5 ms·

The iPad Mini and the cost of Retina

41 points by googletron 14y ago

chromejs10 14y ago
Honestly I think Apple kind of gypped people by not putting in the retina display. The competitors in the 7" tablet market have the retina displays already, and for cheaper. They seem to be banking off the idea that they sell enough iOS devices that people will buy the mini no matter what. What sucks is you know the next update (which based on their new release schedules probably isn't that far away) will sport the retina as the big new feature without many other changes. This is all coming from a huge Apple person. A tad disappointing.
- djt 14y ago
  Did you even read this article before posting a comment? Just wait a year for the GPU and battery improvement and no doubt they will introduce one then
  - chromejs10 14y ago
    Of course I did... did you even read my comment that you are replying to where i said "the next update will have it"? They already have the power to do a retina now... That is why the Kindle Fire HD can do it at the same size (ok fine not EXACTLY retina but still pretty close given that size of a device).
    - djt 14y ago
      its not close to the same battery power as the number of pixels is far greater for retina than HD on Fire HD Resolution: 1920 x 1200 vs 2048 x 1536, thats a fair chunk more power 2304000 vs 3145728 pixels = 27% more battery drain
- comex 14y ago
  The competitors have higher resolution displays than the iPad mini, but probably not what Apple would call "retina" - the Nexus 7 has 216 ppi, which is less than the iPad's 264 ppi, and significantly less than the 326 ppi that a pixel-doubled iPad mini would end up with - which, considering the niceness of the iPhone at the same DPI, is probably worth it.
  - bitcartel 14y ago
    Got to hand it to Apple's marketing team. This HTC phone has a 1080 display with 440 ppi, but customers will still be asking if the phone is "Retina". http://androidcommunity.com/htc-j-butterfly-features-a-5-inch-1080p-screen-20121017/ http://androidcommunity.com/htc-j-butterfly-features-a-5-inc...
    - supercoder 14y ago
      What's the point ? After about 300 PPI you're not going to tell any difference. Just puts a strain on the battery, GPU, and CPU. Looks great on the spec sheet, but then I guess that is the primary point rather than how it actually performs.
  - chromejs10 14y ago
    Always good to see you comex :D. I agree it's not really officially "retina", which going off of Linus Torvald's words, is really overused. But still, I've also become very accustomed to looking at a retina display and downgrading to a resolution even less than that of Nexus 7 and Kindle Fire HD is a bit disappointing. I do really love the weight of it and feel of it, but nowadays the screen is a huge factor.
- anothermachine 14y ago
  Honestly everything on the market is so much better and cheaper than what we had even 2 years ago, that I don't have the energy to be disappointed. Remember when a portable computer was $600 - $100+ and weighed 5+ lbs, or was a 320x720 netbook, and that was AMAZING? It wasn't long ago...
  - duaneb 14y ago
    I'm pretty sure most computers are still >= $600.
- supercoder 14y ago
  Remember, you don't have to buy it. If you're confident that a Retina mini will be in the next iteration then just hold off until then. Unless you think they could have shipped the exact same product (battery, price, weight, thickness) and included a retina display, but didnt just to make you upgrade, then sure that's disappointing. But Marco is arguing they couldn't have done this, and I agree.
  - chromejs10 14y ago
    Of course. Don't get me wrong, as a whole the thing is amazing especially for those accustomed to iOS. It's merely that given everything else that apple already has out (and now the competition), putting anything below retina when we are now all used to it will only hurt the iPad Mini market.
- sliverstorm 14y ago
  What sucks is you know the next update will sport the retina as the big new feature without many other changes That was literally my first thought. The new Mini will probably then be hailed as "ground-breaking".
  - achompas 14y ago
    Then wait for the new Mini. Problem solved!
- webfuel 14y ago
  OT: Just so you are aware, "gypped" is a racial slur against gypsies.
bitcartel 14y ago
"Apple didn’t make an arbitrary decision to withhold Retina on the Mini to save money, upsell more buyers to the iPad 4, or “force” the first generation of iPad Mini owners to upgrade next year. They chose not to ship a Retina iPad Mini because it would be significantly worse than the previous iPads in very important factors." Er, Apple Maps?
- djt 14y ago
  That Google Maps asked for a lot of money and gave them less functionality (turn by turn navigation etc). Agreed they messed up the launch, but it had to be done eventually. Every business makes mistakes, the fact that people are upset most by apple maps being crap and having to use a browser instead is actually not too bad considering how many things they are doing at the moment!
- supercoder 14y ago
  Er, Maps is irrelevant to this point.
  - CamperBob2 14y ago
    No, it's a perfectly valid example of a case where Apple shipped something that was worse than what it had been shipping.
    - supercoder 14y ago
      So what, this should have influenced their decisions on the iPad Mini ? Even if there were some issues with Apple Maps, I don't see why that would have an impact on the feature set of the iPad mini.
    - DeepDuh 14y ago
      Also, it's a good example of how Apple's management is still able to recognize mistakes and try new ways, even if that means slaughtering an employee who significantly contributed to their top position in the market (Forstall). Microsoft's fallout with Sinofsky is an interesting parallel to say the least.
chj 14y ago
I would rather they keep reducing the price and weight. Retina? 163ppi is already pretty good.
drivebyacct2 14y ago
Ironically in the other tab, I'm hitting refresh: The Nexus 10 will be available for purchase on Tuesday, Nov. 13th. for $400.
andrewfelix 14y ago
"Its battery life, portability, or performance would suffer significantly. (Probably all three.)" The existence of the Nexus 7 would seem to nullify the crux of Marco's argument. The Nexus 7 has a 216ppi display, 10 hour battery life and by most accounts it performs excellently.
- GuiA 14y ago
  How does the GPU of the Nexus 7 compare to the iPad's? Ie. do graphics heavy games such as Infinity Blade run as smoothly? (genuinely asking, never used a Nexus 7 for more than a few minutes)
  - cubicle67 14y ago
    fwiw Infinity Blade II and Asphalt 7 both run silky smooth on the iPad Mini. My wife bought one because it fits in her handbag and I've since discovered it makes an awesome gamining machine :) Haven't used a Nexus 7 but it should be similar if not a bit faster. Can't go wrong with either I'd think [Edit: on the subject of games, don't buy the latest Need For Speed game - it's a simplistic, samey, cynical cash grab from EA. But it's biggest sin is it's just plain not fun]
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
- jacobolus 14y ago
  iPad apps are designed for a screen pixel count of either 1024×768 pixels, or 2048×1536 pixels. An iPad Mini with a “retina” display would† therefore have a 326 ppi display, dramatically more pixels and therefore harder for the GPU to drive than the Nexus 7. retina iPad: 3.15 megapixels Nexus 7: 1.02 megapixels non-retina iPad: 0.79 megapixels † unless the software was considerably revamped using a different approach than the one Apple has used for every other retina display, probably causing rewrites and an extra obnoxious target from all app authors across the board, as compared to literally zero extra work
- cubicle67 14y ago
  Apple's hands are tied by decisions made long ago re display layout. Because elements are positioned absolutely and not via a layout manager, they can't go with an intemdiate resolution - they're tied to either 1024x768 or 2x that.
Miademora 14y ago
I doubt its about size. They can ship the iphone with retina but not the ipad mini.
- supercoder 14y ago
  960x1136 vs 2048x1536 is a significant jump. It's 2,055,168 more pixels, which itself is almost 2x as many as the iPhone. One big issue is the higher the density in pixels the larger and brighter the backlight needs to be and in turn means a larger battery, more weight and thickness.
ekianjo 14y ago
Wow, that was a very convoluted article to say something utterly simple that can be summarized in one sentence: "ipad mini does not have a Retina screen because of GPU and battery restrictions". Marco really knows how to fill pages with Nothing.
jeswin 14y ago
I am going to be that guy. The article may be well written, yet a complete waste of my time. It presents no insights, and most of us on HN will learn absolutely nothing from it. HN discussions shouldn't be the same as those on Engadget and Techcrunch. Maybe there should be a checkbox which says "Yes, I think this is interesting for _hackers_."
- cwilson 14y ago
  I hate to burst your bubble, but "Hacker News" as the title of this community shouldn't be taken literally anymore (this has been the case for a long time now). PG himself often talks about how startups no longer need to launch on other tech blogs, because HN is a force of its own (and in many cases provides much better conversion rates during launches, assuming your target audience reads this site). This community is comprised of founders (who happen to play other roles than just "hacker"), designers, developers, marketers, bloggers, risk-takers, and generally anyone who likes the idea of creating something from nothing in the tech industry. This includes reading about and discussing industry news, trends, and cult-like followings (Apple). Regardless of the fact that this community was created with a focus on hackers is now irrelevant, it's become the beast that it now is.
  - jeswin 14y ago
    I come to HN because I want to hear from programmers like you, many who are involved with startups or other interesting projects. Things that worked for you, things that went wrong. I agree with what you said though, this is what it is now.
- geon 14y ago
  Well, I disagree. I had the same realisations about the performance impact of Retina screens when the iPhone 4 was released, and how I expected a Retina iPad to be far into the future. (It took about 2 years.) But I had forgot about that today.
eloisant 14y ago
Can we stop repeating Apple's marketing bullshit and drop "Retina"?
- supercoder 14y ago
  What do you propose we use ? Retina is actually a fairly useful term, it implies a certain pixel density at a certain point size.
  - DeepDuh 14y ago
    "Let's stop that crap and call our Pentiums 'x86 thingies with vector thingies on top'!"
  - iaskwhy 14y ago
    By now using PPI should be the same as using GB for the RAM or GHz for the CPU (pre several cores, now it's a little bit more complex). 300 PPI is classified as not retina but you wouldn't notice it anyway, that's why we need to drop the retina classification.
niklas_a 14y ago
So basically what he is saying is that Apple was unable to build a iPad Mini with a retina display and good battery life. But in a defensive move they decided to enter the 7.9" market anyway.
otaku888 14y ago
Maybe it's time they tried a low power amoled display?
josteink 14y ago
Predictable Marco predictably defending whatever Apple has decided to do for whatever "reasonable" reasons he can conjur. Also: predictably trollbait.
nicholassmith 14y ago
Good lord some of the commenters on here hate Marco posts. It's a reasonable and balanced response, and longer than 140 characters. That's not a bad thing. "I stop noticing after I start doing something with it, of course, but those first few seconds are a rough reminder every time.", people are looking for it. Honestly. I've had a Retina iPhone since the 4 and an iPad 2, which when I bought it I was convinced I could see the pixels. Give it 2 weeks and your eyes adjust for it. Also, iPad Mini display in the flesh is very readable, very sharp. Just not Retina resolution, and if the trade off is for a lighter, thinner, and less compromised design then it's well worth it.
da_n 14y ago
I don't buy Apple products anymore but when I did I always waited until at least the 2nd generation of a new product or significant product redesign. The first release is essentially just a public beta and best avoided completely.

41 points by googletron 14y ago

Honestly I think Apple kind of gypped people by not putting in the retina display. The competitors in the 7" tablet market have the retina displays already, and for cheaper. They seem to be banking off the idea that they sell enough iOS devices that people will buy the mini no matter what. What sucks is you know the next update (which based on their new release schedules probably isn't that far away) will sport the retina as the big new feature without many other changes. This is all coming from a huge Apple person. A tad disappointing.

djt 14y ago
Did you even read this article before posting a comment? Just wait a year for the GPU and battery improvement and no doubt they will introduce one then
- chromejs10 14y ago
  Of course I did... did you even read my comment that you are replying to where i said "the next update will have it"? They already have the power to do a retina now... That is why the Kindle Fire HD can do it at the same size (ok fine not EXACTLY retina but still pretty close given that size of a device).
  - djt 14y ago
    its not close to the same battery power as the number of pixels is far greater for retina than HD on Fire HD Resolution: 1920 x 1200 vs 2048 x 1536, thats a fair chunk more power 2304000 vs 3145728 pixels = 27% more battery drain
comex 14y ago
The competitors have higher resolution displays than the iPad mini, but probably not what Apple would call "retina" - the Nexus 7 has 216 ppi, which is less than the iPad's 264 ppi, and significantly less than the 326 ppi that a pixel-doubled iPad mini would end up with - which, considering the niceness of the iPhone at the same DPI, is probably worth it.
- bitcartel 14y ago
  Got to hand it to Apple's marketing team. This HTC phone has a 1080 display with 440 ppi, but customers will still be asking if the phone is "Retina". http://androidcommunity.com/htc-j-butterfly-features-a-5-inch-1080p-screen-20121017/ http://androidcommunity.com/htc-j-butterfly-features-a-5-inc...
  - supercoder 14y ago
    What's the point ? After about 300 PPI you're not going to tell any difference. Just puts a strain on the battery, GPU, and CPU. Looks great on the spec sheet, but then I guess that is the primary point rather than how it actually performs.
- chromejs10 14y ago
  Always good to see you comex :D. I agree it's not really officially "retina", which going off of Linus Torvald's words, is really overused. But still, I've also become very accustomed to looking at a retina display and downgrading to a resolution even less than that of Nexus 7 and Kindle Fire HD is a bit disappointing. I do really love the weight of it and feel of it, but nowadays the screen is a huge factor.
anothermachine 14y ago
Honestly everything on the market is so much better and cheaper than what we had even 2 years ago, that I don't have the energy to be disappointed. Remember when a portable computer was $600 - $100+ and weighed 5+ lbs, or was a 320x720 netbook, and that was AMAZING? It wasn't long ago...
- duaneb 14y ago
  I'm pretty sure most computers are still >= $600.
supercoder 14y ago
Remember, you don't have to buy it. If you're confident that a Retina mini will be in the next iteration then just hold off until then. Unless you think they could have shipped the exact same product (battery, price, weight, thickness) and included a retina display, but didnt just to make you upgrade, then sure that's disappointing. But Marco is arguing they couldn't have done this, and I agree.
- chromejs10 14y ago
  Of course. Don't get me wrong, as a whole the thing is amazing especially for those accustomed to iOS. It's merely that given everything else that apple already has out (and now the competition), putting anything below retina when we are now all used to it will only hurt the iPad Mini market.
sliverstorm 14y ago
What sucks is you know the next update will sport the retina as the big new feature without many other changes That was literally my first thought. The new Mini will probably then be hailed as "ground-breaking".
- achompas 14y ago
  Then wait for the new Mini. Problem solved!
webfuel 14y ago
OT: Just so you are aware, "gypped" is a racial slur against gypsies.

bitcartel 14y ago

"Apple didn’t make an arbitrary decision to withhold Retina on the Mini to save money, upsell more buyers to the iPad 4, or “force” the first generation of iPad Mini owners to upgrade next year. They chose not to ship a Retina iPad Mini because it would be significantly worse than the previous iPads in very important factors." Er, Apple Maps?

djt 14y ago
That Google Maps asked for a lot of money and gave them less functionality (turn by turn navigation etc). Agreed they messed up the launch, but it had to be done eventually. Every business makes mistakes, the fact that people are upset most by apple maps being crap and having to use a browser instead is actually not too bad considering how many things they are doing at the moment!
supercoder 14y ago
Er, Maps is irrelevant to this point.
- CamperBob2 14y ago
  No, it's a perfectly valid example of a case where Apple shipped something that was worse than what it had been shipping.
  - supercoder 14y ago
    So what, this should have influenced their decisions on the iPad Mini ? Even if there were some issues with Apple Maps, I don't see why that would have an impact on the feature set of the iPad mini.
  - DeepDuh 14y ago
    Also, it's a good example of how Apple's management is still able to recognize mistakes and try new ways, even if that means slaughtering an employee who significantly contributed to their top position in the market (Forstall). Microsoft's fallout with Sinofsky is an interesting parallel to say the least.

chj 14y ago

I would rather they keep reducing the price and weight. Retina? 163ppi is already pretty good.

drivebyacct2 14y ago

Ironically in the other tab, I'm hitting refresh: The Nexus 10 will be available for purchase on Tuesday, Nov. 13th. for $400.

andrewfelix 14y ago

"Its battery life, portability, or performance would suffer significantly. (Probably all three.)" The existence of the Nexus 7 would seem to nullify the crux of Marco's argument. The Nexus 7 has a 216ppi display, 10 hour battery life and by most accounts it performs excellently.

GuiA 14y ago
How does the GPU of the Nexus 7 compare to the iPad's? Ie. do graphics heavy games such as Infinity Blade run as smoothly? (genuinely asking, never used a Nexus 7 for more than a few minutes)
- cubicle67 14y ago
  fwiw Infinity Blade II and Asphalt 7 both run silky smooth on the iPad Mini. My wife bought one because it fits in her handbag and I've since discovered it makes an awesome gamining machine :) Haven't used a Nexus 7 but it should be similar if not a bit faster. Can't go wrong with either I'd think [Edit: on the subject of games, don't buy the latest Need For Speed game - it's a simplistic, samey, cynical cash grab from EA. But it's biggest sin is it's just plain not fun]
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
jacobolus 14y ago
iPad apps are designed for a screen pixel count of either 1024×768 pixels, or 2048×1536 pixels. An iPad Mini with a “retina” display would† therefore have a 326 ppi display, dramatically more pixels and therefore harder for the GPU to drive than the Nexus 7. retina iPad: 3.15 megapixels Nexus 7: 1.02 megapixels non-retina iPad: 0.79 megapixels † unless the software was considerably revamped using a different approach than the one Apple has used for every other retina display, probably causing rewrites and an extra obnoxious target from all app authors across the board, as compared to literally zero extra work
cubicle67 14y ago
Apple's hands are tied by decisions made long ago re display layout. Because elements are positioned absolutely and not via a layout manager, they can't go with an intemdiate resolution - they're tied to either 1024x768 or 2x that.

Miademora 14y ago

I doubt its about size. They can ship the iphone with retina but not the ipad mini.

supercoder 14y ago
960x1136 vs 2048x1536 is a significant jump. It's 2,055,168 more pixels, which itself is almost 2x as many as the iPhone. One big issue is the higher the density in pixels the larger and brighter the backlight needs to be and in turn means a larger battery, more weight and thickness.

ekianjo 14y ago

Wow, that was a very convoluted article to say something utterly simple that can be summarized in one sentence: "ipad mini does not have a Retina screen because of GPU and battery restrictions". Marco really knows how to fill pages with Nothing.

jeswin 14y ago

I am going to be that guy. The article may be well written, yet a complete waste of my time. It presents no insights, and most of us on HN will learn absolutely nothing from it. HN discussions shouldn't be the same as those on Engadget and Techcrunch. Maybe there should be a checkbox which says "Yes, I think this is interesting for _hackers_."

cwilson 14y ago
I hate to burst your bubble, but "Hacker News" as the title of this community shouldn't be taken literally anymore (this has been the case for a long time now). PG himself often talks about how startups no longer need to launch on other tech blogs, because HN is a force of its own (and in many cases provides much better conversion rates during launches, assuming your target audience reads this site). This community is comprised of founders (who happen to play other roles than just "hacker"), designers, developers, marketers, bloggers, risk-takers, and generally anyone who likes the idea of creating something from nothing in the tech industry. This includes reading about and discussing industry news, trends, and cult-like followings (Apple). Regardless of the fact that this community was created with a focus on hackers is now irrelevant, it's become the beast that it now is.
- jeswin 14y ago
  I come to HN because I want to hear from programmers like you, many who are involved with startups or other interesting projects. Things that worked for you, things that went wrong. I agree with what you said though, this is what it is now.
geon 14y ago
Well, I disagree. I had the same realisations about the performance impact of Retina screens when the iPhone 4 was released, and how I expected a Retina iPad to be far into the future. (It took about 2 years.) But I had forgot about that today.

eloisant 14y ago

Can we stop repeating Apple's marketing bullshit and drop "Retina"?

supercoder 14y ago
What do you propose we use ? Retina is actually a fairly useful term, it implies a certain pixel density at a certain point size.
- DeepDuh 14y ago
  "Let's stop that crap and call our Pentiums 'x86 thingies with vector thingies on top'!"
- iaskwhy 14y ago
  By now using PPI should be the same as using GB for the RAM or GHz for the CPU (pre several cores, now it's a little bit more complex). 300 PPI is classified as not retina but you wouldn't notice it anyway, that's why we need to drop the retina classification.

niklas_a 14y ago

So basically what he is saying is that Apple was unable to build a iPad Mini with a retina display and good battery life. But in a defensive move they decided to enter the 7.9" market anyway.

otaku888 14y ago

Maybe it's time they tried a low power amoled display?

josteink 14y ago

Predictable Marco predictably defending whatever Apple has decided to do for whatever "reasonable" reasons he can conjur. Also: predictably trollbait.

nicholassmith 14y ago

Good lord some of the commenters on here hate Marco posts. It's a reasonable and balanced response, and longer than 140 characters. That's not a bad thing. "I stop noticing after I start doing something with it, of course, but those first few seconds are a rough reminder every time.", people are looking for it. Honestly. I've had a Retina iPhone since the 4 and an iPad 2, which when I bought it I was convinced I could see the pixels. Give it 2 weeks and your eyes adjust for it. Also, iPad Mini display in the flesh is very readable, very sharp. Just not Retina resolution, and if the trade off is for a lighter, thinner, and less compromised design then it's well worth it.

da_n 14y ago

I don't buy Apple products anymore but when I did I always waited until at least the 2nd generation of a new product or significant product redesign. The first release is essentially just a public beta and best avoided completely.