Excellent...
I know several people who have been waiting for this. We all knew it would happen. Awesome.
OMFG! It's true! All the signs and portents have borne fruit. After the ritual disembowelling of an Apple support tool, auguries foretold that on this day a new iPad should come forth, and lo, the Apple stores verily did shut down. Then as the day dawned, behold, even such an iPad did appear. It is the Retina iPad Mini, which …
Indeed, no need to change the software, just need a magnifying glass....
Besides which the software should already be able to run on different size displays. Pretending the screen is the same size as an iPad when it isn't is not a good solution, it's a bodge. Adaptive rendering ftw!
Like most of Apple's recent "innovations", the benefit is for Apple, not the consumer.
By making both display panels have the same number of pixels, they can use the exact same display driver parts for both the Air and Mini models. That's at least one fewer component to keep track of, with potential gains in other sub-assemblies too (if the driver was on the main logic board, now there only has to be one logic board, not two; if it wasn't, now you can put it on the board if it works out cheaper there).
Nothing special here - it's what every manufacturer does. But, once a supply-chain manager, always a supply-chain manager, eh Tim?
So now you will all realise how bad the old screen, the one who so many bought, was. Why so few pixels on a such a big screen? Even more, why would anyone switch to the new one, why would anyone buy the whole hardware for a screen, they should've sold only the screen which, btw, does nothing special, in fact, does the same thing. Anyway, one thing is certain, Apple's marketing methods are getting old.
Any word on the actual resolution? It seems to me that Retina is becoming a bit meaningless these days.
Let's see. According to the Apple website, the 5S has:
"4-inch (diagonal) Retina display
1136-by-640 resolution
326 ppi "
Whereas the new Nexus 5 has 4.95 inches, 1080p, 445 ppi.
Hell, my old HTC One X (which has been around for a year and a half now) has 4.7 inch, 1280 x 720, 312 ppi...
Of course it is becoming meaningless. The whole idea is that above a certain density the human eye, at normal usage distance for that device (hence why phone differs from TV), can not distinguish individual pixels.
Anything above that number is just nonsense for marketers who like to put higher numbers in spec sheets to suggest they are relevant.
I've done my own experiments and found that with a suitable test pattern I can see a one-pixel step on my 100 dpi desktop screen from a distance of 4 metres. That means you'd need 1200 dpi to make the pixels truly invisible at 12 inches in all cases.
If you want to repeat my experiment, the test pattern I used was to have the top half of the screen black and the bottom half white (or the other way round) and a one pixel step, either up or down, in the border between the two regions. The computer displays one of the two images at random and you have to say whether the step goes up or down before coming closer to see if you were right. The screen is blank for a second before the test pattern is displayed.
Of course, distinguishing the pixels in most realistic use cases is much harder than with a carefully chosen test pattern.
It's easy to take the mickey out of 'Retina', but after TV companies confused the heck out of consumers with talk of "HD Ready", "Full HD", "True HD" and various 1080 720 i p labels, I think it was a sensible marketing decision by Apple to come up with a new term for their high DPI displays.
Of course they have some competition now, and their are a handful tablets and laptops available that boast more pixels (though users who really care will also look at tests of colour accuracy and the like, depending upon their own requirements).
Colour accuracy is so damned good now on all these small screen devices by all the manufacturers, we are beginning to take it for granted, but really it is fantastic how much it has improved. Also I was listening to some podcasts on my new iPad Air and was struck by the sound quality. This is another thing that's true for most mobile devices these days. Sure the speakers are tiny, so of course they lack power and base, but really, in the last 4 years, the increased quality of the mid tones from small speakers is just simply outstanding (at least to anyone of my age). The richness and natural timbre in voices means now you can mistake them from being in the room and the accuracy sometimes catches me unawares in an uncanny way. Music will still of course easily expose the constraints of the "tonal envelope," but still, the rapid improvement in the state of the art just blows me away.
"Anything above that number is just nonsense for marketers who like to put higher numbers in spec sheets to suggest they are relevant"
Too true. Just like the 'BAZILLION MEGAPIXELS!' they crow about on new cameras, a figure that is meaningless without reference to the sensor size.
In the same way that 42 million sensor pixels is a waste of time on a 4.8mm sensor, so 2048 display pixels is utterly wasted on phone/phablet screen sizes.
I don't know why you think the size of the sensor is so important. It's true, though, that the number of pixels doesn't tell you much. I had a one-megapixel camera once (a Kodak) whose pictures, if taken outside on a sunny day, could be enlarged to A4 and still look fairly good. Today's cheap ten-megapixel cameras don't do such good landscape pictures (though they probably do work better in other circumstances).
"Good luck with your HTC One X, that little beauty has a nice GPU overheating defect.... blank display not happening yet? Be patient it will..."
Oh, it gets plenty hot enough if it's plugged in and I'm playing games, but I can live with that. Generally if it's plugged in, I'm at home - so can just use my pc instead. If it's not plugged in, it gets warm but not excessively so. The only other thing that makes it excessively hot is the camera. I accidentally turned it on in my pocket once and a few minutes later it was starting to really heat up (at which point I noticed it and turned it off).
I'm starting to get occasional glitches with the touchscreen. All fixed by turning the screen off and on again though. It is nearly time for a replacement, so I'm not overly concerned about fairly minor issues that I can deal with without too much effort.
All told, I'm very happy with it. The Nexus 5 does have me quite interested in upgrading though - just have to see what's around next April :-)
Joy to the world the I-pad mini has come... la la la la la....
Errr... is there really such a penury of real news or is this is yet another clever reverse marketing campaign promoting yet another useless product by poking fun at it?
We all know the fruity company dances hand in hand with the NSA and has its sticky fingers in many apples pies..... (hmmm I am getting a tad peckish now)...
It would not take them much to inject malware and - oh blasphemy ! - fiendishly distort the ever so objective articles of our holy register !!!!
(Hmmm maybe I did read a bit too much conspiracy theory stuff of late :-) )
Jesus has risen for the umpteenth time !
I already have a hard on and my heavy breathing has reached orgasmic proportions.
Why didnt anyone tell me earlier. Could have had a wet dream too, last night.
Oh. BTW my eyes also have two retinas and can see well enough.
Where were you all my life ?
Therefore in your argument, everyone should be driving <insert supercar of your choice here> simply because it is better than the ordinary Ford, Honda, Toyota etc etc etc car that the majority of us drive?
For many people these (in your opinion) sub-par/shitty/crapple products are perfectly usable and people are happy with them.
Not everyone has the same opinions as you. Once you accept that you might actually become a better person.
If everyone did have the same opinions as you then the world would be a very boring place. Perhaps you might like to get back to reading your collected works of Mao because that if obviously the world you inhabit.
I don't own any Apple tablet products but I do own a really crap Android one but it does the job it was bought for. It is obviously the Trabant of tablets.
"HELLO, it's 2013! iWHATEVER is OVER. Move on, like the rest of the world has, to newer better products!
They are there, should you wish to look."
Orly? Compared to e.g. the Nexus 7, the retina iPad mini seems to be a clear winner. Bigger screen in the same form factor, faster CPU and GPU, longer battery life, made of metal.
The Nexus 7 is cheaper, and probably a better "value," but a better device? I'm not seeing it.