“The company’s wholly owned unit, Toshiba Mobile Display Co, will construct the facility in Ishikawa prefecture and the plant will churn out low-temperature polysilicon LCD panels, which allow for high-resolution images, the paper said, ” Sethuraman reports. “Apple will invest in a portion of the investment for the factory, the Nikkei said.”
More in the full article here.
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Retina display is the #1 best feature of iPhone 4. Unfortunately it makes my 8 month old iPad seem old-fashioned for reading. Where is the retina display factory for iPads?
@Fredo, that’s the one
Maybe the new factory will really be making Retina displays for the iPad and the current story is just a smokey screen.
Can you imagine the cost of a retina display for the iPad?!?
And the plant will be located in ….. Bangalore?
I expect a retina display and camera to be the big selling points for the next iPad.
Apple builds the factory for Toshina, in exchange for the exclusive discounted pricing and manufacturing of Retina displays by Toshiba. Not a bad investment that will pass savings along to consumers and give Apple an unbeatable cost advantage over any possible competition.
Expect all Apple products to utilize the Retina display in the future.
Some feel the retina display won’t be easy to migrate to the iPad because of the heavy graphics processing needed to drive such a large panel, not to mention the difficulty of creating applications that take advantage of that resolution, and the hit to battery life. Even the laptops don’t have that kind of resolution.
I’m sure we’ll get there someday, but maybe not in version 2. Or for that price.
It will be a few years before even Apple can offer a 300+ PPI (pixels per inch) display at a 10-inch size. That’s more total pixels than the current 27-inch iMac and 27-inch Cinema Display (which are “only” about 110 PPI). Not only would such a display, if it existed today, be too expensive for a $500 product (probably even for a $1000 product), but the “horsepower” needed to push around that many pixels would not fit into an iPad. It probably will in a few year, just not in 2011 or 2012.
A good PR move potentially too by having the plant in Japan. Ishikawa Prefecture is on the western side of Japan.
Again, the anal-ysts insist that Apple is foolish to have such large cash reserves. Here’s another reason why Apple does that.
@Charlie – can’t you read? The MDN blurb said the plant was to built in Ishikawa prefecture – that sounds like in Japan to me.
General consumers will be upset if the iPad 2 doesn’t have a Retina Display, but Apple will not include it if it makes the price to high or if it affects consumers interaction (battery life). That’s what I love about Apple they look out for their consumers.
@ qka: Yep, Ishikawa prefecture is in Japan on the west coast of Honshu, at the same latitude as Tokyo.
What’s too bad is that Apple couldn’t build a factory like that in, say, Michigan or California where it could help put unemployed Americans back to work.
Let’s hope Toshiba do a better job making screens for Apple than the one they turned out on my 42 inch TV.
Only three years old and it already has the Toshiba ‘Red line of Death’.
Shocking.
Once Verzion sticks a Retina iPhone next to those shit Android displays, everyone will know why they give them away.
How about building it in US, Apple? Put Americans to work and help our economy rebound. Yes, the margins would be lower for displays made state side, but at some point we need to do what is right for the American people, and not what will create the largest profit margin.
“Apple will invest in a portion of the investment”
From the Department of Redundancy Dept.
@mb
Apple should make the factories here and import all the chinese workers over to america, pay for them to be legal and such and that would atleast put production into america…. or they just hire tons of unemployeed people right now that are dying for a job…
Now here is the downfall… People here in america that are unemployeed probably receive a larger check while sitting at home than if they did get hired. No one is going to leave unemployment to make less money than they are collecting. More people would be having a job if they weren’t collecting as much as they are because lets face it.. plenty of college students aren’t working while full time in school and there are plenty of grocery stores, convenience stores, gas stations, etc. that can hire people. Especially during the holidays which is what happens people get hired for seasonal.
I know if I lost my job now I’d be trying hard to find another one asap but imagine being a 100k a year person who just lost your job and your going to collect.. lets say 60% of that… How many companies who are trying to cut costs are willing to dump 60k on someone a year especially if they aren’t someone making them money.
ipad can not have a retina display. Have you not read the countless articles regarding the extreme high resolution required to provide that many pixels on a screen that size. The resolution would be as high as a 30″ LCD
Why would you need it so high? I would agree however, that an increase in resolution would be great,
Why would anyone manufacture anything in America if it is going to cost more? Why? Please, someone explain why they would do this if it was their business.
@jtcdesigns,
Precisely why the government should be the employer of last resort. Private industry will not hire before demand exists and with high unemployment there is no demand. This is also why tax cuts for businesses don’t result in more hiring. What business is going to hire to supply non-existent demand even if taxes are zero?
Creating work programs to give people a paycheck might cause conservatives to bark “Socialism!” but it’s the proven way to create demand. It’s been done before in America and it worked to get us out of the last depression.
@ txdoc: i don’t completely agree. all R&D, and hence innovation, is performed by people who are hired before significant market demand exists. recall what Steve Jobs said during the 2001-2002 crash: Apple wasn’t slashing workers, they would innovate through the downturn. most other companies, even those sitting on piles of cash, turned people out on the street for Uncle Sam to take care of. I know personally several people who joined the military (gov’t job!) not for the glory or the patriotism, but because it put food on the table. ironic how the extreme right-wing chicken hawks were all for war and the insane no-bid contract spending that went with it, but then hypocritically turned around in 2008-present to complain about government spending. defense is the #1 expense, a significant portion of which is the salary of people who are unemployable without significant retraining in the private sector! imagine what the unemployment rate would have been in 2003 if Bush hadn’t turned on the war stimulus package.
long story short: if a company has a future, it hires people. if the company is a transactional taker that doesn’t really create anything of lasting value, then its businesses tank when other businesses stop spending. when businesses stop spending, everyone turns to uncle sam for a handout — corporations bullying their way to the front of the line, of course.
Jtc designs…. You are an uninformed right wing tea party selfish idiot. The average unemployment check in the US is only $160.00 per week. No one…. Absolutely no one in this country gets 60% of 100K…. You idiot. Your the problem with country….. You moran.
@Fredo
@Jeff the Trader
You guys are right on. Apple needs to prioritize a higher res screen for the next iPad. Doesn’t have to be iPhone 4 level, but still, the iPad as it is now is just not serviceable. Screen first, then weight, THEN we can talk about cameras. Honestly, an iPad with 50% better resolution 25% less weight at the same prices, and that’s enough. Leave the camera as an add on option if it comes to that.
Actually, Toshiba has a plant that makes TV screens in the Elmira NY (upstate) area.
They probably built it to avoid taxes/duty on imported screens. There has to be a reason that made it economically competitive.
Screens that are incorporated into other devices probably don’t face the same tax reasons.