A verified source has confirmed the rumors that Apple is crafting near-Retina ten inch displays – where the resolution is so high that the human eye cannot see the pixels. These new ultra-high-resolution next generation iPads could be ready to ship as soon as January.
DisplaySearch analyst Richard Shim told CNET, “It's happening--QXGA, 2048x1536. Panel production has started [for the next-generation iPad].”
The holiest of holies, the iPad 3, is coming! And the 2048x1536 resolution is double the iPad 2’s High-Definition 1024x768 screen, and would leapfrog Apple over and beyond the current influx of tablet competitors, like the relatively cheap Kindle Fire (at two hundred dollars) and the Nook Tablet (at two hundred fifty dollars), which are smaller in screen size but provide for comparable viewing.
Apple has leaned on Sharp, LGD, and Samsung for components to create such a 10-inch-class QXGA screen that will absolutely make the next gen iPad stand alone as an eye coveting wonder.
Producing these babies en masse, however, will be rather difficult. With the incredibly high resolution for such a compact device, the pixels have to be very small and have to be packed tightly into the display.
Doing this, even for Apple, is quite a costly endeavor, because for each perfect iPad created to specifications there could be another that is defective and therefore, scrapped as a “fab”.
Manufacturing millions of units to the highest of industry standards requires that myriad displays are fabbed on as much as a single poly-silicon wafer that has gone wrong. If the screen appears to have anything from one dead pixel to uneven luminescence, it will be considered defective.
This is an unusually low yield on an electronics device, but Apple prides itself on paying the heavy costs in order to revolutionize their markets.
A similar scenario played out when Apple introduced the iPad 1. iSuppli director Rhoda Alexander has said, “When . . . the iPad 1 . . . was first released, the yield issues were down around 50 percent. For every 100 panels made, 50 didn’t make spec . . . [Apple] can still produce acceptable products . . . they will improve their yields and at a faster pace than you would expect them to. Panel prices go down over time, and Apple will realize efficiencies over an entire product cycle.”
And if the iPad 3 sets the bar again successfully, Apple might begin work on a cheaper compact seven-inch tablet to thwart the incoming Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet’s plans of touchscreen domination! Look for new iPads starting in the first quarter of 2012.
