“I use the gen 3 iPad pretty much every day and have relegated my older iPad 2 to backup duty. In other words, I like the new iPad and love the 2048×1536-pixel, 264-pixels-per-inch (ppi) Retina display. (Not to mention the 4G LTE),” Brooke Crothers reports for CNET. “Still, the fact that the newer version is thicker and heavier than the older one strikes me as being at odds with Jobsian philosophy.”
“Some analysts are now saying that the gen 3 iPad design that made it out the door earlier this year was Plan B for Apple,” Crothers reports. “That’s what Raymond Soneira, the founder, president and CEO of DisplayMate Technologies, is saying, and he knows a lot more than me about the ins and outs of the newest iPad. ‘The plan was to use this new technology called IGZO from Sharp — a lot higher electron mobility that allows them to make the transistors a lot smaller and the circuit elements a lot smaller,’ he said.”
Crothers reports, “There was one problem, though. Sharp didn’t have its IGZO display tech ready in time. So, Apple had to fall back on more conventional amorphous silicon technology.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Regardless, the new iPad’s display has spoiled us beyond repair. All other tablet screens, and even past iPad models’ displays, look grainy, rough, and cheap.
Now, we can all look forward to lighter, thinner IGZO-based next-gen iPads in 2013!
Thanks to Apple for pushing the envelope. As usual.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
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I love the new iPad as it is. Quite impossible to see or feel that it is “thicker” than the iPad 2. Reading experience is better than ever before. Apple did a great job!
Yep. I was looking at my wife’s iPad 2 the other day after having used my iPad (3) since 16 March, and it looked not-so-good in comparison.
This DisplayMate guy is competent in display quality, management, calibration, but this IGZO issue is profuction/manufacturing thing, he is no expert in that.
IGZO hardly was ever “plan A” thing, and Jobs probably personally used test Retina iPad during latest months of his life. Remember that iOS was updated to handle Retina images back in Spring of 2011. And it takes about half year to prepare new iPad start.
This means that Apple had pre-production process for displays like year ago, and IGZO will only able to deliver high quantity volumes by late of this year.
Hardly Apple would rely on new technology as “Plan A” when it was never used for real mass production before.
“Hardly Apple would rely on new technology as “Plan A” when it was never used for real mass production before.”
+1
Also, the main difference in those display technologies is not IGZO-transisors are thinner/smaller, but rather that those are more translucent. It takes both structure and the material itself to be more translucent.
In the end, iPad would be lighter and thinner thanks to IGZO as it consumes a lot less battery life.
the weight of my new iPad made me go to the gym for the first time.
Then don’t even think about lifting a MBA.
I know we Americans are out of shape, but I didn’t realize it was this bad.
As the owner of an original iPad, all this whining about the weight of the new iPad is quite silly. I like the substance of the iPad and if I wanted something cheap and flimsy, I’d get a galaxy poo.
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