Looking at the iPad's Retina Display Under a Microscope

[shaod]

[citation][nom]watcha[/nom]Retina display as a term is something Apple made up.It's meaning isn't subjective.http/blogs.discovermagazine.com/ [...] esolution/(for shaod - again linked to from the link I posted)[/citation]
Sorry there is obviously some misunderstanding as to what is meant by 'scientific article', as I seem to be using the specific term and you seem to be understanding it as a general article involving science. In order for something to enter scientific literature it has to be peer reviewed and published in a journal (or in some cases: particularly within Computer Science because we're academically weird, at a conference). This gives people who dispute the claims a chance to effectively call bullshit, and what normally happens is the researchers have to go back and either get more data or modify their paper in some way (or just go for a weaker journal). In this specific case the obvious example is the distance devices are held from the face, because if they don't cite statistically significant data it is unlikely to get published in a good journal.

What is a scientific article?

We've gone off topic a bit, but in the past Google have produced a lot of good research, as have Microsoft (through MSR) as well as many other tech companies. Apple have not; they generally make claims like this based on very little, and that's what distinguishes between scientific research and marketing ploys.

 

[icemunk]

I traced Watcha's IP address, and he is actually an employee of Apple. ROFL. nice try Apple PR, next time use a proxy.

 

[del35]

I dont want the Samsung manufactured retina display in my next smart phone or tablet. I do want my next Samsung smart phone to have a micro sd slot ant to support java and flash so that I can surf 30% more website than Apple's locked down drm infested devices. As technologically sophisticated person I want more access to information, not less. I also want a battery I can replace easily. Thanks but no thanks iCrap.

 

[halcyon]

[citation][nom]del35[/nom]I dont want the Samsung manufactured retina display in my next smart phone or tablet. I do want my next Samsung smart phone to have a micro sd slot ant to support java and flash so that I can surf 30% more website than Apple's locked down drm infested devices. As technologically sophisticated person I want more access to information, not less. I also want a battery I can replace easily. Thanks but no thanks iCrap.[/citation]

Okay, so you don't want a generally-agreed-upon higher-quality display. Micro SD slot, yes, that'd be nice but not likely. A removable battery would be nice but, to me, not at the expense of a slimmer device. I live close to large populated areas and getting to an Apple Store to swap a battery (if needed) is just not an inconvenience for me.

 

[icemunk]

[citation][nom]Halcyon[/nom]Okay, so you don't want a generally-agreed-upon higher-quality display. Micro SD slot, yes, that'd be nice but not likely. A removable battery would be nice but, to me, not at the expense of a slimmer device. I live close to large populated areas and getting to an Apple Store to swap a battery (if needed) is just not an inconvenience for me.[/citation]

No removable battery.. thats just wrong. No SD slot.. sad. No Flash support, why?? Less battery life than Samsung phones.. ack. Small 3.5" screen.. well, that would be a plus if you had dainty little hands (for women and feminine men for instance), and a closed system with little or no customization.. at a premium price. Hmm, no thanks. I'll stick to the Samsung Galaxy S2.

 

[halcyon]

[citation][nom]icemunk[/nom]No removable battery.. thats just wrong. No SD slot.. sad. No Flash support, why?? Less battery life than Samsung phones.. ack. Small 3.5" screen.. well, that would be a plus if you had dainty little hands (for women and feminine men for instance), and a closed system with little or no customization.. at a premium price. Hmm, no thanks. I'll stick to the Samsung Galaxy S2.[/citation]
The reasons you've listed are part of why I have the excellent Razr Maxx. ...but there is some iOS polish that Android needs but misses.

 

[del35]

Back in 2010 when Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone 4, he claimed that the human eye stooped discerning the individual pixels when the pixel density is 300ppi. Hence he called the display on the iPhone 4 the retina display, which has 326ppi. Now we go forward in time almost two years and after all the human eye stops discerning pixels at 260ppi not 300ppi as previously stated.

Also the phone I mentioned was a Nokia N900, at the time I also had a iPhone 3GS and a Xperia X1. Without knowing I had two phones with retina displays.

The retina display is such a load of crap. The hype is designed to draw technologically subliterate zombies. The bottom line is that I simply can't imagine using a device like the new iPad that prevents me from experiencing fully close to 30% of websites due to its proprietary infestation (no flash and no java support!). On another note, I am happy that Samsung manufactures the retina display for the iCrappies. Obviously they see no need to create a hype around it and seem not to be pushing it on their devices. For me the 1280 x 800 Pixel Super Amoled display of the the Samsung Galaxy Note is more than I need. Thanks but no thanks iCrap. Give me connectivity, openness, and produce a device with a better that 2 in 10 repairability ratio and thus almost impossible to repair, also throw in a micro sd slot and price the device reasonably and I might consider it. Till you do that you will just be producing CRAP for zombied morons using your logo as a shield.

End of story.

 

[house70]

[citation][nom]icemunk[/nom]I traced Watcha's IP address, and he is actually an employee of Apple. ROFL. nice try Apple PR, next time use a proxy.[/citation]
ROFL indeed; but anyone can figure that out just by reading his "arguments". Seems like he's trying hard at first, then kinda backtracks his own mistaken statements once they're debunked on the forum by non-zealots (for instance, first he claims that retina display is not a marketing gimmick, only to say later that it is a marketing term invented by apple).
If you really traced him as you mentioned, then that blows any little credibility he had out of the water.
To the topic: nobody seems to mention the Rezound screen and the other LG phone screen (I can't recall it's name now, but can be looked up online); they both have a higher PPI than iP4S and people using them just don't boast that much about it. They also manage that on a larger screen than iP4S (it's easier to make a small screen with a high PPI than a large one), but again, beyond a certain PPI it's all in the eye of the beholder.

 

[mr_wobbles]

Did anybody else notice that Watcha stopped posting after you traced his IP?

 

[walter87]

[citation][nom]icemunk[/nom]I traced Watcha's IP address, and he is actually an employee of Apple. ROFL. nice try Apple PR, next time use a proxy.[/citation]

Haha that's funny.
I've never seen so many comments by 1 user on a Tom's article. His attempted so hard to try and prove his point, but failed lol

And thanks, you shut him up pretty good 😛

 

[Solandri]

[citation][nom]otacon72[/nom]You're comparing two completely different things.[/citation]
No he's not. The Asus Transormer Infinity and Lenovo Ideatab K2 are going to sport 10.1" 1920x1200 displays, which works out to 224 DPI vs. the new iPad's 264 DPI (its smaller 9.7" screen actually helps increase its DPI). i.e. the new iPad has 18% higher DPI. By comparison the original iPad had 13% lower DPI than the original Transformer and Galaxy Tab (132 vs 149 DPI). So if the older iPad's lower DPI vs. the competition didn't bother you, then the new iPad's extra DPI vs. the new competition isn't really a compelling difference. Apple is just much, much, much better at marketing a DPI advantage than other tablet manufacturers.

Personally, I'm of the opinion that extra pixels on tablets would be better served by increasing the screen size. Extra DPI on a phone makes sense because you need to cram as much info as possible on a screen that can't be made bigger. A tablet has no such restriction. The area of a letter-sized sheet of paper minus margins works out to about 12"-13" diagonal, so I see that as being the ideal screen size. I would much rather have a 12" 1920x1200 screen than a 9.7" 2056x1536 screen.

As a practical matter, the extra DPI is only really going to help with text. When you browse web pages with the new iPad, the browser is going to have to have to resize the pictures to double their size unless you want them to be half the sie they are on the iPad 2. So website graphics aren't going to be any sharper on the new iPad. It may look smoother, but that's going to be due to the resizing algorithm - fake pixels. Text (which is rendered on the device) however will be sharper. In order to take advantage of additional pixels without resizing, you need to increase the screen size.

 

[del35]

Watcha is unforuntetly lacking in real knowledge, and lost in the vast marketing machine produced by Apple. He reads his "science" from websites such as http/www.tuaw.com which talks about nothing but Apple.. I feel for people like him, they don't realize they are being manipulated by marketing.

I agree. In fact Watcha is even lacking in the basics of logical reasoning as evidenced by many of his past comments. Watcha does not even know what a contrapositve statement is or what a converse statement is or what a tautology is. To illustrate his total lack of logical skills, I recall a discussion with Watcha where he/she claimed that Apple made better product because more affluent people purchased them. I replied to him that his argument was akin to the claim that slavery was a better economic system because wealthier people held slaves in the 17th and 18th Century. He could not see the fallacy of his claim and held to it. Now it is known that Watcha works for Apple as a propagandist. So he is just working to put food on his table albeit in an immoral and anti-intellectual fashion.

 

[watcha]

[citation][nom]shaod[/nom]Sorry there is obviously some misunderstanding as to what is meant by 'scientific article', as I seem to be using the specific term and you seem to be understanding it as a general article involving science. In order for something to enter scientific literature it has to be peer reviewed and published in a journal (or in some cases: particularly within Computer Science because we're academically weird, at a conference). This gives people who dispute the claims a chance to effectively call bullshit, and what normally happens is the researchers have to go back and either get more data or modify their paper in some way (or just go for a weaker journal). In this specific case the obvious example is the distance devices are held from the face, because if they don't cite statistically significant data it is unlikely to get published in a good journal.What is a scientific article?We've gone off topic a bit, but in the past Google have produced a lot of good research, as have Microsoft (through MSR) as well as many other tech companies. Apple have not; they generally make claims like this based on very little, and that's what distinguishes between scientific research and marketing ploys.[/citation]

Dude, what you're questioning is a basic principle of science, it's not something that needs to be 'studied' anymore. It's scientific fact. Indeed, none of the discussions I linked to which are the published work of respected scientists actually disagree on the scientific facts.

The metric equivalent of 20/20 vision is 6/6 vision. At 20 feet or 6 metres, a human eye with nominal performance is able to separate lines that are one arc minute apart (equivalent to lines that are spaced 1.75 mm apart. A vision of 20/20 is considered nominal performance for human distance vision. A vision of 20/40 is considered half as good as nominal performance. A vision of 20/10 is considered twice as good as nominal performance.[2].

http/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_acuity#.22Normal.22_vision

[citation][nom]icemunk[/nom]I traced Watcha's IP address, and he is actually an employee of Apple. ROFL. nice try Apple PR, next time use a proxy.[/citation]

The only thing more ridiculous than claiming I work for Apple, is you claiming you know what an IP Address is.

ROFL indeed; but anyone can figure that out just by reading his "arguments". Seems like he's trying hard at first, then kinda backtracks his own mistaken statements once they're debunked on the forum by non-zealots (for instance, first he claims that retina display is not a marketing gimmick, only to say later that it is a marketing term invented by apple).
If you really traced him as you mentioned, then that blows any little credibility he had out of the water.

Just because you don't understand the difference between a ploy and a term, is your own failing. The fact remains that the science behind the 'Retina' label was there long before Apple. I said it wasn't a marketing ploy. I did not say it was not a marketing label. Ever. Your own failure which you are projecting on me.

 

[watcha]

[citation][nom]walter87[/nom]Haha that's funny.I've never seen so many comments by 1 user on a Tom's article. His attempted so hard to try and prove his point, but failed lolAnd thanks, you shut him up pretty good[/citation]

I have very effectively proved my point, in every post.

 

[Vladislaus]

[citation][nom]watcha[/nom]Dude, what you're questioning is a basic principle of science, it's not something that needs to be 'studied' anymore. It's scientific fact. Indeed, none of the discussions I linked to which are the published work of respected scientists actually disagree on the scientific facts.http/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visua [...] .22_vision[/citation]
There's no dispute behind the math to determine if it's a retina display or not. Now the viewing distances are different story. Apple never provided a single study how it reached the 11 inches viewing distance for a phone. I've never seen anyone holding their phone that far away from their eyes.

About the tablets viewing distance most people i've seen using tablets usually have them on top of a table. The second most common position is hold it in their hands. Only occasionally do i see it on the lap of someone and the reason it's simple. For the tablet to be on the lap we have to tilt our heads down and that's also uncomfortable, hence why most people I see using it usually have it on the table. So how did they achieved the 16 inches viewing distance?

The most likely answer is simple, they've chosen a distance that suited them best without being ridiculously far.

 

[rantoc]

[citation][nom]house70[/nom]To the topic: nobody seems to mention the Rezound screen and the other LG phone screen (I can't recall it's name now, but can be looked up online); they both have a higher PPI than iP4S and people using them just don't boast that much about it. They also manage that on a larger screen than iP4S (it's easier to make a small screen with a high PPI than a large one), but again, beyond a certain PPI it's all in the eye of the beholder.[/citation]

The Apple users don't want to appear stupid, its common brand psychology that many people who purchases more expensive brands will recommend it or even defend its shortcomings even when they aren't satisfied with it - All that to fool themselves into that it was actually a good purchase so they don't have to admit to themselves that they did a mistake! Thats why the LG purchasers don't need to defend their brand as much as the Apple fanboiz do and there is your answer!

 

[icemunk]

[citation][nom]watcha[/nom]Del, your own story actually is one of you exposing your own stupidity. First, you called anyone who bought Apple products idiots, and 'izombies' - in the same fashion that you and house70 always do. I responded by informing you of the fact that iPhone users, are, on average, better educated than Android users.Thus, I disproved your claim that people were buying iPhones because they were stupid.I did not imply or claim in any way that the product is better because of this. That you misinterpreted this, is again, your own failing. In fact, almost every example of people disagreeing with me is just them being completely illogical and failing to read arguments properly.Take the people on here who think that Apple invented the long standing scientific notion of what constitutes 20/20 vision and can twist it to their own requirements. Just severely misinformed.Anyone intelligent reading through these comments will see a bunch of apple haters who are completely unable to grasp basic science, and the one logical guy making all the Apple haters cry because in this particular case, the science is on Apples side.[/citation]

It's obvious you live in a world of delusion Watcha. Keep dreaming.

 

[del35]

Del, your own story actually is one of you exposing your own stupidity. First, you called anyone who bought Apple products idiots, and 'izombies

When I call them morons, I actually mean morons in the sense of being technologically sub-literate and proud trumpeters of anything put out by Apple regardless of its technological worth.
I will admit that seeing people arrogantly parading Apple products makes me think of morons, but I know that many technologically backwards academics even in fields like theoretical physics use Apple products; so they can't be classified universally as morons. Hell, even some great scientists are religious fanatics; thus we can't call people who go around fervently trumpeting religious dogma universal morons. However, it is safe to assert that statistically speaking most iZombies are morons just like statistically speaking most religious fanatics are morons. The average iZombie is a moron hoping to hide behind the Apple logo and not aware that he is being laughed at by the technological elite. Yes you read the last sentence right.

Yesterday while waiting for my flight to NYC in Houston I chanced upon an iCrappie waiting for the late flight. He looked so hilarious sitting there with all his Apple logoed devices ON VIEW and carrying a hard copy of a Steve Jobs biography which he was careful to arrange on the seat next to him so as to display its cover --- yes that huge volume with Steve Jobs ugly face emblazoned on it and glaring like that of an octopus that refuses to die. I on the other hand sat nearby the iZombie just to have a sporadic quick laugh when I would look away from the relatively huge screen of my Samsung Galaxy S2 in which I was reading in my kindle app a book on the history of cancer by the world renown oncologist Siddhartha Mukherjee. Realizing that I still had a foreign sim card in my rooted android device, I powered it down and flipped open the back cover, felt the temperature of its removable battery and inserted in the micro sd slot the collected works of Mozart and Bach after inserting a sim card giving US coverage and unlimited data to my Galaxy S2. Five minutes later using the free winamp app I was in ecstasy listening to the Goldberg Variations with the iZombie still looking at me in owe. "Yes zombie such things are possible", I thought and felt a tinge of sadness.

Anyway, sorry to have offended you.

 

[nycteris]

[citation][nom]del35[/nom]Yesterday while waiting for my flight to NYC in Houston I chanced upon an iCrappie waiting for the late flight. He looked so hilarious sitting there with all his Apple logoed devices ON VIEW and carrying a hard copy of a Steve Jobs biography which he was careful to arrange on the seat next to him so as to display its cover --- yes that huge volume with Steve Jobs ugly face emblazoned on it and glaring like that of an octopus that refuses to die. I on the other hand sat nearby the iZombie just to have a sporadic quick laugh when I would look away from the relatively huge screen of my Samsung Galaxy S2 in which I was reading in my kindle app a book on the history of cancer by the world renown oncologist Siddhartha Mukherjee. Realizing that I still had a foreign sim card in my rooted android device, I powered it down and flipped open the back cover, felt the temperature of its removable battery and inserted in the micro sd slot the collected works of Mozart and Bach after inserting a sim card giving US coverage and unlimited data to my Galaxy S2. Five minutes later using the free winamp app I was in ecstasy listening to the Goldberg Variations with the iZombie still looking at me in owe. "Yes zombie such things are possible", I thought and felt a tinge of sadness.Anyway, sorry to have offended you.[/citation]
Seems like the airport really your bedroom and the guy on his iPad was a pillow you propped up on a chair. Lemme guess, were you also flying your toy airplanes around and making engine noises yourself?

 

[del35]

No removable battery.. thats just wrong. No SD slot.. sad. No Flash support, why?? Less battery life than Samsung phones.. ack. Small 3.5" screen.. well, that would be a plus if you had dainty little hands (for women and feminine men for instance), and a closed system with little or no customization.. at a premium price. Hmm, no thanks. I'll stick to the Samsung Galaxy S2.

A resounding BRAVO!