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I believe that what Gizmodo says is actually true and something that Apple "forgot" to mention when comparing(highlight the "good" things while omitting all the

I believe that what Gizmodo says is actually true and something that Apple "forgot" to mention when comparing(highlight the "good" things while omitting all the other things) the Nexus 7 with their new iPad so I do not blame Amazon for pointing it out to a wider public. If Apple wants to play this game, they must be ready to get fought back. EDIT: also, I still have no idea why isn't that thing Retina. I mean, they have putted it on everything, iPhone, iPad and Air, why not this? the Retina might be still the only great feature of iDevices and they have removed it? Why ? to put it in the next model to double the sales? To make it cheaper? It is not. This things make me really dislike Apple.

mbesto 14y ago
I suspect Mini "2" will have Retina.
- axx 14y ago
  yeah, so all the idiots ran to the next apple store to replace their one year old iPad mini FINALLY!!11 with a Retina one. I HUGE INNOVATION IN DISPLAY TECHNOLOGY! I was an Apple "Fanboy" for years, and all my computers are macs, but from time to time i get the feeling i need to switch to Unix or something else...
  - unimpressive 14y ago
    > I was an Apple "Fanboy" for years, and all my computers are macs, but from time to time i get the feeling i need to switch to Unix or something else... You're already using Unix. Mac OS X is a certified Unix system.
    - axx 14y ago
      yeah, i know that already. I meant a more Linux oriented OS. So to save time i wrote unix instead of mentioning all those popular unix distributions.
      - sbuk 14y ago
        Linux isn't a UNIX distribution. It's Linux. Linux can be described as 'UNIX like'.
- smackfu 14y ago
  OTOH, if you use the iPad as a model, that would mean it gets slower and thicker and heavier. Which was kind of OK in the iPad but probably wouldn't fly with the iPad mini.
polshaw 14y ago
> Why ? to put it in the next model to double the sales? Yes, apple has a long history of only releasing the stuff it needs to (arguably favouring stuff like battery life over these features-- iPhone without 3G, 4S with no LTE, etc), and then release an 'amazing' new version later. All the retina items (which doesn't include MBA, fyi), all had a non-retina alternative on launch, too. > To make it cheaper? It is not. It is. For apple. There was no way they were going to compete on price in the 7" space. I'm confident the margins on the mini are no better than those on the regular one, too.
- moystard 14y ago
  Apple are known to take much bigger margins than competitors on their hardware. The reason has actually been given by Jeff Bezos during the Kindle HD announcement: Amazon wants to sell their ecosystem, their ebooks, movies and music; the hardware is only a gateway to allow users to buy from their store. Apple makes money on hardware itself and needs a bigger cut (even if they have an ecosystem on their own, much bigger that is in some domains).
jws 14y ago
Best two reasons for not being retina: • panel availability at volume and price • power availability. Retina means about four times the power draw for rendering. Both of these will improve with time. Eventually retina will come.
- DannyBee 14y ago
  Do you have any actual data to back up the second point? Don't get me wrong, I understand the fill rates necessary, but i keep hearing this with no real data. After spending the past 6-8 months working with all sorts of embedded GPU's (mainly as an HTPC hobby on embedded boards), I kinda have serious doubts that the power usage is the factor here, and would like to see real data, not assumptions. You are assuming that higher resolution requires linear scaling of number of cores/shaders/etc, and thus, 4 times the power. If it's displaying using 3D, it's definitely not true (it requires linear scaling of some hardware, but not all hardware, and thus, power usage is not necessarily going to be 4x). On the 2D side, 2D cores have been so fast for the past "whatever" that it's not clear it would require any more power than normal. In fact, the only articles i can find that did any real testing show the power usage is only increased about 30% (overall, including both panel and GPU) on a full sized laptop. Their methodology seemed very suspect, so I don't want to quote them here, just point out that there is some alternative claims. I'm not trying to pick on you in particular, it just seems the common refrain for why the ipad mini is not retina, and i haven't seen a single shred of evidence to back it up.
  - jws 14y ago
    In my 3D iOS and Mac OS work I'm working on now, I am essentially entirely fragment shader bound (per screen pixel work). Quadruple the pixels and I need quadruple the energy per frame to do the fragment shading. The vertex shading and main CPU work stays the same, and the backlight obviously stays the same, so the total energy required doesn't quadruple, and 30% sounds like a reasonable ballpark estimate for that. I don't think Apple would accept reducing the battery life from 10 hours to 7 hours in exchange for a retina display on the inaugural iPad mini. That gets the wrong story in the media. Not having a premium feature that most people haven't seen is very different from "can't get through a day without charging and you have to buy all new chargers". FWIW I have one on order, and I expect to be disappointed in the non-retina display. I moved my iPad 3 to my daughter and went back to my iPad 2 a while ago and it just looks like a bunch of fuzzy mosaic tiles to me now when I try to read on it.
rahoulb 14y ago
Re: Retina display ... I would guess it's battery. My iPad 3 is heavy yet the battery life is significantly lower than my iPad 1 (and it takes ages to charge).
- robmcm 14y ago
  Mare sure you are using the supplied 2Amp charger, if you use an iPhone one or computer USB port it will take ages!!! Still takes longer though...
joubert 14y ago
* why isn't that thing Retina. I mean, they have putted it on everything, iPhone, iPad and Air, why not this? Air does not have Retina.
danbee 14y ago
It's probably battery life. The Retina iPad has a battery that's nearly twice as big as the iPad 2 and iPad mini and it's mostly to drive that screen. I believe that the power requirements are down to the number of pixels more than the size.
jklp 14y ago
> also, I still have no idea why isn't that thing Retina I can't find the link, but I remember reading that if the Mini had the iPad's retina display shrunk down, it would have had an unbelievably high resolution display, which would have increased the price of the Mini significantly. Not something Apple would want when targeting the 7" tablet market.
melling 14y ago
Air's aren't Retina. Mac Books aren't Retina. iMacs aren't Retina. In short, what you have posted is completely wrong. As for Amazon's ad, it doesn't really matter to me. Apple can deal with it. I'm not going to spend my morning debating it on HN. The one good thing about it is that Amazon wants to compete strongly for the tablet market. As a consumer of any "faith", this is good because it will create a technology race where we all win.
- esrauch 14y ago
  You can get Macbook Pros with retina displays now, which is what I assume you meant by Macbook since the Macbook-non-Pro line is discontinued. Pedantry aside, I agree with you.
  - melling 14y ago
    It seems that they still sell MacBook Pro's without Retina: http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_mac/family/macbook_pro http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_mac/family/macboo... I guess they've moved these down into the price slot. Retina has only been out since June. It'll probably take another year before everything is Retina. Another thing to consider is that Apple just introduced AutoLayout in iOS. They will expect developers to have adopted that within a year or so, which will free them from the basic resolution doubling that they've been doing.
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mbesto 14y ago

I suspect Mini "2" will have Retina.

axx 14y ago
yeah, so all the idiots ran to the next apple store to replace their one year old iPad mini FINALLY!!11 with a Retina one. I HUGE INNOVATION IN DISPLAY TECHNOLOGY! I was an Apple "Fanboy" for years, and all my computers are macs, but from time to time i get the feeling i need to switch to Unix or something else...
- unimpressive 14y ago
  > I was an Apple "Fanboy" for years, and all my computers are macs, but from time to time i get the feeling i need to switch to Unix or something else... You're already using Unix. Mac OS X is a certified Unix system.
  - axx 14y ago
    yeah, i know that already. I meant a more Linux oriented OS. So to save time i wrote unix instead of mentioning all those popular unix distributions.
    - sbuk 14y ago
      Linux isn't a UNIX distribution. It's Linux. Linux can be described as 'UNIX like'.
smackfu 14y ago
OTOH, if you use the iPad as a model, that would mean it gets slower and thicker and heavier. Which was kind of OK in the iPad but probably wouldn't fly with the iPad mini.

polshaw 14y ago

> Why ? to put it in the next model to double the sales? Yes, apple has a long history of only releasing the stuff it needs to (arguably favouring stuff like battery life over these features-- iPhone without 3G, 4S with no LTE, etc), and then release an 'amazing' new version later. All the retina items (which doesn't include MBA, fyi), all had a non-retina alternative on launch, too. > To make it cheaper? It is not. It is. For apple. There was no way they were going to compete on price in the 7" space. I'm confident the margins on the mini are no better than those on the regular one, too.

moystard 14y ago
Apple are known to take much bigger margins than competitors on their hardware. The reason has actually been given by Jeff Bezos during the Kindle HD announcement: Amazon wants to sell their ecosystem, their ebooks, movies and music; the hardware is only a gateway to allow users to buy from their store. Apple makes money on hardware itself and needs a bigger cut (even if they have an ecosystem on their own, much bigger that is in some domains).

jws 14y ago

Best two reasons for not being retina: • panel availability at volume and price • power availability. Retina means about four times the power draw for rendering. Both of these will improve with time. Eventually retina will come.

DannyBee 14y ago
Do you have any actual data to back up the second point? Don't get me wrong, I understand the fill rates necessary, but i keep hearing this with no real data. After spending the past 6-8 months working with all sorts of embedded GPU's (mainly as an HTPC hobby on embedded boards), I kinda have serious doubts that the power usage is the factor here, and would like to see real data, not assumptions. You are assuming that higher resolution requires linear scaling of number of cores/shaders/etc, and thus, 4 times the power. If it's displaying using 3D, it's definitely not true (it requires linear scaling of some hardware, but not all hardware, and thus, power usage is not necessarily going to be 4x). On the 2D side, 2D cores have been so fast for the past "whatever" that it's not clear it would require any more power than normal. In fact, the only articles i can find that did any real testing show the power usage is only increased about 30% (overall, including both panel and GPU) on a full sized laptop. Their methodology seemed very suspect, so I don't want to quote them here, just point out that there is some alternative claims. I'm not trying to pick on you in particular, it just seems the common refrain for why the ipad mini is not retina, and i haven't seen a single shred of evidence to back it up.
- jws 14y ago
  In my 3D iOS and Mac OS work I'm working on now, I am essentially entirely fragment shader bound (per screen pixel work). Quadruple the pixels and I need quadruple the energy per frame to do the fragment shading. The vertex shading and main CPU work stays the same, and the backlight obviously stays the same, so the total energy required doesn't quadruple, and 30% sounds like a reasonable ballpark estimate for that. I don't think Apple would accept reducing the battery life from 10 hours to 7 hours in exchange for a retina display on the inaugural iPad mini. That gets the wrong story in the media. Not having a premium feature that most people haven't seen is very different from "can't get through a day without charging and you have to buy all new chargers". FWIW I have one on order, and I expect to be disappointed in the non-retina display. I moved my iPad 3 to my daughter and went back to my iPad 2 a while ago and it just looks like a bunch of fuzzy mosaic tiles to me now when I try to read on it.

rahoulb 14y ago

Re: Retina display ... I would guess it's battery. My iPad 3 is heavy yet the battery life is significantly lower than my iPad 1 (and it takes ages to charge).

robmcm 14y ago
Mare sure you are using the supplied 2Amp charger, if you use an iPhone one or computer USB port it will take ages!!! Still takes longer though...

joubert 14y ago

* why isn't that thing Retina. I mean, they have putted it on everything, iPhone, iPad and Air, why not this? Air does not have Retina.

danbee 14y ago

It's probably battery life. The Retina iPad has a battery that's nearly twice as big as the iPad 2 and iPad mini and it's mostly to drive that screen. I believe that the power requirements are down to the number of pixels more than the size.

jklp 14y ago

> also, I still have no idea why isn't that thing Retina I can't find the link, but I remember reading that if the Mini had the iPad's retina display shrunk down, it would have had an unbelievably high resolution display, which would have increased the price of the Mini significantly. Not something Apple would want when targeting the 7" tablet market.

melling 14y ago

Air's aren't Retina. Mac Books aren't Retina. iMacs aren't Retina. In short, what you have posted is completely wrong. As for Amazon's ad, it doesn't really matter to me. Apple can deal with it. I'm not going to spend my morning debating it on HN. The one good thing about it is that Amazon wants to compete strongly for the tablet market. As a consumer of any "faith", this is good because it will create a technology race where we all win.

esrauch 14y ago
You can get Macbook Pros with retina displays now, which is what I assume you meant by Macbook since the Macbook-non-Pro line is discontinued. Pedantry aside, I agree with you.
- melling 14y ago
  It seems that they still sell MacBook Pro's without Retina: http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_mac/family/macbook_pro http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_mac/family/macboo... I guess they've moved these down into the price slot. Retina has only been out since June. It'll probably take another year before everything is Retina. Another thing to consider is that Apple just introduced AutoLayout in iOS. They will expect developers to have adopted that within a year or so, which will free them from the basic resolution doubling that they've been doing.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]