Next-gen iPhone pegged with 320ppi display
Czech it out
A trio of intrepid Czech fanbois have arguably proven that the display on the upcoming next-generation iPhone will have a resolution of 960 by 640, and a pixel density of an impressive 320ppi.
How Vláďa Janeček, Tomáš Holčík and Filip Kůžel got their hands on Apple's decreasingly top-secret iPhone, they don't say — and proving their assertions is of course impossible. But they do go into some detail about what they discovered when they trained a zoom-capable microscope on the purported next-gen iPhone's display.
You can read their report, "Vzali jsme displej iPhonu 4G pod mikroskop a víme o něm vše", yourself — or, if your Czech is rusty, you can read Google's always-amusing attempt at a translation.
According to the Czechs, the 320ppi pixel density of the display they examined is unmatched in any other handheld — the HTC HD2 tops out at 217ppi, the Motoroloa Droid at 265ppi, and Google's Nexus One, 252ppi. The current iPhone 3GS is a veritable fogey at 163ppi.
The 960-by-640 display would jibe with what DigiTimes analyst Ming-Chi Kuo reported mid–last month: that the next gen iPhone's resolution would provide exactly four times the pixelage of the iPhone 3GS, which would mean that existing iPhone apps wouldn't need to be rewritten to display correctly on the next-gen iPhone — they'd just fire up four pixels where they used to fire up just one.
Janeček, Holčík, and Kůžel were unfortunately unable to turn the next-gen iPhone on to get a clear image of the display in action — or, as they put it, "Displej pochopitelně nejsme schopni zapnout" — but their microscope was able to ferret out the info that, unlike the Nexus One's letter-fuzzing PenTile AMOLED technology, the next-gen iPhone's display is a TFT LCD that uses in-plane switching (IPS) to improve off-angle viewing, as does Cupertino's recently released "magical and revolutionary" tablet.
In kindness to the Czech's overburdened servers, we've taken the liberty of reproducing their images of the next-gen iPhone's display, along with the displays of the iPhone 3GS, iPod touch (which, to no surprise, is identical to that of the iPhone 3GS), and the Nexus One:
iPhone 3GS (source: superiphone.cz)
iPod touch (source: superiphone.cz)
Google Nexus One (source: superiphone.cz)
Purported next-generation iPhone (source: superiphone.cz)
Purported next-generation iPhone at high magnification (source: superiphone.cz)
You'll notice in that last, highly magnified image that the next-gen iPhone's pixel pattern matches that of the other Apple products, and not that of the PenTile pattern used by the Nexus One's AMOLED.
Bootnote
Regular Reg readers will note that this article refers to the phone that Steve Jobs is 99.9 per cent certain to introduce on June 7 as the "next-generation iPhone" and not the "iPhone 4G", as we did previously. The reason is simple: it dawned on us that 4G as in fourth-generation iPhone was too easily confused with 4G as in fourth-generation wireless-broadband technology, meaning WiMAX and LTE. So until we find out its official name next Monday, "next-gen iPhone" is what it is.
COMMENTS
Microscopes
"when they trained a zoom-capable microscope on the purported next-gen iPhone's display"
Those zoom-capable microscopes are a wonderful invention. I never saw the point of the old variety, with their 1x magnification.
Re: A tricky situation
" I wonder how long it'll take an Android phone manufacturer to catch up"
Cool - more Android fragmentation. Pretty soon developing for this platform, you'll either choose one handset only (and be limited in how much you can sell), or you'll spend more time making allowances for every handset.
New name
If 4G is too confusing, what about G4? It would work for consumers and even cause arousal for the old school fanboys, who I'm sure would love St Job's little in-joke.
Then, after the G5, they can switch to Intel Atoms. There's my little in-joke too, you see?
Nexus one isn't really 252dpi
The Nexus One uses an AMOLED display, with Nouvoyance's famous PenTile RGBG pixel arrangement. That means that even though there are 800x480 pixels, not all pixels can show all colours. Not that it really matters as long as you stick to showing off photos, but if you want to compare resolutions you ought to reduce it by 33%, as explained by Ars Technica:
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2010/03/secrets-of-the-nexus-ones-screen-science-color-and-hacks.ars/2
Personally I wish that they would have gone for the PenTile RGBW array instead, but for some reason they never asked me...
Or maybe...
...they'll simply make the buttons twice as many pixels wide and tall, so they are still the same size?
As for the supposed resolution, it does seem un Apple-like to make such a "our numbers are bigger than your numbers" move, which isn't tradionally their style. However, the fact it gets around the rescaling exisiting apps fact lends it a lot of credence.
