Confirmed: iPad 3 Has a 2048x1536 Retina Display

Matalim said:
Apply for a marketing position @ Google. I'm sure you can convince a lot of people to switch to Kindle Fire since the iPad is sooooo expensive compared to its Android counterparts. When is Google releasing Ice Cream Sandwich btw for the Kindle Fire. I mean the code was only released last November.

Speaking of other tablets, how much does an Asus transformer prime cost? What about the upcoming Samsung Galaxy tab 2?
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Last I looked, Android tablets were more expensive than the iPad. At least decent one's.
 
Thuleman said:
You are missing the point.
Most people who buy iPads buy them for reasons that are irrational. Once you look at it rationally you can see that a Kindle Fire does 99% of what an iPad does, and the 1% ..., well, then you are the 1% with a rational reason.

Obviously the numbers are exaggerated for dramatic effect but the point is still valid. You don't need 2048 for HD streaming, email, web browsing, or e-reading. I can't even take those who suggest photo/video editing tasks on a tablet seriously, and gaming? Gaming will be meh on a tablet no matter what they put in there.
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The Kindle has an extremely limited app store, and even more limited memory. I bought my sister a Kindle Fire for christmas. It's a wonderful little device, but it ain't no iPad by a long shot.
 
Thuleman said:
How so?

iPad buyers by and large buy the product not for themselves but to impress others, it's a peer pressure thing that Apple has done an excellent job cultivating.
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Really? Really?
 
Trepidati0n said:
However, to somehow think that the current and even next gen of SoC's can drive a game in full HD with appropriate levels of detail (e.g not 128x128 textures or worse) and enough polygons/drawcalls even on par with 2 year old games (which they aren't) is a joke a best and complete lie at worst.
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Why not? the iPad2 GPU was on par with an ATi 9700pro as far as raw performance goes (with some obvious efficiency optimizations on the PowerVR). While it's not exactly a powerhouse by todays GPU standards, it's a pretty effective mobile GPU when it's only driving a 1024x768 resolution, but it was able to do some pretty impressive texturing for what it was.

infinity_blade_large6.jpg


wpid-photo-dec-2-2011-925-pm1.jpg


According to sources, Apple is supposed to be using a significantly faster GPU than what was found in the iPad2... and coincidently, Imagination just announced it's new Series6 'Rogue' PowerVR GPU which they claim 20x the performance of their current GPU and 5x the efficiency. Who knows if thats the GPU that they're actually going to be using, but I wouldn't put it out of the realm of possibility. Those GPU's would have ample power to drive a retina ipad display.
 
dr.stevil said:
Why not? the iPad2 GPU was on par with an ATi 9700pro as far as raw performance goes (with some obvious efficiency optimizations on the PowerVR). While it's not exactly a powerhouse by todays GPU standards, it's a pretty effective mobile GPU when it's only driving a 1024x768 resolution, but it was able to do some pretty impressive texturing for what it was.

[!IMG]http://img.neoseeker.com/screenshots/R2FtZXMvaVBob25lL0FjdGlvbi9BZHZlbnR1cmU=/infinity_blade_large6.jpg[/IMG]

[!IMG]http://appsized.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/wpid-photo-dec-2-2011-925-pm1.jpg[/IMG]

According to sources, Apple is supposed to be using a significantly faster GPU than what was found in the iPad2... and coincidently, Imagination just announced it's new Series6 'Rogue' PowerVR GPU which they claim 20x the performance of their current GPU and 5x the efficiency. Who knows if thats the GPU that they're actually going to be using, but I wouldn't put it out of the realm of possibility. Those GPU's would have ample power to drive a retina ipad display.
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The first image is "highly optimized" to minimze GPU demand. I can make anything "look good" if I make a set of assumptions which allows me to do so. While you may think that second image is great, to me, it looks like poor compared to what is out there. The shear amount of sharp edges, duplicated textures, is definately circa 2006. That was the quality of graphics when the XBOX360 and PS3 came out

As above, i'm glad they have finally found, nearly a decade later to make that gen of graphics portable. Congrats for die shrinks and some efficiency improvements. However, to think that any modern SoC can drive a 2048x1536 in with any degree graphics quality to take advantage of that display is...laughable.

Hopefully in another 10 years a game with the detail of skyrim can run on a SoC...but that is 10 years...not now and not even in the immediate future.
 
Trepidati0n said:
However, to think that any modern SoC can drive a 2048x1536 in with any degree graphics quality to take advantage of that display is...laughable.
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So what?

PS3/Xbox are dedicated game machines, outputting to 40" and larger HDTVs. Perhaps not common knowledge, but pretty near every 3D game on them, is rendered at a lower resolution and scaled to 1080p.

If you can take that shortcut with a dedicated game machine driving giant HDTVs and have success, it will be a complete non-issue to do it for a general purpose device running a small 10" screen.

For 3D games they can simply render at 1024x768 and scale. Considering that even 1024x768 is still 132 DPI at that size, it isn't like someone is going to notice it being soft at that size when in motion in a 3D game. If this was a big deal, both the xBox and PS3 would have failed miserably in the market.

While 3D likely won't be running full native resolution, it will still look as good as the previous iPads. The real win for the high resolution display will be applications using text, and 2D graphics/images, that will look luscious.
 
Trepidati0n said:
However, to think that any modern SoC can drive a 2048x1536 in with any degree graphics quality to take advantage of that display is...laughable.

Hopefully in another 10 years a game with the detail of skyrim can run on a SoC...but that is 10 years...not now and not even in the immediate future.
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It's laughable that a small crowd of HardOCP posters are decrying the high resolution on the iPad 3 because it won't be able to run Skyrim-level graphics like their $1500 desktop PCs. They have become what they despise most - hipsters.
 
dr.stevil said:
Why not? the iPad2 GPU was on par with an ATi 9700pro as far as raw performance goes (with some obvious efficiency optimizations on the PowerVR).
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Uh, no it isn't. Do you have any proof to back that up? Here are some numbers I managed to find that I think are comparable:
Textured fill rate: 9700 Pro gets 2600 MTexels/s compared to the 543MP2's 900
Memory bandwidth: 9700 Pro has 20GB/s compared to the 543MP2's 2.3GB/s that is shared with the CPU.
GFLOP/s: 34 GFLOP/s for the 9700 pro vs. 12-19 GFLOP/s for the 543MP2 (depending on clock speed, which I couldn't find out what the iPad 2's is running at)

So in terms of raw performance it looks like the 9700 Pro quite easily trounces the 543MP2. The 9700 Pro also almost certainly has much better drivers, better AA, and better AF. It also isn't saddled with the SGX's deferred tile renderer.

Also I'm not sure if you remember back that far, but I was definitely running 4x AA in most games at 1024x768 with a 9700 Pro with 16x AF. In fact, at that resolution and AA the 9700 Pro still got over 200 FPS in Quake 3 Arena. Someone with an iPad 2 wanna benchmark what it gets in Q3A?

According to sources, Apple is supposed to be using a significantly faster GPU than what was found in the iPad2... and coincidently, Imagination just announced it's new Series6 'Rogue' PowerVR GPU which they claim 20x the performance of their current GPU and 5x the efficiency. Who knows if thats the GPU that they're actually going to be using, but I wouldn't put it out of the realm of possibility. Those GPU's would have ample power to drive a retina ipad display.
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Marketing claims are bullshit. Apple claimed the 543MP2 was 9x faster than what was in the A4, but not a single benchmark hit that magical figure - they instead hovered in the 3-7x range. Also if the new PowerVR GPU was just announced, it won't ship for ~6 months at least. I wouldn't be surprised in the least if the iPad 3 is packing a 543MP2 still, but perhaps with a clock speed bump. It would of course be slower per pixel than the iPad 2, but it would still be about iPad 1 levels.
 
Trepidati0n said:
...to think that any modern SoC can drive a 2048x1536 in with any degree graphics quality to take advantage of that display is...laughable.
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The 'degree of graphics quality' you're defining here is completely arbitrary, and you leave us to fruitlessly guess as to what you have in your mind as an acceptable 'degree of graphics quality'. I'd like you to define that term much more specifically.
 
wonderfield said:
The 'degree of graphics quality' you're defining here is completely arbitrary, and you leave us to fruitlessly guess as to what you have in your mind as an acceptable 'degree of graphics quality'. I'd like you to define that term much more specifically.
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Easily done!!!1 does it run skyrim? Nope. Fail!!! While an android tablet will be all win when it has this kind of resolution.
 
Im not exactly sure what Appl'es aim is with this resolution. It doesn't need that level of resolution to be effective.

There are plenty of problems that come about with this massive increase in pixels:

1) battery life
-The pixel number + the level of contrast being pushed by the display and any increase in the GPU power.
2) Speed/Responsiveness
-They will lose some level of responsiveness and will for sure have some level of stuttering with the device. This will most likely get hit first by the memory bandwidth of the device over the pure horsepower of the 543.

What I think? They don't do this. This rumor has been getting pushed for 2+ years now it seems. Where was the big outcry for this in their iPad? I don't see a reason for them to place this honestly other then to say they have better resolution screens then the android ones. If their is any reason to come out with this, its to compete against any POSSIBLE high end Win8 tablet sporting a samsung SoC.
 
Trimlock said:
What I think? They don't do this.
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What I think, is that you have just about everything wrong in that post.

It is pretty much a certainty Apple will increase it this time. Mac Rumors isn't reporting some second hand faked info from digitimes this time, Mac Rumors actually have the screen themselves.

The reason for the massive increase is following the same strategy they used for iP4. Quad pixels in the same size. I agree it is overkill, but precise 2x in each dimension simplifies backward compatibility.

The hit on battery life is marginal for a pixel increase. Back-light is the real power sink, and it depends on how much more the display blocks the backlight. I expect it is also a marginal amount. Even if they slip 10%, and don't increase battery to compensate, they would still have about 9 hours of battery life.

Speed/responsiveness will be addressed by increasing GPU power. Apple is a company that values user experience ahead of specs, so it is very unlikely they are going to lose they butter smooth scrolling just to increase pixel count.

They are doing it because they can, and because it will look awesome.
 
evilsofa said:
It's laughable that a small crowd of HardOCP posters are decrying the high resolution on the iPad 3 because it won't be able to run Skyrim-level graphics like their $1500 desktop PCs. They have become what they despise most - hipsters.
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Sadly, this.

If this wasn't an Apple issue, I guarantee everyone in here complaining would instead be praising it as the 2nd coming of the tech Jeebus.
 
Trimlock said:
Im not exactly sure what Appl'es aim is with this resolution. It doesn't need that level of resolution to be effective.

There are plenty of problems that come about with this massive increase in pixels:

1) battery life
-The pixel number + the level of contrast being pushed by the display and any increase in the GPU power.
2) Speed/Responsiveness
-They will lose some level of responsiveness and will for sure have some level of stuttering with the device. This will most likely get hit first by the memory bandwidth of the device over the pure horsepower of the 543..
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The display itself won't affect things much, as far as responsiveness/battery ect.
As I wrote before they need this resolution to enable 1080p video while maintaining proper aspect ratio with older iPADS. It will enable very sharp text for it to compete in the ebook category, will show off mega pixel pics in their best light, and of course enable "True 1080p HD" video for the marketing department. We are talking all 2D here. 3D is a different matter. As [H] folks we well understand the concept of running a game @ 1440x900, even though our monitor may be 1980x1200 if that's what it takes. Software doesn't have to use the native resolution if it brings the app to its knees. Software designers aren't stupid, weird yes, but not stupid.
 
I don't understand the whole "It doesn't NEED that high of a resolution" bullshit argument. This is [H], people - where 95% of us don't "need" all the computer shit we have. We sure as hell WANT and LOVE it, though, don't we? It's not about what is needed, but about raising the bar.
 
stop!theradio said:
I don't understand the whole "It doesn't NEED that high of a resolution" bullshit argument. This is [H], people - where 95% of us don't "need" all the computer shit we have. We sure as hell WANT and LOVE it, though, don't we? It's not about what is needed, but about raising the bar.
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It is based on the logic that if it remains a 10" device, there is the law of diminishing returns. Truthfully on a 10" device it would be extremely hard to tell the difference of a 720p movie and a 1080p movie. Still photos, if someone has a keen eye, might show an advantage. But 10" is damn small dude. You could have 1080p on your watch, does that make you [H]?
 
funkydmunky said:
It is based on the logic that if it remains a 10" device, there is the law of diminishing returns. Truthfully on a 10" device it would be extremely hard to tell the difference of a 720p movie and a 1080p movie. Still photos, if someone has a keen eye, might show an advantage. But 10" is damn small dude. You could have 1080p on your watch, does that make you [H]?
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I could tell a clear difference between my iPhone 3GS and 4.
 
funkydmunky said:
It is based on the logic that if it remains a 10" device, there is the law of diminishing returns. Truthfully on a 10" device it would be extremely hard to tell the difference of a 720p movie and a 1080p movie. Still photos, if someone has a keen eye, might show an advantage. But 10" is damn small dude. You could have 1080p on your watch, does that make you [H]?
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Have you seen an iPhone retina display in person? I'm the type who has incredibly sensitive eyes (with regards to the image shown on a display or otherwise) and perfect vision. I thought "yeah right...I bet you I can see the pixels, there's no way it's THAT amazing...". But boy was I wrong. I, personally, would like a retina display in anything and everything possible. It's simply THAT badass. If they wanted to toss one in a watch, then so be it. If I actually wore watches then I'd probably get a watch with a retina display if there was one.

I don't own an iPhone or an iPad or any i device for that matter, for what it's worth.
 
funkydmunky said:
It is based on the logic that if it remains a 10" device, there is the law of diminishing returns. Truthfully on a 10" device it would be extremely hard to tell the difference of a 720p movie and a 1080p movie. Still photos, if someone has a keen eye, might show an advantage. But 10" is damn small dude. You could have 1080p on your watch, does that make you [H]?
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And that belief is complete bullshit - as anyone who has ever compared a 320 DPI and 240 DPI can attest. 10" is small, yes, but you also hold it closer than a larger device. The larger the screen, the lower the density you can get away with is, as counter-intuitive as that sounds.
 
kllrnohj said:
And that belief is complete bullshit - as anyone who has ever compared a 320 DPI and 240 DPI can attest. 10" is small, yes, but you also hold it closer than a larger device. The larger the screen, the lower the density you can get away with is, as counter-intuitive as that sounds.
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It's not really counter intuitive in that larger screens are generally viewed from a greater distance. This resolution is cool but like anything else sure there's the law of diminishing returns. But of again of course higher resolution is better than lower.
 
stop!theradio said:
I don't understand the whole "It doesn't NEED that high of a resolution" bullshit argument. This is [H], people - where 95% of us don't "need" all the computer shit we have. We sure as hell WANT and LOVE it, though, don't we? It's not about what is needed, but about raising the bar.
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I agree. Screen resolutions have been pretty stagnant. Bring on super high resolutions on small screens!
 
kllrnohj said:
Uh, no it isn't. Do you have any proof to back that up? Snip...
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I think you're right. I was just looking at GFLOPS (per core which might not of been correct)

kllrnohj said:
Also I'm not sure if you remember back that far, but I was definitely running 4x AA in most games at 1024x768 with a 9700 Pro with 16x AF. In fact, at that resolution and AA the 9700 Pro still got over 200 FPS in Quake 3 Arena. Someone with an iPad 2 wanna benchmark what it gets in Q3A?
.
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lol I actually have quake III on my ipad :D And I used to own a 9700Pro. Probably one of the finest GPU's of it's day. The only reason I got rid of it was for a SM3.0 card (oblivion)
 
I think it would be amazing if you could hook up six minimum spec IPAD 3 tablets to an Eyefinity 6 card and have a tiny bezel 18 megapixel display. The composite IPAD 3 display would have a 2:1 aspect ratio and because the tablets are just 10 inches each the whole display would easily fit in your field of vision without needing much curvature.

At ~$600 per minimum spec IPAD the whole thing would be ~$3,600 or about the same as three slightly discounted 25600x1600 displays. Shame Apple will probably nix that idea to protect the thunderbolt displays.
 
Thuleman said:
To do what with exactly?
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For me? personally? wireless midi controller via TouchOSC. I sold my physical MIDI controller in favor of the iPad. Need an extra fader that your physical controller never had? boom, edit the template. add fader done deal. This is just one of the few, I mean really few uses of an iPad. To state someone bought an iPad due to peer pressure is just laughable.
 
The increased resolution obviously equates to less scrolling or switching pages in TouchOSC for me at least.
 
Outamyhead said:
Rumored to have the quad processor, but then that's a rumor, same as the iPhone 5 last year.
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There have been pictures of a circuit board with an A5x processor(not A6 as expected), implying a mild upgrade. I would be surprised if it is still dual core CPU, but more beefed up GPU.
 
Seriously guys, it's not about actually using that resolution at all. They picked it for one reason: pixel doubling.

2048x1536 is exactly double the number of pixels on both the horizontal and the vertical axis. This means that they can use very cheap pixel doubling to run older apps on the new screen, and have them look EXACTLY like they did on the iPad 1 and iPad 2. What was exactly one pixel on the old screen is now exactly 4 pixels on the new screen. No messy interpolation or blurry upscaling.

This is the same thing they did with the iPhone's retina display. 640x960 is exactly double the height and width of the old standard resolution (320x480), which allowed them to use pixel doubling there as well.

You'll probably see 2D games using the higher resolution, but I doubt 3D games will take advantage. They can continue to use 1024x768 and have their games look just as sharp as they did on the iPad 1 and iPad 2.
 
I assume many app developers will end up rendering their 3D scenes to a 1024x768 texture and then render the HUD/GUIs to a native 2048x1536 render target. It's the best-of-both-worlds approach until the hardware is able to catch up to the capabilities of the display.

I do believe, though, that we will see some native 2048x1536 3D apps. Zen Bound comes to mind. Depending on what it's A5X, this is feasible: the original Zen Bound runs beautifully on the original iPad with its comparatively anemic GPU at 1024x768.
 
Sixthsense said:
To state someone bought an iPad due to peer pressure is just laughable.
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Yet the stats don't lie.
Millions of iPad2s sold. Could the majority of those buyers have purchased a less expensive tablet that would have done exactly what it is they are using the tablet for? Absolutely. So why then did they buy the iPad? Same reason people buy other Apple equipment that provides them with half the stuff for twice the price.

Having said that, I do agree that the iPad2 screen res was insufficient, which makes the craze for the iPad2 as opposed to the iPad even more mindboggling, 2 cheap cameras, a little bit faster, a little bit thinner, and people just went nuts for it.

Also, whomever it is that keeps saying that Apple haters are hipsters isn't aware of the fact that Apple marketing is pushing the perception that owning an Apple product will make you a hipster. So son, you need to get your definitions straight.

I have no doubts that the iPad3 will be a commercial success but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's a good product from a technology perspective. Essentially the increased screen res is what will differentiate the iPad2 from the iPad3. Instead of looking at what consumers need Apple went with the technologically easy route of simply doubling the resolution.

Arguably a true HD display would have been a better choice for .., wait for it ... wait for it ..., HD streaming that doesn't have to be upscaled or only takes up a fraction of the screen.

Perhaps Apple should sell the iPad3s together with a coupon for an optometrist visit, that would be brilliant marketing.
 
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