For the last week or so, the rumor mill has been in overdrive on the subject of the iPad 2 and what kind of higher-resolution display it might have. According to one pundit, those of you waiting for something awesome might be disappointed.
AppleInsider is reporting that recent speculation that the iPad 2 could come packing a high-resolution screen appears to be wrong. According to Daring Fireball’s John Gruber, claims of a “Retina Display” for the next iPad capable of up to 2048x1536 -- which is quadruple the current tablet -- are simply “too good to be true.”
"Maybe it uses the new manufacturing technique Apple introduced with the iPhone 4 display, which brings the LCD closer to the surface of the touchscreen glass -- making it look more like pixels on glass rather than pixels under glass," Gruber explains. "But my sources are pretty sure that it's not 2048 x 1536 or any other 'super high resolution.'"
In fact, Gruber now seems to be leaning toward the iPad 2 featuring the exact same 1024x768 pixel resolution display, although he doesn’t rule out other improvements including a brighter screen that consumes less power.
Over the last few days, purported evidence of a high-resolution iPad 2 has run rampant, mostly due to image files found in Apple’s own iBooks application which seem to indicate a resolution bump. Gruber dismisses the idea, claiming they are simply the work of a user interface designer who is “thinking ahead” for the day when the iPad does get a higher resolution.
"From what I've gathered about the iPad 2, it's more analogous to the iPhone 3GS than the 3G," Gruber explains. "Spec-wise, the iPhone 3G differed from the original iPhone in one significant way: the 3G networking support. The iPad 2 is more like the 3GS: faster support, more RAM, better graphics performance -- but, like the 3GS, still the same display resolution as the original model."
Regardless of the display, the iPad 2 is “expected to have improved graphics in the form of a dual-core SHX543 [GPU] included on a new, custom processor from Apple,” notes AppleInsider -- which the website claims is certainly capable of powering a higher-resolution display.
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