Raymond Soneira a theoretical physicist with a degree from Princeton says Apple's claims that the iPhone 4 display resolution exceeds the human retina, are false and outlandish.
It is reasonably close to being a perfect display, but Steve pushed it a little too far, Soneira said.
During his keynote speech announcing the iPhone 4, Steve Jobs said that the new display had a pixel density of 326 pixels per inch. He claimed that this resolution exceeds the limit of the human retina when held at a foot away.
It turns out theres a magic number right around 300 pixels per inch, that when you hold something around to 10 to 12 inches away from your eyes, is the limit of the human retina to differentiate the pixels.
According to Wired, Soneira said it was inaccurate to measure the resolution of the eye in terms of pixels, because the eye actually has an angular resolution of 50 cycles per degree. Therefore, if we were to compare the resolution limit of the eye with pixels on a screen, we must convert angular resolution to linear resolution. After conversions are made, a more accurate retina display would have a pixel resolution of 477 pixels per inch at 12 inches, Soneira calculated.
The marketing puffery is now in control, Soneira said. Everything thats being said now is just this superamplified imaginary nonsense, and the only way to get peoples attention now is making more outlandish statements.
IT is an amazing phone no one can deny
Steve jobs and all business ppl lie ... no one can deny .. it's called marketing
I liked the display... but the thing i hated was how they concentrated on .. video call which is here since more than 5 years ... and they show it as and apple revolution .. when the way it is (wifi only) is somehow useless ... jobs himself said an ipad without 3g is like a car without wheels ..
to sum it up ... great phone ... but not perfect ... and business ppl lie
For the brain of the coolaid filled brain of the Mapple fanboy mass, such statement is out of sense and not important, they lack logic and common sense.
This probes once again how the coolaid marketing service of Mapple works, making out lies so ppl will believe on them as if it was the only real thing, they have no reason to do this cause their loyal mass of minions will do whatever they want anyways but they love to make up things.....so....
This is a complete non-story. Jobs' claims can't both be "close to being a perfect display" and "outlandish" at the same time.
It is a common rule of thumb that most people can't distinguish dpi above 300 from about a 1 ft viewing distance. This number is used *all the time* in discussions of photograph printing, for instance. It's the same dpi early laser printers used. It's what the best art magazines use.
The fact that the retina itself, under ideal circumstances, can see a bit better than this simply increases the distance at which Jobs' claim is true to about a foot and a half. Because a display moves, the eye moves, vision isn't ideal in every case, the real-world situation is closer to the criterion that Jobs' is using to the one that the DisplayMate founder is.
Someone was really grasping at straws to write the original story in the first place, especially since calling something a "Retina Display" is designed to invoke the idea of clarity and not to be a literal interpretation. Plus, everyone holds a phone at a different distance such that precision with such a number is a meaningless goal.
Thank you. I don't care either. The point is that this screen is much higher resolution, who honestly cares if it isn't technically more pixels than the human eye can discern? As if I'm going to be so shocked by this "news" that it puts buying an iPhone 4 completely out of the question.