• Dreaming of the iPad 2: One geek’s wishlist

  2 days ago
• iPad 2 specs starting to take shape

  2 days ago
• Rumor: iPad 2 coming in early April

  6 days ago
• iPad 2 rumored to have flatter backside, smaller bezel, ’wide-range’ speaker

  28 days ago

• iPad 2 Retina Display evidence mounts, this time a .png of wood is to blame

  Engadget–2 days ago
• Case Maker Sneaks iPad 2 Mockup into CES

  Switched–14 days ago
• iPad 2 features a thinner bezel, flat back, and chunky wide-range speaker?

  Engadget–28 days ago
• Fandango lands on the iPad with slick universal app

  Download Squad–30 days ago

"This is not quite as pixel-dense as the iPhone 4's Retina Display, which at 960 x 540.."

iPhone 4's res is 960x640, not 540.

#corrections

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The resolution stated in "This is not quite as pixel-dense as the iPhone 4's Retina Display, which at 960 x 540 and 326 dpi" should be 960 x 640.

Just a heads-up :)

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Grr, just too slow lol

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I'd much rather see a RAM bump than a storage space bump. 1gb is what this thing needs.

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Given the increased pixel size and the resulting increase in screen image sizes, it will probably mean a bump in RAM to 1GB so apps can run properly.

I'm excited about the SD card slot so I can side-load movies and keep all the internal storage for apps and such.

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@Todd

Sad to say, but I think the most Apple will be letting you do with the SD card slot is load in photos.

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That display at 2048x1536 is probably just not happening.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see it happen, and I'd buy an iPad 2 on launch date if it has one.

But here's why it's not going to happen: There's no technology that's even CLOSE in the display market right now. The iPhone 4 display, while an awesome feat in its own right, had other technology leading up to it. HTC had several devices in the 290+ DPI range in 2008 and 2009. Most technology ramps up in this way. I haven't seen ~10" displays close to pushing that sort of resolution yet. I think the closest we've got right now is 1366x768, which isn't even really a worthy upgrade to the iPad since it's really only a different aspect ratio.

Just trying not to get let down when the iPad 2 drops. No matter what the display I already know I want one - I'm still debating getting the current iPad even with the new one right around the corner, I'm that smitten by it lol

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It's entirely possible and here's why: Apple is having to come out with a new device long before it wants to because of the flood of products coming out and currently out that are far, far ahead of the iPad in key area. These things are much further ahead than even the phone or PC side.

Apple may be thinking to leap far enough ahead with this release so that they can go back to their once annual release schedule. Dual core CPU and GPU, 2 cameras, 1GB of RAM, Monster resolution on the screen, and an SD card slot lets them do this. These are the core things people look at and interact with on a daily basis.

A bonus is that it ties up a large amount of the supply of these parts and hamstrings the competition somewhat helping Apple maintain its lead.

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A week ago I would have agreed with this, not necessarily because I think a 260 dpi is impossible at 10" (why would it?), but because it would be cost-prohibitive, and my impression is that people are not really complaining about the resolution of the current iPad screen.

But now, with all the hints in the SDK, the rumored 'iPad 2 LCD' part that showed up on some suppliers website, with a price almost 4x that of the current iPad screen, I'm starting to believe it.

Let's summarize:

1) The technology is definitely here, screens with similar resolutions exist, just not 10" screens. The iPhone 4 already proves you can make screens with 320 ppi pixel density. Combining these two observations means 10" with 260 ppi pixel density should be possible
2) The rest of the suspected specs appear to be sufficient to drive a screen like that, at least for iOS GUI applications. I don't know what a 'dual-core GPU' means, GPU's usually have in the hundreds of 'cores', but I guess what is meant here is that it has 2 GPU's to spread the load, which should be sufficient to drive iOS GUI applications. Games could just run with pixel doubling or upscaling, which would still look better than on an iPad 1 because you get 2x anti-aliasing with that.
3) Apple has the chance to set all the competition back another full year, if not more. No-one has a dual-core tablet with such a screen on the roadmap, and the difference comparing a 260 ppi tablet screen with anything else will be so obvious for anyone to see, that it's almost an instant buy if you're looking for a tablet.
4) Apple made so much money the last few years that they can afford to sell the iPad 2 at break-even or even at a small loss initially. Increasing iPad market share and making sure competing tablets don't take off is probably more important in the long run than profit margins on units sold. Within a year production costs for the screens will come down enough to slowly increase profit margins again. Remember that going to 2x the resolution of the current iPad means Apple doesn't have to upgrade the iPad screen for at least 2 generations, increasing the resolution even further wouldn't make any sense.
5) Isn't Apple known for suddenly bringing the most crazy and awesome stuff to the market, even if almost nobody expected they would be able to pull it off?

In the tradition of Apple, I'm starting to believe it really is going to happen, and that Apple will once again present something that will surprise everyone. A year later all the me-too tablets will have higher resolution screens and all the Apple haters will have forgotten how Apple was (again) first to market, but Apple would at least (again) have a full year headstart on everybody else.

I'd say go for it, a screen like this would be the only reason for me to replace my 1st gen iPad, because honestly, that still works perfectly for me and can probably last until iPad 3 if it has to. But a 260 ppi screen, that would be irresistible.

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I think that the real issue for the ipad 2; the question that most people want answered, is "will there be a white ipad 2"?

;)

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Most people probably couldn't care less as the iPad will almost certainly end up in some kind of protective case.

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Why can Apple super boost iPhone and iPad resolutions without making screen elements smaller, yet my 17"MBPro and the 27" iMac's high res screen elements are too small onscreen for my eyes (I have 20/20 vision)?

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Because they are also making everything else bigger. The icons on the iPhone 4 are larger in pixel area than on an iPhone 3G. But they are the same (or very similar) physical size.

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I get how they executed it all on the iPhone 4 (and iPad 2). What I want to know is why can they redesign the UI AND the apps on iOS 4 to have better res with same screen size but on OS X 10.6 an increase in res makes everything smaller?

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You do know that you can chance the size of most icons and stuff, right?

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I know that I can change the size of the Dock (and it's icons) as well as using command and "+" to make Safari text elements temporarily larger.

I also know that I can go into Display Preferences and lower the resolution to make item like the Menu Bar and all other UI elements larger, but this produces a blurry effect that make my screen quite a lot less sharp.

Is that what you meant Patriks?

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Mac OS/X does not have resolution independence. It has been rumored for years that Apple is working on this. I suspect the I devices have distracted them along with the idea that a major overhaul of the SDK would be required.

I'm actually hoping this is something they address in 10.7. So far no newsworthy info has slipped out about 10.7 so who knows. It needs to happen real soon though as I'm expecting a rapid increase in screen resolutions.

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That answers my question. I didn't realize resolution independence had to be written into the SDK.

Thanks David. Here's to hoping for it in 10.7 as well.

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Maybe I'm lost here, but I thought certain media carried high resolution images on the iPad and iOS in general to support pinch zooming whereby you could zoom in and not deteriorate the image.

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I just hope that the battery life doesn't suffer with all these upgrades. To me, that is the "killer feature".

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