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It's going to be interesting to see what Apple does here. Prior to the iPhone 4's release, Android competitors were poo-poo-ing the 3GS for its pitiful 480x320

by cletus 16y ago

It's going to be interesting to see what Apple does here. Prior to the iPhone 4's release, Android competitors were poo-poo-ing the 3GS for its pitiful 480x320 display, which by then looked dated against the (up to) 800x480 (iirc). In hindsight, Apple's move was both farsighted and brilliant. In doubling the resolution they provided a seamless user experience. In light of this I was a little surprises theipad introduced both a new aspect ratio and resolution, a resolution not even fully capable of 720p. It really makes me wonder what Apple will do. Will they repeat the iPhone 4 trick and double it this or next year? 2048x1536 does seem rather high. It's possible there will be an altogether different resolution but I rrwally think developers would need 2+ months notice of that to update their appsand get them approved. It wouldn't be as drastic change as the original iPad as that was a totally new form factor but it'll still be a change. So the choices seem to be no change, doubling or new resolution. All have downsides so Apple seems to be in somewhat of a corner. If the iPad 2 is just a CPU/RAM bump to the iPhone 4 and camera, even if a little thinner, I will be disappointed at this point. The originalipad was a huge gamble and I believe it paid off beyond Apple's most optimistic estimates. Perhaps there'd is room for a big hardware bump given a concrete track record.

jbrennan 16y ago
At this point, I'd be a little disappointed too, if iPad 2 doesn't have the doubled display. But the article is definitely convincing. I'm a nerd, so it would disappoint me. But I think in general, Apple already still has such an enormous lead in the tablet "market". I don't expect them to rest on this for iPad 2, but I also don't think it would be devastating for iPad 2 to keep the same resolution as the original. iPad's display only started to look lacklustre to me after spending a few weeks with iPhone 4.
- megablast 16y ago
  One of the regular occurrences preceding an Apple launch is all the rumors, and the eventual disappointment that half of them did not come true. You can see Apple trying to control that these days, with the controlled releases to NYT and WSJ, and through gruber.
saurik 16y ago
I personally believe that if Apple had released the iPad with the same aspect ratio as the iPhone, developers would have simply treated it like a giant iPhone and not bothered trying to build interfaces that took advantage of the larger area (which is actually important, leading to a few new widgets). (That said, I'd imagine the actual key reason for the aspect ratio change is that existing "classic" aspect ratios, like 320x480 and 1024x768 are the sweet spots on pricing at these various sizes.)
- Scarleet 16y ago
  Apple demoed the iPad with a set of apps specifically designed to take advantage of the larger area. Apple also released the necessary tools, allowing developers to follow their lead, long before the iPad was available. I don't believe that the aspect ratio would have matter so much as long as Apple set the proper example. That said, some developers still haven't built interfaces taking advantage of the larger area, despite the different aspect ratio. One popular jailbreak app cough Cydia cough still loads an apologetic PSA almost 9 months after the release
  - saurik 16y ago
    The reason for that PSA is that there is very little third party software that targets it. Most of the jailbreak iPhone developers see the fractional marketshare (it is really really tiny, to be honest: the iPad users are vocal, but they were less than 5% of the userbase last I checked) and therefore don't bother targeting their applications to support that platform. This small marketshare, to be honest, afflicts the device generally: there still isn't an official Facebook application for the device, despite the fact that if you force the current Facebook iPhone application to work as a fullscreen app (which I do on my iPad) it works 100% perfectly: even little funny corner cases render well. And with that app it involves a two-line config file change, with no code modification. If you also said "and, by the way, iPhone applications are first class citizens on this device, but use slightly weird interface components", I seriously doubt you'd see anyone changing their mind on that regard. To whit, I will cite tablet PCs: the difference between a Tablet PC and a normal PC is nearly nothing, except it is also everything. Microsoft's own applications and development tools actually provide a lot of interesting added value on those devices, and when you start getting used to having a magic pen that you can draw onto surfaces and then /full text search/ that handwriting it is kind of difficult to go back. Meanwhile, however, no one other than Microsoft: NO ONE, has ever bothered to pen-enable their applications. Of course, you can say that Apple is amazing, Steve Jobs is a god, their App Store is the second coming, and their marketing is like evil juju that would have cut through development value tradeoffs (and to some extent I believe that: when I go to developer conferences I get into some really weird conversations where people don't seem to have thought through their strategies), but by and large I think you'd see many more "iPad apps" that were just iPhone applications scaled up at 2x or 4x: that black border of shame means something.

by cletus 16y ago

jbrennan 16y ago

At this point, I'd be a little disappointed too, if iPad 2 doesn't have the doubled display. But the article is definitely convincing. I'm a nerd, so it would disappoint me. But I think in general, Apple already still has such an enormous lead in the tablet "market". I don't expect them to rest on this for iPad 2, but I also don't think it would be devastating for iPad 2 to keep the same resolution as the original. iPad's display only started to look lacklustre to me after spending a few weeks with iPhone 4.

megablast 16y ago
One of the regular occurrences preceding an Apple launch is all the rumors, and the eventual disappointment that half of them did not come true. You can see Apple trying to control that these days, with the controlled releases to NYT and WSJ, and through gruber.

saurik 16y ago

I personally believe that if Apple had released the iPad with the same aspect ratio as the iPhone, developers would have simply treated it like a giant iPhone and not bothered trying to build interfaces that took advantage of the larger area (which is actually important, leading to a few new widgets). (That said, I'd imagine the actual key reason for the aspect ratio change is that existing "classic" aspect ratios, like 320x480 and 1024x768 are the sweet spots on pricing at these various sizes.)

Scarleet 16y ago
Apple demoed the iPad with a set of apps specifically designed to take advantage of the larger area. Apple also released the necessary tools, allowing developers to follow their lead, long before the iPad was available. I don't believe that the aspect ratio would have matter so much as long as Apple set the proper example. That said, some developers still haven't built interfaces taking advantage of the larger area, despite the different aspect ratio. One popular jailbreak app cough Cydia cough still loads an apologetic PSA almost 9 months after the release
- saurik 16y ago
  The reason for that PSA is that there is very little third party software that targets it. Most of the jailbreak iPhone developers see the fractional marketshare (it is really really tiny, to be honest: the iPad users are vocal, but they were less than 5% of the userbase last I checked) and therefore don't bother targeting their applications to support that platform. This small marketshare, to be honest, afflicts the device generally: there still isn't an official Facebook application for the device, despite the fact that if you force the current Facebook iPhone application to work as a fullscreen app (which I do on my iPad) it works 100% perfectly: even little funny corner cases render well. And with that app it involves a two-line config file change, with no code modification. If you also said "and, by the way, iPhone applications are first class citizens on this device, but use slightly weird interface components", I seriously doubt you'd see anyone changing their mind on that regard. To whit, I will cite tablet PCs: the difference between a Tablet PC and a normal PC is nearly nothing, except it is also everything. Microsoft's own applications and development tools actually provide a lot of interesting added value on those devices, and when you start getting used to having a magic pen that you can draw onto surfaces and then /full text search/ that handwriting it is kind of difficult to go back. Meanwhile, however, no one other than Microsoft: NO ONE, has ever bothered to pen-enable their applications. Of course, you can say that Apple is amazing, Steve Jobs is a god, their App Store is the second coming, and their marketing is like evil juju that would have cut through development value tradeoffs (and to some extent I believe that: when I go to developer conferences I get into some really weird conversations where people don't seem to have thought through their strategies), but by and large I think you'd see many more "iPad apps" that were just iPhone applications scaled up at 2x or 4x: that black border of shame means something.