The iPad 3 will feature a retina display, so we've been hearing for months now. Well Mac Rumors has got its hands on what it claims is this fabled display, and while it's not attached to an iPad 3, it is the closest anyone's come to confirming the screen's existence.
That's it up there. The ruler is apparently to prove it's the same 9.7-inches across as on the original iPad and iPad 2.
Obviously with no iPad to power it up there's no way of seeing it in action, so instead the sleuths got the microscope out. Placed next to an iPad 2 screen and inspected up close, the new screen's pixels look one quarter the size of those on the previous iPad. Zoom in even closer, and you can see there are twice as many pixels (made of red, green and blue elements) in each direction as in the same-size area on the iPad 2.
And you know what that means: twice the resolution.
Apply Mac Rumor's findings to the full-size 9.7-inch screen, and the resolution should be 2,048x1,536 pixels -- twice the iPad 2's 1,024x768. That's what we've been hearing the retina display's resolution will be, spelling sharper images, which will be great for media like games and videos. (And while everyone may claim to use their iPad for couch computing, I think we all know it's really all about games and movies.)
While I'm less sure of a lot of other iPad rumours, the retina display seems a dead cert for the latest Apple tablet. A higher resolution screen will also help see off competition like the Asus Transformer Prime, though its own software update delays seem to be doing a pretty good job of that. An iPad 3 announcement in the first week of March is also pretty likely, a year on from the iPad 2 launch.
Will a retina display put Apple way ahead of the tablet competition? Or can Android catch up? Let me know in the comments, or on our Facebook page.
Image credit: Mac Rumors.
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Ross SuBo Coulter 18 February, 2012 13:33
I though standardisation was suppose to happen in the likes of the IT industry. There seems to be more and more screen sizes, ratios and pixel densities getting launched on new devices everyday. Must be hell for developers!
Also, maybe it just the angle, but that screen looks rather square. Even more square than a 4:3 ratio.
anonymous 18 February, 2012 14:26
Not to be pedantic, but 2048 x 1536 pixels is in fact 4 times the resolution of 1024 x 768 (not 2 times) - i.e. if this screen is real, it will compare to 4 x iPad 2 screens placed in the same ratio next to one another (in terms of resolution).
If this happens, it will be a marvel, but I look forward to it! :)
jayolad 19 February, 2012 01:04
Two mistakes in the article - as pointed out in the comments already, that is actually four times the resolution of the iPad 2. Also, the article stats that the Transformer Prime has suffered from software update delays. Completely untrue, the Android ICS 4.0 update was actually released early. The linked article even references the original Asus Transformer, not the Prime. Not the standard of reporting I would expect from Cnet, very disappointing.
bluemcs 19 February, 2012 21:30
The pressure on a GPU from quadrupling the resolution still leaves me thinking this is a bogus rumour. The retina level of resolution makes sense on a small iphone screen where you may want to read tiny text but keep a webpage with the ratio that the designers intended. It doesn't make sense on an ipad.... does anyone seriously feel the ipad is so lacking in resolution at the moment that it is worth the battery hit running a GPU that could process this would likely demand? I'm sure if they have improved the batteries to cover this, most folk would rather have even longer battery life than even smaller resolution....
tbag 20 February, 2012 10:01
Excellent, angry birds will look so much better with this!
Mugen13 20 February, 2012 20:10
Am I the only one that would think this sort of upgrade is out of the norm with apple? Why quadruple the screen resolution when they are not going to substantively increase the CPU or gpu to make up for the néw demands? I'll hold this as a believe it when I see it rumor . And come on with the mistakes in the technical details....