For Normals, Jobs' "Retina Display" Claim May Be Fair After All

The Bad Astronomer writes "AT WWDC, Steve Jobs claimed that the iPhone 4's display has about the same resolution as the human eye — held at one foot away, the iPhone 4's pixels are too small to see. After reading an earlier Slashdot post about an expert disputing Jobs' claim, I decided to run the numbers myself. I found that Jobs is correct for people with normal vision, and the expert was using numbers for theoretically perfect vision. So to most people, the iPhone 4 display will look unpixellated."

Comments

So It's catching my droid then?

[Skarecrow77]

i'm holding my droid at 1 foot distance and I can't distinguish any single pixel. I have to get it to about 3-4 inches to do so convincingly.

Granted, anti-aliased fonts help a ton.

Re:So It's catching my droid then?

[ohcrapitssteve]

I consider myself to have pretty good eye-sight, if not 20/20 (no glasses/lenses) and I really can't see a pixel on my iPhone 3G from a measured foot away either. I can from about 3" though. If Apple's going to increase the pixel count by four-fold, I don't think I'll ever see a pixel again...

Anti-Aliasing

[TheKidWho]

One must not forget about Anti aliasing or the fact that each pixel contains 3 RGB sub pixels. This increases the effect PPI significantly.

Re:Anti-Aliasing

[adisakp]

Anti-aliasing makes a high-res picture look even better.. especially for thin lines or fonts (text is lots of thin curved lines). When you have a subpixel width, you might not be able to see the pixels but the eye can tell the difference in brightness between a 2 pixel wide line and one that should be 1.5 pixels wide if it's not anti-aliased. Plus it's necessary if you want screen shots to look good when zoomed up or you want the software to work well at similar resolutions on a device with a larger display (i.e. iPad).

Marketing

[decipher_saint]

To claim any display has the same resolution as the human eye when what they really mean is that it looks "less pixelly" is misleading at best.

Re:Wrong or right

[Fnkmaster]

Well, the Android phones have been having quite an impact in the market recently. The big benefit of "being able to run the software you want rather than what Steve Jobs says you can run" seems to speak to people, since that's the major thing Android has going for it that the iPhone doesn't.

Re:Wrong or right

[NekSnappa]

I think you're taking it too far with this statement.

The big benefit of "being able to run the software you want rather than what Steve Jobs says you can run" seems to speak to people

I'd say it's more of case of letting people know that Android phones do apps too. Joe or Jane Average could care less that the apps aren't "curated" in the "walled garden." They just want to know if the phone does apps, and how easy is it to get them.

Re:Print Resolution

[GigsVT]

As printers, we do CT images at 300dpi or higher, but we don't print at 300dpi.

150lpi AM screening does fine for images, but try rasterizing your fonts at 300dpi and run them through a 150lpi AM screen. It will be visibly poor quality.

Even 300dpi rasterized fonts into a stochastic FM system are going to look fairly poor by print standards.

In reality, we print text at much higher raster resolutions, more like 1200dpi or 2400dpi in the final post-screening plate render at most shops.

If you handle 1-bit TIFFs, you'll see this as well, none of them are going to be 300dpi, because that's just not enough resolution for text.

Re:Wrong or right

[Culture20]

The only reason my friends have cited for eschewing iPhone and going Android when it came out is "It's not AT&T". They think of Android phones as iPhones that work on other networks.

Re:Wrong or right

[LWATCDR]

It is called marketing.
Tell you what. Show me where their is a turbine on an Intel I7 and how it speeds up the CPU when you use Intel's Turbo Boost technology and I will all bent out of shape over Apple's Retina display.
It is market speak and it is everywhere. It usually only bugs you if you don't like the product, the company, or know how stuff really works.
Frankly I just tune it all out and don't let it bother me anymore.

Re:retina display

[Phisbut]

I believe that's exactly what they have. That's why you can "see" the screen.

In that case, that's hardly anything new. Even my keyboard has "retina display" technology, I mean, that's why I can "see" it, right?

Re:Wrong or right

[al3]

Just because phone tech specs aren't a person's field of expertise, doesn't mean they shouldn't be helped to understand why they should care about something. There are plenty of things you don't understand the technical details about, but that doesn't mean someone shouldn't try to put it in terms you understand before expecting you to make an informed decision.

When you hear "over 300ppi" you understand the benefit without having it put into more simple terms. Why not give someone, who might enjoy the product as much (or more) than you, the same chance to understand what they're buying without doing hours of research?

Re:Print Resolution

[mobby_6kl]

>... it's a bold leap forward in display technology that deserves to be highlighted.

No it's not. It's a slight increase in pixel density over existing displays, but it's not in any way bold or a leap. The only way this is even notable is because the iphone got by with a substandard display for so long, so of course compared that, this is a noticeable increase.