Earlier this year, before Steve Jobs got on stage and showed off the thinner, lighter, and camera equipped iPad 2, rumors were flying around the internet suggesting that Apple would release an iPad with a higher resolution screen. In much the same way that the iPhone 4 had a display with double the number of vertical and horizontal pixels compared to the iPhone 3GS, effectively quadrupling the amount of pixels, the same would be done to the iPad. That obviously never happened, to the disappointment of many, but the rumor is now back with a vengeance thanks to the latest iOS 5 SDK, specifically inside the Twitter framework. Assuming the third generation iPad comes out next Spring, this “retina display” would make for one of the most delicious tablets to come into existence. For such a tablet to function properly, Apple would have to create a new processor, which will most likely be called the A6, that packs a ridiculous amount of graphics capabilities in order to be able to push so many pixels.
Developers wouldn’t need to rewrite their applications since they’d be scaled up, but they’ll also be unlikely to take advantage of the added horsepower of a theoretical A6 processor since a 5x faster GPU, at minimum, would be needed to offset to 4x number of pixels on screen. Anyway, one of the highlight features of iOS 5 is Newsstand, which aims to be a one stop shop for all your newspapers and magazines. Combine Newsstand with an ultra high resolution display, and you’ve got a match made in heaven. With Samsung showing off a 10.1 inch display with a resolution of 2560 x 1600 just last month, we’re confident that they’ll have the ability to mass produce such high resolution panels starting in Q1 2011. Then again the iPhone 5 has broken the 1 year release cycle that every iPhone before has enjoyed, so maybe we’ll see the iPad 3 be announced as a Summer or Fall 2012 product. That’s just more speculation on our part.
Bottom line: We’re excited!