iPad Pro

So there's now iPad Air. Apple said it's a product that they have been wanting to do for a long time – a big tablet screen with the power of a laptop and weight + bezel of an iPad Mini. The device is just the screen – more than ever before.

But there's another omen in the name – Will there be an iPad Pro?


Of course, for Apple, the reason the make a significantly larger screen than the 9.7" iPad Air, is definitely not just because we can. A larger screen would not be mobile in the sense the current iPads are. It would be luggable, like the larger 15" and 17" Macbook Pro laptops are. Not convenient, but possible when the nature of work demands it. So definitely more work oriented device for professionals, just like the Macbook Pros are.

Who would use such a device and why? While the PC isn't going away anyway soon, Apple in full steam with Post-PC and any device that helps significantly to accelerate that trend, is an area of interest. Among all the Macbook Pro users, there are lot of creatives and art-oriented people who currently use Wacom pen surfaces, Wacom pens with auxillary screens and other assistive tools for design work and for digital art. When working on desktop, they might use external 24" or even 30" screen. That's a lot of expensive devices that are much less luggable than a large iPad with, maybe, a wirelessly connected pen.

Other potential groups of people are music makers, recording studios, DJs, VJs, planners and architects, movie makers, animation creators, modellers and so on. The available apps and the performance capabilities of the device are the only limiting factors and those are just a matter of time.

So how big would the Pro be then? The most likely thing to happen, is to do the non-retina to retina transition all over again. So double the amount of pixels and the size of the screen, for both iPad Mini and iPad Air. This would result in screen sizes of 15.8" and 19.4" diagonal (4096px by 3072px). These kind of screens would be used more like desktop computers, albeit not on flat table or in fully upright position. It would be placed mostly in landscape orientation in a slight angle – on top of a wedge or tilt stand – the way illustrators and architects work nowadays.

Authentic depth

With iOS7 Apple is stepping up efforts in their design approach  "...way much more than how it looks, it's the whole thing, the way how it works...". One of the key changes compared to the older versions of iOS, is the conceptual layering of various user interface elements. Visually this is achieved with parallax effect, blurred translucency, animations and other effects.

With mobile user interface moving away from rococo -like extravagant decoration to more clean, "almost flat" designs, the animations and transitions of the UI have become more important. Increasingly inspiration is being drawn from the history of movies and animations to give a sense of depth to the interface – that some objects are above and some objects are below. But unlike the decorated, more static screens of the past, the almost flat interfaces behave more realistically, as if they are placed in a real three dimensional system, even if that world has some pancake-like tendencies.

iOS7 is embracing this kind of depth and dimensionality, particularly with translucent white (and black) layers that blur the layers "below" them. However, from realism perspective, there's one gotcha with this approach – in real life only one of the "layers" can be in sharp focus at the same time. There are many places in iOS7 where this "authentic depth" is disregarded, one of the most obvious examples being the "Control Center" layer. When that layer is swept in from the bottom, it does blur the home screen behind it, except for the top part, where the home screen stays sharply in focus, albeit slightly dimmed.

Effects and animations that elicit the impression of depth, but which at the same time lack the authentic experience of dimensionality, can end up in detracting from the whole experience. Effects like blurring and transparency may reduce to being mere decorations, as in the interfaces of the past, rather than "...the way how it works.".

There are ways to design with depth so that it respects the authentic dimensional behavior. The Yahoo Weather app's animation and layering, e.g when content moves upwards, is one good example. For the iOS control center, the UI mockup video shown on the left gives some ideas how to approach the solution.

iPad Mini would be just like using an iPhone

There's been recently lot of rumors about the possibility of "iPad Mini", i.e. an iPad with smaller than 9.7 inch screen that the normal iPad has. Apple has for quite some time resisted the need for different screen sizes on the iPhone – it has stuck with the original 3.5 inch screen, while others have gone wild with larger screens. And to its credit, iPhone is definitely more pocketable than the larger mobiles.

 The 9.7 inch iPad definitely is awesome for the immersive experience it is able to provide with so much screen estate, especially now that it has retina resolution (264dpi, viewed from 40cm distance). However, the e-reader market has been able to make a strong case (at least for some particular uses) for smaller-than-10-inch screens, with sizes closer to pocket book.

But that would require UI redesign?

One of the biggest practical reasons against doing another screen size for iPad is that it could very likely lead to UI redesign, as the physical size of the touch areas would be different. Both for Apple's apps and 3rd parties. However, Apple has been pretty genius with its math around screen sizes and pixels and resolutions. Essentially iPad Mini could use the same pixel size (1024x768) and UI as original iPad and still reduce the screen size to 7.85 inches (163dpi), while still being as easy to use as an original iPhone (also 163dpi).

How is that possible? Well that starts with the Apple Human Interface Guidelines, which state any interactive area must be at least 44px by 44px in size. Additionally, you can sometimes tweak this a bit by providing much wider interactive area, while reducing the height slightly.

 

Every iPhone and iPad follow this same rule (retina displays just double the pixels). So on iPhone the smallest button has physical size of 6.86 millimeters, while on the iPad the smallest button is 8.47 millimeters. As you can see, the iPad buttons are physically significantly bigger. But due to longer viewing distance (40cm versus 28cm on iPhone), they don't appear to be so large as they physically are, when compared to iPhone.

So a smaller iPad Mini (at 163dpi) could use the smallest physical button size of 6.86 millimeters, while still following the Apple HIG, and more importantly, being able to use the iPad UI and apps just as-is.

Ok, so how would that feel like then?

Well, it's pretty hard to get a feel of a new device, without having a real prototype. But you can try looking and trying the full size version of the picture below inside normal iPad. It is scaled to be physically correct size, when viewed on full screen in iPad.

As a comparison, here's the screen of the original iPhone with the same button measurements.

Once you go retina, you won't go back

After putting so much effort in showcasing how amazing the retina displays are, would Apple really launch iPad mini with a non-retina screen? While the R&D is ongoing, it's fine to use prototypes with 163dpi. When it comes to commercial releases, however, Apple is in no big hurry or pressure to et iPad Mini out of the door prematurely. So, maybe when it is possible to do 330dpi retina displays at 7.85 inches, the iPad Mini might become reality. As of March 2012 such displays are not available on the mass market. That kind of 7.85 inch retina display would have the same resolution as iPhone 4S and same amount of pixels as the new iPad, i.e. 2048x1536 at 330dpi.

The crazy math

Should Apple ever do iPad Mini with the above measurements, the logical next step would be to do larger iPhone as well, with the iPad size physical screen buttons. This would translate to roughly 4,32 inch screen, but unfortunately the resolution would be "only" around 267dpi, which is below the retina threshold. Additionally, for a phone, the pocket-ability would suffer as well. So no magical solutions there.

iPhone, iPad resolutions

Now that iPhone 4 is on the block as well, let's see how things fit in the screen ratio and resolution ecosystem of Apple. This is a continuation of the previous post I wrote on iFrame.

- iPhone (1st gen, 3G and 3GS): 480x320 ("a half" of iFrame, in width), approx 3.5 inches screen, 160 dpi
- iPhone 4: 960x640 (same as iFrame, in width), 3.5 inches screen, 326 dpi
- iFrame 960x540
- iPad (1st gen): 1024x768, 9.7 inches screen, 132 dpi.
- iMac (21.5 inch) 1920x1080 ("twice" iFrame, both in width and height), 100 dpi
- iMac (27 inch) 2560x1440 ("2.6 times" iFrame, both in width and height), 100+ dpi

iPhone 4 "doubles" the amount of pixels in both directions, resulting in total 4 times more pixels.
In a potential future "retina" iPad this kind of "doubling" would mean 2048x1536, i.e. about 260+ dpi. This is however well under "retina" requirement of 300+ dpi.

The minimum width would have to be around 2.3 times the original iPad width: 2330px. As this is well beyond Full HD resolution (1920x1080), the nearest "match" in the widths is the 27 inch iMac.

So, is Apple really going to the insanely high land also with iPad (2.5 times the original iPad resolution)?
- Retina iPad: 2560x1920, 9.7 inches screen, 330dpi?

At the very least it would be an unlikely bridge between the mobile and desktop pixels. It will be interesting how far Apple really wants to push the total amount of pixels in the "luggable screen size" of an iPad.


Update: Later blogosphere discussion correctly pointed out that "retina" effect is not simply a matter of "300 dpi". It's highly dependent also on the viewing distance. And between iPhone, iPad, laptops and desktop computers, the viewing distance varies greatly.

So what could the next retina displays be like? Tim Ricchuiti has made pretty well-informed guess (quoted below):