“Dr. Raymond Soneira runs DisplayMate Technologies,” Jason Cross reports for PC World. “This morning, Dr. Soneira shot me an interesting email regarding the so-called ‘Retina Display’ of the iPhone 4. To clarify: a retina display is one whose resolution meets or exceeds the maximum resolution the human retina is capable of resolving, assuming perfect vision.”
Dr. Soniera’s email, in full and unedited, is as follows:
The iPhone 4 has an outstanding display… and I’m glad that Apple resisted the emotional rush to OLEDs because they still need lots of improvement before they will be ready to compete with the highly refined IPS LCDs. The iPhone 4 display should be comparable to the outstanding IPS LCD in the Motorola Droid, which I tested and compared to the Nexus One OLED, which was trounced by the Droid.
Steve Jobs claimed that the iPhone 4 has a resolution higher than the retina – that’s not right:
1. The resolution of the retina is in angular measure – it’s 50 Cycles Per Degree. A cycle is a line pair, which is two pixels, so the angular resolution of the eye is 0.6 arc minutes per pixel.
2. So if you hold an iPhone at the typical 12 inches from your eyes, that works out to 477 pixels per inch. At 8 inches it’s 716 ppi. You have to hold it out 18 inches before it falls to 318 ppi.
So the iPhone has significantly lower resolution than the retina. It actually needs a resolution significantly higher than the retina in order to deliver an image that appears perfect to the retina.
It’s a great display, most likely the best mobile display in production (and I can’t wait to test it) but this is another example of spec exaggeration.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: In his WWDC 2010 keynote address, Apple CEO Steve Jobs explicitly stated (beginning at 36:35), “The Retina display has 326 pixels per inch. There’s never been a display like this on a phone. People haven’t even dreamed of a display like this on a phone. But, it’s more than that. It turns out that there’s a magic number, right around 300 pixels per inch that when you hold something around 10 or 12 inches away from your eyes is the limit of the human retina to differentiate the pixels. And so they’re so close together when you get at this 300 pixels per inch threshold that, all of a sudden, things begin to look like continuous, continuous curves. Like text looks like when you’ve seen it in a fine printed book. Unlike you’ve ever seen on an electronic screen before. And, at 326 pixels per inch, we are comfortably over that limit.”
If you want to argue with that, you need to get a life.
According to Wikipedia, in the term “20/20 vision,” the numerator refers to the distance in feet between the subject and the chart. The denominator is the distance at which the lines that make up those letters would be separated by a visual angle of 1 arc minute, which for the lowest line that is read by an eye with no refractive error (or the errors corrected) is usually 20 feet. The metric equivalent is 6/6 vision where the distance is 6 meters. This means that at 20 feet or 6 meters, a typical human eye, able to separate 1 arc minute, can resolve lines with a spacing of about 1.75mm. At 12 inches, the normal visual acuity of the human eye is 0.00349 inch. We’re not sure where the good doc is getting “0.6 arc minutes per pixel” unless he’s using Superman as his baseline.
Dr. Soniera should seek better ways to garner free publicity for DisplayMate Technologies.
Direct link to video via YouTube here.
If I had enough to spare I would offer Dr. Soniera some hairs to split.
It’s funny, the comments on the original article already call the guy on his crap.
Well darn it, I guess we better throw them all away. Nah, the good doctor is just doing his job as an, um, ocular geek.
“… (and I can’t wait to test it) but this is another example of spec exaggeration.”
Soooo, he hasn’t tested it, but he’s already labelled it “another example of spec exaggeration.”.
And another thing I’d like to know, good Doctor, what are the “other” examples of spec exaggeration?
Or did you just casually use that term, … um, .. “in error”?
Who cares as long as Porn looks good!
Don’t agree MDN. No reason to trash Dr. Soniera, who is simply stating the facts. He seems to know what he is talking about. Looks like the Jobso did exaggerate a bit. Not the first CEO to do so by a darn sight.
Actual 18″ vs ‘something around’ 10-12″…. whateva. Jobs is no engineer. Get a life.
Dr Obvious strikes again, the point need not be belalored.
I don’t think Apple is overexaggerating the superiority of the iPhone 4’s display. There is a comparison of the Weather icon between the 3GS and the iPhone 4 at MacWorld: http://www.macworld.com/article/151880/2010/06/retinadisplay.html?lsrc=top_3
The iPhone 4 is relatively sharp, while the 3GS is very pixelated. Can’t wait to see the real thing.
Hey, what’s with all the harsh talking.
Dr whats his name is speaking clearly and with good solid arguments.
It’s a great display and Jobbs slightly exaggerated on the specs which …eeeerrh…. is a bit Apple like sometimes.
I have a macbook and and iphone and I will buy the 4g and love them all but I will not take bullshit cause “steve all mighty” has spoken.
At 12 inches someone with good eyesight one will be able to spot pixels if he tries (the older you get the worse ofcourse, of if you have eye problems).
It’s a good solid argument and it doesn’t really affect iphone 4. We will still buy it because the screen is great and it’s a great improvent.
I don’t really get why you got “insulted”.
Cheer up boys and girls and don’t treat Jobs as the son of god and Apple like heaven. Apple is fantastic at publicity and PR.. some exaggeration is expected, always!
Qwatsch!
SO ! Well what is the resolution? Total. 600 * 400? 1000 * 500? 1920 *1080? 4000*2000?
GD, just gimme the damm res total. That’s simple enough.
I know Apple may have said so, but I didn’t catch it.
Can we just be simple, without 1 million degrees of angular bi-dimentional eletromagnetic diochronic dispensaitional relative disomatic…
WTFC
The 0.00349 inch @ 12 inch distance come out to be 289 DPI … that’s what Steve’s magic number of “300 dpi or so” is.
This 300 dpi @ 12 inch is a old rule from book printing times. At 300 dpi, a half-tone photo printed in a book would start to appear continuous, non-half-toned (non-pixellated) to the average reader. That’s why the iPhone’s resolution > 300 dpi is such a big deal.
And yes, Steve Jobs has the “more right” numbers — there’s no absolutism here since all eyes are different. But Dr. Soniera clearly overestimates average eyesight.
If the smallest element your 20/20 naked eye can see from 12 inches is 0.00349 inch, it translates to 286.5 dpi. Anything above that your eye cannot distinguish.
Quoting Jobs is not a solid argument against the Dr., because it is exactly his statements that are being called into question. Wikipedia is also questionable. A typical human eye may not be a perfect human eye, so maybe that’s where the difference in arc-minutes lies. I’m no expert though…
Knowing nothing about this stuff I would tend to believe a doctor who has his reputation on the line over a wikipedia entry, depending on the source of said entry
I can’t prove If Dr. Soniera’s calculations and analysis are right or wrong; I doubt anyone here can. However, he’s using general metrics to cast aspersions about claims for a device he has never touched, let alone tested.
I recall another equally eminent (and competitively funded) expert who screamed that Jobs’ claim about iPad battery life was impossible. Of course as it turned out, Jobs, who is in a position to know, was right, and the mercenary “expert,” who had no access to the device, was wrong.
There you go Academics vs Practical theory!!
In the real world, we just want it to look great!
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”grin” style=”border:0;” /> Can’t wait….
My retina will be the judge when I hold the new iPhone 4 in front of me at half an arms length
Final judge is iWallet$$$$ urWallet!!!
Dr. Soniera Douce wants his 15 minutes of fame…
There you guys go again being rude and trashing someone for laughs. The “get a life” comment was in poor taste. You editors are starting to get on my nerves. Just report the news keep the cheap shots to yourselves.
With a resolution of 960 x 640 pixels…
O.K. I found it. There. that’s all I need.
(Sorry, I was out, yesterday.) Holy sh*t, batman.
Damm, that’s NUTS ! For a cell phone? That’s WAY BETTER than a dvd! What more do ya want?!?
Well, I could use an Apple i-TV with 4000*2000 res, with an option to burn to BLU-RAY ! I’d really BUY THAT!
How ’bout an i-Watch 2 way live video chat with 10,000*10,000 res? K I lost my mind on that one.
Okay, that does it – I am not getting one! Case closed!
Look, I don’t mind Apple exaggerating a bit regarding the retina display — that’s the way it is in the world of advertising. But anyone in the print side of graphic design will tell you that people with good eyesight can easily (and I do mean easily) tell the difference between (for instance) text printed at 300dpi and the same text printed at 600dpi.
I don’t claim to know what the magic number is, but it sure ain’t 300dpi.
If I had been advising Apple, I would have told them to come up with a different marketing hook, because the Apple haters were guaranteed to nitpick the technical details and make a stink about it.
How is it “spec exaggeration” when the spec says 326 DPI and that’s what it is? If he wants to complain about the name, that’s something called marketing. I think it’s a great name, because “retina” is a cool-sounding word.
People hold their iPhones at varying distances from their eyes. Some people’s eyes are better than others. Mine are probably not among the sharpest, with or without my glasses on. But the new iPhone screen DOES have 2x the sharpness (and 4x the pixels) of the previous iPhone, and most other mobile phone displays; that’s not variable nor an exaggeration.
I found it interesting that he says the iPhone 4 (960 x 640) on a 3.5″ screen should be comparable to the Motorola Droid (854 x 480) on a 3.7″ screen. Actually, the iPhone 4 boasts a little better than a 50% improvement over the Droid (pixel-wise).
I’m sorry, but aren’t pixels very different than dots?
i don’t know what the magic number is either, but i do vividly remember the day i first saw a laser printed page with 600 dpi. it was obviously, from normal reading distance, way better than 300 dpi.
This Dr. Soniera has given up his academic expert credibility the moment he begun writing about technology in which the company he works for has vested interest.
The Droid vs. iPhone 4 comparison is obviously incorrect (if we look at scientific facts). Not a single technical specification number (all of them available on apple.com) has been “exaggerated”. They are all exactly as they are (most likely including battery life).
During the presentation, Jobs was trying to explain things that are fairly obscure and technical to non-technical audience. His claim was essentially correct. And Dr. Soniera did NOT try to “pick that bone” because the claim was wildly off the mark. He did it because for some reason, he was personally not happy that Apple came out with such a product, and he felt the need to put it down a bit. That much was very clear from the substance and the tone of his text.
No they need to call this bull***t out when necessary. If the good Doc has scientfic fact that backing him then yes he need to speak up.
@lukeskymac, you’re right that pixels are different than dots, but there’s no need to complicate the discussion in this forum, because (1) it gets too technical for people who aren’t in the field, and (2) the difference between the two isn’t relevant to a discussion about viewing black text on a white background (which is when differences in resolution are most apparent).
@Splashman
@ABQ Peter
You’re missing the point and misinterpreting Job’s claim. I’m a cartographer and I have plenty of experience with ppi and both printed and Projected resolution specs, as both as essential to my job. Being able to resolve pixels is NOT the same as noticing an improvement in quality.
Example: At the distance most people sit from their living room TV, you can’t distinguish individual pixels, it’s past the magic number for that distance, yet anyone can tell the difference between that and an HDTV. Quality and ppi are related for sure, but they are not the same thing. Job’s claim was and is accurate according to accepted printing standards. 300 ppi (which by the way is the same as dots per inch, just on a screen instead of paper) is the accepted resolving limit of the average human eye for reading distances (10-12 inches). Case Closed.
If 300dpi is good enough for print, it’s good enough for a phone.
This is the second time I’ve heard someone claim that Jobs said the display had finer resolution than the retina of the eye.
That’s crap. What he said was exactly what MDN quoted. And what Jobs has said is accurate.
I’ll bet he was wearing bottle glasses or tri focals when he discovered about display!
@MapMaker,
No, the case is not closed. As I already said, I don’t mind a bit of exaggeration in advertising, it’s the way the game is played. But let’s call a spade a spade. An “accepted limit” is not the same thing as an “actual limit.” Do you disagree? Jobs did not mention an “accepted limit.” He said that at normal reading distance, the human eye is incapable of resolving pixels beyond 300dpi.
And since you claim to be in the know, do you also claim that the average person cannot tell the difference between 5-point type printed at 300dpi and 600dpi?
Question…. does the droid use an IPS LCD, I had thought it was a TN LCD (twisted nematic) display.
Any LCD hardware folks out there that can confirm the use of an IPS panel in the ‘roid?
It (using an ips panel) doesn’t seem very moto like, they normally design by committee, with cost cutting as first priority.
@Splashman
Now you’re not only misunderstanding Jobs, you are misunderstanding me. I never claimed a person can’t tell the difference between 300 and 600 dpi, in fact my analogy with the HDTV was meant to prove that point precisely: you can certainly tell the difference, but that doesn’t mean you can see the individual dots in the 300 dpi print. Most people cannot.
I agree there is some wiggle room because everyone’s eyes are a little different, but you can’t base consumer devices on specific “absolute limits” that do not in reality exist, which is why there are accepted approximations. The print industry has been around for a very long time, and while you may think they are outdated, the fact is they are VERY good at what they do, and the 300 dpi standard was not chosen at random. It IS the resolving limit of the average human eye! That does not mean you can’t tell when something is even better, it simply means the dots blur together to form continuous curves, WHICH IS EXACTLY WHAT STEVE JOBS SAID!!!!
Dr Whatever is a fucking bozo.
<bold>Steve Jobs claimed that the iPhone 4 has a resolution higher than the retina – that’s not right</bold>
No, it’s not right, because Jobs never said any such thing.
In the words of Ellen Ripley “did IQs drop precipitously while I was away?”. Listen to what Jobs ACTUALLY FUCKING SAID before talking out of your ass about a point that NO ONE ATTEMPTED TO MAKE!
FUCK this is becoming annoying. Seriously, already.
@MapMaker, calm down.
Then go set your laser printer to output black toner only at 300dpi, and print out whatever you like, as long as it has a 90-degree curve.
Are you telling me you cannot see the jaggies at normal reading distance?
If not, no use me arguing further. But I’d suggest an eye exam.
If so, doesn’t that shoot down your contention that at 300 dpi the dots “blur together to form continuous curves”?
Obviously, pixels on a screen are not as precise as in high-quality print (due to light bleed), so the blur factor is more apparent. But that is a limitation of display technology, not a limitation of the human retina. My argument is not with Jobs’ description of the display technology, but with his description of the human retina.
(Whoops, forgot to mention you must also turn off any auto-sharpening or resolution enhancement your printer may have.)
Splashman;
False comparison, a laser printer doesn’t have dot (pixel) greyscale capabilities and therefore groups groups of dots into “raster groups” (AKA line screen pitch) to display tonal levels.
A 320 DPI display using GS antialiasing is easily undetectable by the human eye at 1′ (and likely difficult at any distance without the use of magnification.)
—————————-
Also, I have looked all over moto’s specs and nowhere do I see them claiming to have used the much more expensive (and therefore rare) IPS (inter plane switching) type LCD display (for example the iPhone 3GS does NOT use a IPS LCD display)
Normally anytime an IPS display is use the manufacturer touts it as a key feature (because it is)
I will have to look at a moto droid (the difference is easily noticeable in person)
I think this guy (Raymond) is just full of soup claiming that the moto droid uses a IPS display. He is attempting to equate the moto droid and the new iPhone’s display’s when in fact they are years apart (doubly true if in fact the droid uses a TN (as I suspect it does) display)
@Uncle Fester,
As I have said more than once, my argument is not with the retina display or SJ’s description of it. The subject at hand is *not* whether antialiasing can blur the jaggies and thus increase apparent resolution. The subject at hand is the ability of the human retina to resolve detail. My suggested 300dpi laser print test is a convenient way to establish whether the retina can resolve detail at that level.
Try it yourself.
Whoah – the hounds are out again … MDN releases them on a regular basis – mindless droids who agree with everything MDN prints and can’t think for themselves. Their refuge is the expletive laden cheerleading seen in the lowest common denominator everywhere.
Splashman
Apple haters are a laughable bunch, that is for sure.
Watch the video (of the presentation) they show and describe GS antialiasing being used to achieve the “beyond perceptibility” of the aliasing of lines on type and graphics.
The truly stupid thing here is they are flat out correct, the display is beyond the ability of a human eye to detect (given GS antialiasing) and it is not “most likely the best mobile display in production” but rather is inarguably the best, by leaps and bounds.
…Which drives you apple haters out of your freaking minds. Well… if that is the path you want to take, you had better get used to it.
Tony Jacobs
Yeah imagine that apple enthusiasts at an apple enthusiasts site. The mind reels (well… small minds anyway)
Now, why the pathetic apple hating trolls hang out here is a bit harder to figure. Unless you like the abuse. which, while likely, is troubling.
Jobs didn’t say the screen had the same resolution as your retina. And he also clearly stated the resolution. Apple named their display “Retina Display” because it contains more pixels at about 10-12 inches than your retina can differentiate (according to Apple/Jobs). The doctor may be (and probably is) correct that the eye can differentiate slightly higher at 10-12 inches than 326 pixels, but Jobs didn’t say it was the same as your retina’s effective resolution.
I think people are getting a little picky. The marketing point behind “Retina Display” is that the name instantly conveys the idea that the resolution is basically as good as your eye can use, i.e., it’s like a retina’s ability. That be marketing, people.
I’m sure HTC would call their display the “E5284-326IPCLCD” display. Very marketable.
This one is for Tony Jacobs:
What does your calculator say when the good Doctor’s 0.6 MOA claim is compared to Wiki’s?
To make it easy for you, its:
tan-1 (0.00349″/12″) –> .00166352 degrees –> ~1 minute.
Not 0.6
Hmm.
-hh
Wow… what a wasted thread. This Dr. was trying to get publicity. He made some reasonable points, but Jobs simply drew a story together with accurate specs and facts. And the term “retinal display” is classic marketing.
Bottom line, many poeple will think it looks great. Those that don’t like it have lots of options.
Dr. X omitted the fact that iOS uses antialiasing and color. He is right in that single black-white pairs are discernable up to a higher resolution, but that is not true for details in colored images or for antialiased fonts.
It’s as simple as that.
Sweet, I’ve got 6×6 vision … to go with my 2×2 eyes!
SeriousCommentator, that is it in a nutshell… he is also a liar, I have checked the Moto droid DOES NOT use a IPS screen.
He is like all the rest of the apple hating win/android apologists out there: he takes a truth (B&W;resolving power of the eye) and misrepresents it, and then follows it up with a flat out lie, to try to make the moto droid somehow equivalent to the new iPhone 4
It isn’t… it isn’t even in the same league.
Just like the iPods, taking a year and a half to copy apple current design will put you constantly 1-2 years behind. It just doesn’t work, the puck is long gone by the time you get there.
Finally some light is shed on the issue:
Resolving the iPhone resolution
The conclusion is this: People with perfect eyesight can resolve objects at somewhat more than 300dpi. People with average eyesight are limited to around 280dpi.
MapMaker, based on this new info, I’ll accept that Jobs’ statement about the limits of the retina was correct, because it is reasonable to assume he was talking about the average retina, not a perfect retina.
“The Retina display has 326 pixels per inch. There’s never been a display like this on a phone. People haven’t even dreamed of a display like this on a phone. But, it’s more than that. It turns out that there’s a magic number, right around 300 pixels per inch that when you hold something around 10 or 12 inches away from your eyes is the limit of the human retina to differentiate the pixels. And so they’re so close together when you get at this 300 pixels per inch threshold that, all of a sudden, things begin to look like continuous, continuous curves. Like text looks like when you’ve seen it in a fine printed book. Unlike you’ve ever seen on an electronic screen before. And, at 326 pixels per inch, we are comfortably over that limit.”
if you make up a lie like that & turn it into a sales pitch, you need to get a life. revealing the truth to educate people is never a wast of time, unless you like being an ignorant sucker that likes to be fed bullsh*t.