“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.
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!