but I can't remember everything right now.
  - techenthusiast 11y ago
    DCI-P3 actually is the relevant film industry standard here. No consumer displays can do Rec.2020 gamut yet, so P3 is a nice halfway step that is comparable to sRGB, unlike Adobe RGB. And it's "future-proof," because both can use the SMPTE ST-2084 EOTF. Both the P3 and Rec.2020 gamuts are part of the UHD specification.
  - wtallis 11y ago
    Firewire and Thunderbolt both introduced important capabilities that no established choice could even come close to. Apple doesn't wait around for the beige box vendors to come to a consensus on technological advances.
    - sliverstorm 11y ago
      You're upset about questions of merit. I'm just saying it hardly surprises me.
      - 11y ago
deleted 11y ago
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deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
wmf 11y ago
Is this a 30-bit display or 24-bit?
- techenthusiast 11y ago
  The latter (8-bit per channel). Sadly we don't have the memory bandwidth yet in mobile. Hopefully we will for the iPhone 7.
  - markonen 11y ago
    If the frame buffer is 8-bit and in P3 color space, doesn't that mean that there are (way) less than 8 effective bits per channel for sRGB content? That seems like a pretty big compromise if true. The P3 iMacs are 10-bit, and there the color space looks more like a clear win.
    - techenthusiast 11y ago
      That's correct. There is unfortunately banding since it's only 8-bit. It is definitely an unfortunate short term compromise, though the P3 gamut is still worth the tradeoff. Also, both the 5K iMacs are 10-bit, while the 4K iMac is actually 8-bit. It's down to the bandwidth of the GPUs. Reference documentation for anyone interested: https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/releasenotes/MacOSX/WhatsNewInOSX/Articles/MacOSX10_11_2.html https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/releasenotes/MacOSX/....
      - 4ad 11y ago
        The 5k iMacs use a 10-bit interface, but the panel is still 8-bit and dithered. Personally, I am extremely happy with the 5k iMac panel, color-wise (contrast is not great though), dithering seems to work well and it's imperceptible in normal conditions.
        techenthusiast 10y ago
        Nah, it's both 10-bit and dithered, promise. See the Apple reference documentation I just posted above. You can tell by comparing a test image across the 4K and 5K iMacs. I first discovered this by doing that comparison at an Apple Store. There's obvious banding on the 4K model that isn't there on the 5K model.
satysin 11y ago
This reminds me of a Dell laptop I had a number of years ago that had a WRGB display that was gorgeous. I still think it looked better (albeit lower res) than current high-end laptop displays. Why did WRGB never catch on? It seemed so good.
- techenthusiast 10y ago
  Without diving into the details, RGBW is actually worse than RGB on technical merit. For TVs, the panels are so large that yields are terrible, so they often have to use a white subpixel as a quality compromise.
manfrominternet 11y ago
It's nice to have a wider gamut (I'm using NEC/DELL wide-gamut displays professionally since a decade and I calibrate them regularly), but very few will notice the difference given the incredibly poor contrast in outdoor conditions. I've recently switched to a newer laptop (lenovo x1 carbon), which is not matte (at least, the version I was given - with the touchscreen). While the resolution and color depth is much better than my previous hp elitebook, the screen is just too glossy. The added contrast is quickly lost due to the extra glare even in normal office conditions. Nobody seems to care nowdays, but the anti-glare coating makes a huge difference in 90% of the scenarios. The claim of reduced brightness is bullshit unless you're working on a monitor in fixed light conditions. On a tablet with a pen, which I'd really love to use outside to take notes, the added color depth is going to be useless.
- djrogers 11y ago
  >On a tablet with a pen, which I'd really love to use outside to take notes, the added color depth is going to be useless. This technology doesn't improve a specific use case for me, so it's useless... Let's ignore the other people, and other use cases.

123 points by techenthusiast 11y ago

It sounds like True Tone, especially if you're not concerned with pure color accuracy, is a pretty neat trick that actually works.

MBCook 11y ago
It's pretty great. It's less accurate, but it seems better for casual (non-photo editing) content since it appears to behave more like a sheet of paper would look. It helps the screen "disappear". I've heard reports that photo editing apps (such as Photos, and 3rd party products) disables TrueTone while they're the foreground app to prevent TrueTone from causing you to mess up the color balance.
simonh 11y ago
I'm very happy with it. Like Retina before it, you only really notice it when you don't have it. Very quickly it becomes the 'new normal' and going into settings and switching it off can be a real surprise in many common lighting conditions. Night Shift is a much bigger effect, and isn't calibrated to your environment, but I like it. I know some people think it's too extreme, and it is noticeable. I'm using it on my 6+ right now and it obvious it's on, but again if I switch it off temporarily the blue-whiteness of the un-shifted display looks horribly sickly. But then the warmer colours work particularly well with the HN colour scheme.
- joshschreuder 11y ago
  I agree, the effect of turning it off is extremely jarring. It's kind of like using f.lux late at night and then turning it off. The blue light becomes blinding.
- Aelinsaar 11y ago
  "Becomes the new normal" Oh, that's the very best kind of tech!
jessriedel 11y ago
Who would care about absolute color accuracy rather than perceived color accuracy? Even if you're a graphic designer operating in a standardized lighting condition, True Tone just becomes equivalent to an uncorrected display. It's like you were reviewing the first pair of shorts you ever had with an elastic band, and you said "Well, it's true the shorts are very comfortable and seems to fit me perfectly. But I'm a Medium, and the shorts don't conform to the definition of that size".
- wingerlang 11y ago
  I reckon if they send stuff to print media they must case about the real values.
  - jessriedel 11y ago
    If you print something displayed on the screen, then that print will more closely match what you see on the screen if True Tone is being used.
- ZeroGravitas 11y ago
  That whole section of the review was weird. The analogy I was going to use was optical correction of fonts. Yes some characters are too big or too small by objective measurement, but if the typographer has done their job well they will look consistent to the human eye, with all its foibles.

MBCook 11y ago

I upgraded from an iPad Air 2 to the new 9.7" Pro for Pencil support. I like having great image quality, but the truth is the Air 2 already looks fantastic. I only cared about doodling, I really wasn't expecting much extra out of the screen. WOW. Apple hit it out of the park with this one. There are times using my iPad (which I'm doing right now) where the screen starts to remind me of a Kindle reader. Thanks to retina resolution pictures look fantastic and I can't see any pixels on text. The display is so close to the face of the device (since the gaps and thick screens have been eliminated over the years) that it seems like the pictures on the surface of the device. Now with TrueTone the white point on the display seems to match what's actually in the room. The end result of all this is that, much like a Kindle, the display seems to "disappear". It times you get this interesting little fact were you feel a bit like you're reading a piece of printed plastic. The giveaways that it's a computer screen of been minimized to such a degree that you can almost trick yourself at times. I don't know where I'd find some images that use more than the standard sRGB to see what they really look like on this iPad, but just from what I've seen with normal content I'm quite impressed. I really hope Apple includes this technology in the iPhone 7.

techenthusiast 11y ago
It seems like the wallpapers on the new 9.7" iPad Pro are Adobe RGB (displayed as P3). Beyond that, there's probably nothing that the average user can notice yet, at least until iTunes UHD content comes this year or next year.
- gulpahum 11y ago
  Apple is bringing P3 support to Safari. There is already media query to check for P3 screen, which is useful to switch between P3 and sRGB images. https://drafts.csswg.org/mediaqueries-4/#color-gamut https://drafts.csswg.org/mediaqueries-4/#color-gamut They might also add support for css colors in P3 color space. (css colors are currently always sRGB).
Theodores 11y ago
I kept reading through the article, ploughing through the graphs but at no stage did the author write anything that conveyed how good it was in terms I could relate to. Some things need to be written about subjectively rather than objectively. Thanks for putting in to words what the article didn't do, to explain that it is a truly great display on this tablet.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

mattparcher 11y ago

Also see Craig Hockenberry piece, for more on the implications of all this for developers and designers: http://blog.iconfactory.com/2016/04/looking-at-the-future/ http://blog.iconfactory.com/2016/04/looking-at-the-future/ One of his key points: As a developer, you’ll quickly realize that the scope of these changes will make your update to Retina graphics look like a walk in the park. Craig is also currently working on a book “that helps you understand color in laymen’s terms, use color management with step-by-step instructions for popular apps like Photoshop, and guides you with the work necessary to create great looking web and native apps.”

j_s 11y ago
Sign up for newsletter here on the bottom of the page to know when the book is finished: https://abookapart.com/ https://abookapart.com/

colanderman 11y ago

Why DCI-P3 and not Adobe RGB? While they're roughly the same gamut size, with P3 having more crimsons and Adobe more aquas, Adobe actually covers most of the CMYK color space, while P3 does not (it is lacking in the aquas, like sRGB), and Adobe has a larger gamut in the highlights (due to its less saturated, and therefore brighter, red primary). Not to mention the fact that Adobe RGB has long been established (albeit not terribly widely used) in the graphics/photo industry. As another poster mentioned, even Apple couldn't find any P3 images to use as wallpapers, so settled on Adobe RGB ones instead. What's their goal? Are they aiming for better compatibility with digital cinema?

sliverstorm 11y ago
It always seems to me, Apple loves dodging the established choice. Firewire, Thunderbolt, I swear the list is long but I can't remember everything right now.
- techenthusiast 11y ago
  DCI-P3 actually is the relevant film industry standard here. No consumer displays can do Rec.2020 gamut yet, so P3 is a nice halfway step that is comparable to sRGB, unlike Adobe RGB. And it's "future-proof," because both can use the SMPTE ST-2084 EOTF. Both the P3 and Rec.2020 gamuts are part of the UHD specification.
- wtallis 11y ago
  Firewire and Thunderbolt both introduced important capabilities that no established choice could even come close to. Apple doesn't wait around for the beige box vendors to come to a consensus on technological advances.
  - sliverstorm 11y ago
    You're upset about questions of merit. I'm just saying it hardly surprises me.
    - 11y ago

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

wmf 11y ago

Is this a 30-bit display or 24-bit?

techenthusiast 11y ago
The latter (8-bit per channel). Sadly we don't have the memory bandwidth yet in mobile. Hopefully we will for the iPhone 7.
- markonen 11y ago
  If the frame buffer is 8-bit and in P3 color space, doesn't that mean that there are (way) less than 8 effective bits per channel for sRGB content? That seems like a pretty big compromise if true. The P3 iMacs are 10-bit, and there the color space looks more like a clear win.
  - techenthusiast 11y ago
    That's correct. There is unfortunately banding since it's only 8-bit. It is definitely an unfortunate short term compromise, though the P3 gamut is still worth the tradeoff. Also, both the 5K iMacs are 10-bit, while the 4K iMac is actually 8-bit. It's down to the bandwidth of the GPUs. Reference documentation for anyone interested: https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/releasenotes/MacOSX/WhatsNewInOSX/Articles/MacOSX10_11_2.html https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/releasenotes/MacOSX/....
    - 4ad 11y ago
      The 5k iMacs use a 10-bit interface, but the panel is still 8-bit and dithered. Personally, I am extremely happy with the 5k iMac panel, color-wise (contrast is not great though), dithering seems to work well and it's imperceptible in normal conditions.
      - techenthusiast 10y ago
        Nah, it's both 10-bit and dithered, promise. See the Apple reference documentation I just posted above. You can tell by comparing a test image across the 4K and 5K iMacs. I first discovered this by doing that comparison at an Apple Store. There's obvious banding on the 4K model that isn't there on the 5K model.

satysin 11y ago

This reminds me of a Dell laptop I had a number of years ago that had a WRGB display that was gorgeous. I still think it looked better (albeit lower res) than current high-end laptop displays. Why did WRGB never catch on? It seemed so good.

techenthusiast 10y ago
Without diving into the details, RGBW is actually worse than RGB on technical merit. For TVs, the panels are so large that yields are terrible, so they often have to use a white subpixel as a quality compromise.

manfrominternet 11y ago

It's nice to have a wider gamut (I'm using NEC/DELL wide-gamut displays professionally since a decade and I calibrate them regularly), but very few will notice the difference given the incredibly poor contrast in outdoor conditions. I've recently switched to a newer laptop (lenovo x1 carbon), which is not matte (at least, the version I was given - with the touchscreen). While the resolution and color depth is much better than my previous hp elitebook, the screen is just too glossy. The added contrast is quickly lost due to the extra glare even in normal office conditions. Nobody seems to care nowdays, but the anti-glare coating makes a huge difference in 90% of the scenarios. The claim of reduced brightness is bullshit unless you're working on a monitor in fixed light conditions. On a tablet with a pen, which I'd really love to use outside to take notes, the added color depth is going to be useless.

djrogers 11y ago
>On a tablet with a pen, which I'd really love to use outside to take notes, the added color depth is going to be useless. This technology doesn't improve a specific use case for me, so it's useless... Let's ignore the other people, and other use cases.