After yet another round of iPhone 4" screen rumors that I simply refuse to believe, I've decided to throw my thoughts into the wild-ass speculation machine. I am not going to predict whether or not the new iPhone will be taller than the old one, that could be the case, but it's not really relevant to my argument. The claim I take issue with is the idea that the new iPhone screen will have a new aspect ratio.
The reason I don't buy the "It'll just be taller" argument is because it wouldn't really help with the biggest problem people face using tiny screens—making small text easier to read. Text in a website, PDF, or any other document that has content at a set width will appear no larger on a +height screen than on the current one. Kind-of defeats the purpose of giving people a larger screen. Not only that, but photos (4:3) would not display as well on a +height screen either. They would need to be letterboxed, or cropped even further. Pretty much the only thing that would benefit from a +height screen would be widescreen video in landscape mode. I can't believe Apple would be stupid enough to go that route. Hell, they had their chance to do that with the iPad (a much better video consumption device), but decided the squarer 4:3 aspect ratio made more sense overall.
I find it much more likely that Apple will just keep the phone the same width (as claimed in all the rumors), get rid of the dead space on both sides of the screen, and keep the aspect ratio 3:2. A 4" 3:2 screen would roughly measure 2.22" wide by 3.33" tall. (The current iPhone screen is 1.94" wide by 2.91" tall.) According to Apple's tech specs the iPhone 4S is 2.31" wide. This means they could keep the iPhone the exact same width as the iPhone 4S if they figured out a way to run the screen extremely close to the edge. I've illustrated this below…
The resulting screen would be approximately 0.4" taller than the one on the 4S (+1 for the rumor), and the phone would be the same width it is now (another +1 for the rumor). Not to mention it would make developers extremely happy by not requiring them to support a new screen resolution. Why would Apple unnecessarily complicate things? Makes no sense to me…
Thanks to Marshall Bock for the great iPhone template.
I read your blog and found the effective .......
ReplyDeleteiPhone Screen
With what benefit? If you increase the screen size, but keep the same resolution, then that means your pixel density is decreasing and the crispness and clarity of the screen is going to drop some.
ReplyDeleteYou also lose that "safe area" on the sides where your fingers can safely touch while you're holding it without causing accidental gestures.Seems like you'd also have to move the volume buttons and mute switch as you'd no longer have room for those components in the side.
Seems to me Apple might be more interested in using any extra space they can find inside for more battery, not a slightly larger display. Not to mention having no border on the screen looks a little unappealing aesthetically.
Even if they stretched it to the full 4" the resulting PPI would still be ~288. That's over 20 PPI denser than the new Retina iPad. That is still extremely high res. They could keep the PPI right at 300 if they went with a 3.85" screen, and that would give them a little more wiggle room on the sides too.
DeleteAs far as the battery capacity goes, we learned from the new iPad that Apple has found out a way to cram more mAh into their batteries. The new iPad's battery isn't all that much bigger than the one in the iPad 2, but it holds so much more. (11,500 mAh vs 6,944 mAh). If they use the same size battery they have now, or slightly smaller, they should still be able to give us better battery life.
If you calculate the volume of the old ipad battery vs the new one it's larger proportional to its capacity. There's no magic battery technology here.
DeleteLooks like you are right. I was going off the earlier (incorrect) information I had heard. Here's the relevant quote from ars… http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2012/03/ipad-3-teardown-my-god-its-full-of-lithium-ions.ars
Delete"The revised three-cell design appears to be slightly larger than the battery in the iPad 2—each measures about 125 x 65 x 4 mm, according to iFixit CEO Kyle Wiens. The cells in the iPad 2 measure 108 x 63 x 2.7mm, so the iPad 3 battery is actually about 70 percent larger. Earlier speculation suggested that Apple had somehow significantly improved on the power density of the cells, but our calculations show otherwise. Apple was just able to more efficiently pack in the components—and increase the overall device thickness ever so slightly—to make the battery larger."
Thanks for the correction!
The iPad's retina display has a pixel density made for holding it at a greater distance - at a closer distance, it would not qualify. This is because "retina" is a visual angle that is realized as a pixel density at a particular distance.
DeleteAlso, any mockup of a display going right to the edge forgets that the metal frame is a good deal thicker than what you see sticking out past the front glass.
I think Apple could make the display go much closer to the edge if the back were metal and they figured out how to make that work as multiple antennas. However, I bet Apple would take the opportunity to make the device narrower rather than make the screen any larger.
People continue telling Apple why they should make bigger screens. Apple's sales continue to tell people how they're wrong.
ReplyDeleteOh, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying a larger screen is a must. I'm just saying if they do it there are an awful lot of downsides to changing the aspect ratio. They could make the screen smaller and I'd still choose an iPhone over anything else.
DeleteThis will never happen for one simple reason: economy of scale.
ReplyDeleteEconomy of scale with LCD panels means keeping the core fundamentals of the panel the same, and simply cutting them at different sizes. If Apple did this, all the LCD manufacturing processes being used on the iPhone 4 and 4S would be useless, because this proposes a different pixel density.
If apple simply makes the screen taller, all that economy of scale they have already invested in still applies. If they stretch both dimensions with the same resolution, it's a whole different ball game.
Logical, but I don't think that would hold Apple back. They sell so many iPhones there would be no reason they shouldn't spend a little extra upfront to retool. After all, they would likely use the same size/ppi screen for years going forward.
DeleteAlso, look at this list of displays on Wikipedia. That's a lot of different densities. Apparently it's not THAT hard to change things up. ;)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_displays_by_pixel_density
I'm talking about economy of scale within Apple's existing supply chain, a list of every display density ever doesn't at all address the point that I'm trying to make (which I'm actually just parroting, John Gruber has talked at length about this as well).
ReplyDeleteA few years ago Apple invested about $5 billion into the supply chain on the manufacturing processes for these high pixel density displays. In other words they wrote a check specifically to churn out retina LCD panels. Right now there are only two retina display densities, 326ppi on iPhones and 264ppi on iPad.
You're proposing they add a 3rd density without adding a 3rd class of devices. This would greatly increase the cost of these panels for Apple compared to the ones they're already getting because again, it would defy their current economies of scale.
This in and of itself doesn't completely rule it out, Apple could certainly make it happen, but when you combine this fact with the other commenters points, I think it's pretty safe to completely rule this out. Apple would never initiate a massive supply chain shift on a key component which offers absolutely no user benefit. You're proposing a bigger but also uglier screen than they're currently using. Not gonna happen.
I'm aware of Gruber's semi-endorsement of the screen staying the same PPI. Hell, my day would be even better if I could get a "Methinks “Zach” is simply talking out his ass." post on daringfireball. ;)
DeleteI'm far from knowledgable about the processes that go into making a screen. What I do know is that it seems like every new iPhone has used some modified screen-making process that makes the screen brighter, more color accurate, or containing at a wider viewing angle. There have already been rumors that the next iPhone's screen will have the touch sensors baked right into the display panel. To me, that sounds like it would require a significantly altered process to create.
If we want to talk about getting the best bang for Apple's buck ...it would be keeping the screen the exact same size as the one on the 4/4S. My whole argument above is dependent on the premise that Apple is indeed going to make a larger screen. That's something well worth debating in itself. The only statement I'm attacking is the one that says it's gonna shift to a different aspect ratio to achieve the size bump.
Thanks for the comments!
Great post, though imho, i think as another commenter does that this hypothetical iPhone looks unbalanced and rather ugly. We'll see soon.
ReplyDeleteAlso, for your international readers, please, metric units! Thanks.
The new aspect ratio makes sense because it would allow for a taller content area by simply moving navigation and other ui elements slightly further apart. This would work because apple already changes the aspect ratio of the screen when you are tethering to display the number of connections so most apps are already capable of adjusting in this way.
ReplyDeleteAnd if you think about it, its another easy way to get everyone to buy the same phone AGAIN! Its hard to really guess what they will do but it is certain that they will do something but since they have the ipad in the big screen market they will probably keep the iphone the same size FOREVER!
ReplyDelete