Apple kills it with new iPad lineup - Page 5

Sharky Forums


Page 5 of 8 FirstFirst ... 34567 ... LastLast
Results 61 to 75 of 118

Thread: Apple kills it with new iPad lineup

  1. #61
    I don't roll on Shabbos! Timman_24's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2004
    Location
    Urbana, IL
    Posts
    12,648
    There is a much simpler fix. Report the full res to the webserver. I've noticed this on the iPhone actually. Go to google images and look through them, most look horrible.
    PC: Corsair 550D
    4280k | Asus Rampage Gene | Mushkin 4x4GB | EVGA 780
    Intel 120GB SSD + 2TB Seagate | Seasonic 660 Plat
    2x Alphacool XT45 | Laing DDC | Bitspower

    Currently playing: Civ 5
    Last Game Beaten: Walking Dead

  2. #62
    LOLWUT ImaNihilist's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2001
    Location
    San Francisco
    Posts
    14,034
    Quote Originally Posted by Timman_24 View Post
    There is a much simpler fix. Report the full res to the webserver. I've noticed this on the iPhone actually. Go to google images and look through them, most look horrible.
    The problem is that if you report the full resolution then everything looks too small for most people—thus a bad experience for most.

    If you try the Opera browser you'll notice that all the UI elements are rendered in "real" pixels, and not 2x. Unfortunately, web pages themselves are also doubled in Opera.

  3. #63
    LOLWUT ImaNihilist's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2001
    Location
    San Francisco
    Posts
    14,034
    The more I use it, the more I realize how truly weird this makes everything. Even simple things like avatars and icons. A 100x100 avatar is no longer 100x100px. The most immediate problem is that, for sites/platforms where you must use JPG/GIF/PNG and you can't do something like set the dimensions to 50%, you are pretty much SOL for making something look good on the iPad. Have a Facebook Page? Yeah, it's going to look like crap and there is NOTHING you can do. Tumblr? WordPress? NOPE.

    What do you about sprites? Most websites use a CSS sprite map for UI elements. Do we move to individual SVG files and increase bandwidth costs? Do we create 2x sprite maps and then use JavaScript to determine when to show them, then distort their dimensions?

    And then there are ads. Does the 300x250 medium rectangle become 600x500? Are we going to re-render the old ads or create new ads with tiny copy that's readable at 600x500 constrained to 50%? Do we use anti-aliasing, or just assume that pixel compression takes care of that for us?

    Going to be really interesting to see what happens this summer with the new MacBooks. I mean, are they going to try to cram a 2560x1440 display into a 13" MBP? Or go with something like 1920x1080 and then rescale for 960x540? Or introduce some new non 2x ratio? 1.5?

    I'm designing a new website right now and this whole thing is making my head spin. Logos area easy enough, re-draw in SVG, but all the little details…WHAT DO?
    Last edited by ImaNihilist; 03-21-2012 at 05:25 PM.

  4. #64
    LOLWUT ImaNihilist's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2001
    Location
    San Francisco
    Posts
    14,034
    So, they updated Modern Combat 3 to support the new iPad and…wow. I've never been a fan of Gameloft because they mostly just rip IP, but the graphics this thing is capable of are something else. The texture resolution is off the hook.

    Check it out: http://imgur.com/a/CaxHt#w2Rra

    The quality doesn't quite translate on a normal monitor. At 9.7" though, it's something to be seen. Smooth as can be. If I tried to do this on my MacBook Pro (320M) at that resolution the machine would choke. Source could EASILY be ported to the iPad, which would be awesome. I had the suspicion this may happen back when Valve ported Source to OS X.

    This is the new gaming platform. Resolution isn't going to change, but if they refresh this thing every year adding new layers of OpenGL support it's just going to get better and better. Someone needs to make a Bluetooth controller that works with iOS games immediately.
    Last edited by ImaNihilist; 03-21-2012 at 09:15 PM.

  5. #65
    I don't roll on Shabbos! Timman_24's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2004
    Location
    Urbana, IL
    Posts
    12,648
    Quote Originally Posted by ImaNihilist View Post
    The problem is that if you report the full resolution then everything looks too small for most people—thus a bad experience for most.

    If you try the Opera browser you'll notice that all the UI elements are rendered in "real" pixels, and not 2x. Unfortunately, web pages themselves are also doubled in Opera.
    I see what you mean. Too bad they can't do something about it internally. Make two calls to the servers at two different reses, one for images and the other for everything else. Then scale the images to fit the other.

    IMO we will probably need new webcode. Web 3.0. It should be very scalable, perhaps vector based like .eps.
    Last edited by Timman_24; 03-22-2012 at 12:55 PM.
    PC: Corsair 550D
    4280k | Asus Rampage Gene | Mushkin 4x4GB | EVGA 780
    Intel 120GB SSD + 2TB Seagate | Seasonic 660 Plat
    2x Alphacool XT45 | Laing DDC | Bitspower

    Currently playing: Civ 5
    Last Game Beaten: Walking Dead

  6. #66
    I don't roll on Shabbos! Timman_24's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2004
    Location
    Urbana, IL
    Posts
    12,648
    Quote Originally Posted by ImaNihilist View Post
    So, they updated Modern Combat 3 to support the new iPad and…wow. I've never been a fan of Gameloft because they mostly just rip IP, but the graphics this thing is capable of are something else. The texture resolution is off the hook.

    Check it out: http://imgur.com/a/CaxHt#w2Rra

    The quality doesn't quite translate on a normal monitor. At 9.7" though, it's something to be seen. Smooth as can be. If I tried to do this on my MacBook Pro (320M) at that resolution the machine would choke. Source could EASILY be ported to the iPad, which would be awesome. I had the suspicion this may happen back when Valve ported Source to OS X.

    This is the new gaming platform. Resolution isn't going to change, but if they refresh this thing every year adding new layers of OpenGL support it's just going to get better and better. Someone needs to make a Bluetooth controller that works with iOS games immediately.
    Looks like COD1, which is quite a feat on a tablet and would stand up well. Jeff Gerstmann said on the latest Bombcast that the iPad3 games look better than PS Vita games. He said the controls are rubbish and he'd rather play a Vita though.
    PC: Corsair 550D
    4280k | Asus Rampage Gene | Mushkin 4x4GB | EVGA 780
    Intel 120GB SSD + 2TB Seagate | Seasonic 660 Plat
    2x Alphacool XT45 | Laing DDC | Bitspower

    Currently playing: Civ 5
    Last Game Beaten: Walking Dead

  7. #67
    LOLWUT ImaNihilist's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2001
    Location
    San Francisco
    Posts
    14,034
    Quote Originally Posted by Timman_24 View Post
    Looks like COD1, which is quite a feat on a tablet and would stand up well. Jeff Gerstmann said on the latest Bombcast that the iPad3 games look better than PS Vita games. He said the controls are rubbish and he'd rather play a Vita though.
    It's way better than COD1. When you see what pixel compression does to the quality of the graphics, it's intense.

    The controls are hit and miss. FPS games aren't that great, control wise. What someone needs to do is create a BT module for an Xbox controller and open the API so developers can map to it.

  8. #68
    LOLWUT ImaNihilist's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2001
    Location
    San Francisco
    Posts
    14,034
    Quote Originally Posted by Timman_24 View Post
    I see what you mean. Too bad they can't do something about it internally. Make two calls to the servers at two different reses, one for images and the other for everything else. Then scale the images to fit the other.

    IMO we will probably need new webcode. Web 3.0. It should be very scalable, perhaps vector based like .eps.
    Yeah, that's what people are saying—move to SVG. Makes sense. It breaks compatibility for older browsers though. That's a big issue. We never quite moved from JPG/GIF to PNG because different browsers handled PNG transparency differently. A JPG has always been a JPG—until now.

    Still, I feel like there should be a slider or an option. Perhaps 768 should be the default, but If I want to "zoom out" and see the whole 1536 pixel map I should be able to. There are a lot of cases where I want to.

  9. #69
    I don't roll on Shabbos! Timman_24's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2004
    Location
    Urbana, IL
    Posts
    12,648
    Quote Originally Posted by ImaNihilist View Post
    Yeah, that's what people are saying—move to SVG. Makes sense. It breaks compatibility for older browsers though. That's a big issue. We never quite moved from JPG/GIF to PNG because different browsers handled PNG transparency differently. A JPG has always been a JPG—until now.

    Still, I feel like there should be a slider or an option. Perhaps 768 should be the default, but If I want to "zoom out" and see the whole 1536 pixel map I should be able to. There are a lot of cases where I want to.
    I don't know how it will handle RAW images or photos that people upload. Can you even convert a jpg to a vector format? I know bitmap images can be, but what about complex images such as photography? I use vector graphics for reports in latex because of how the PDF converter works, it just looks better. I don't know how they would work if used for general tasks. They are good for logos and such, but photography?
    PC: Corsair 550D
    4280k | Asus Rampage Gene | Mushkin 4x4GB | EVGA 780
    Intel 120GB SSD + 2TB Seagate | Seasonic 660 Plat
    2x Alphacool XT45 | Laing DDC | Bitspower

    Currently playing: Civ 5
    Last Game Beaten: Walking Dead

  10. #70
    LOLWUT ImaNihilist's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2001
    Location
    San Francisco
    Posts
    14,034
    Quote Originally Posted by Timman_24 View Post
    I don't know how it will handle RAW images or photos that people upload. Can you even convert a jpg to a vector format? I know bitmap images can be, but what about complex images such as photography? I use vector graphics for reports in latex because of how the PDF converter works, it just looks better. I don't know how they would work if used for general tasks. They are good for logos and such, but photography?
    There is no vector or dynamic format for bitmaps, as far as I know. Bitmaps will always have to be 2X, then restrained by 50%. You could link a bitmap within an SVG (and then you wouldn't have to restrain with CSS), but it would just add more overhead because the XML for the SVG is going to be more than the CSS. Either way you have to serve the original bitmap at 2X.

    Inline email is the worst offender IMO. I have yet to see an email show up on my iPad where someone designed it so that the iPad would request a 2X image and then scale it to 50%. Why would they? It's crazy. It's wasted on non-iPad devices, there is no way to segment, and it just makes everything take longer to load. Most mail clients don't support SVG AFAIK. I don't even know if the Mail app supports SVG.

    I'm glad I got this thing, but because I work content side the iPad just made my life a whole lot more difficult. It's a whole new consideration, and given that older people with money are now using the iPad as their primary computing device (especially for purchasing), it's a pretty serious consideration. I'll go ahead and just say this now: If you are doing B2C e-commerce you better find 2X resolution images of EVERYTHING and redesign your mobile site so that all the UI elements are smaller. What you really need is 3X images, because you can make product images bigger and UI elements smaller, since the text will still be very legible. If you had a 200x200 product image before, you should 600x600 and restrain it to 50% while shrinking down other UI elements (other than the buy button) by like 10-25%.

    What a freaking nightmare. I should have been more aware of this months ago, but TBH I didn't really think Apple was going to be able to pull off a 2048x1536 display. I didn't think it was even possible to get decent yields on densities like that in a 9.7" panel, and I really didn't think we have the mobile graphics technology to drive a display like this. Even modern mobile graphics cards can choke at this resolution. If I drive a 2560x1440 display with my MacBook Pro it doesn't take much to pin my fan at max RPM.
    Last edited by ImaNihilist; 03-22-2012 at 04:17 PM.

  11. #71
    I don't roll on Shabbos! Timman_24's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2004
    Location
    Urbana, IL
    Posts
    12,648
    Quote Originally Posted by ImaNihilist View Post
    There is no vector or dynamic format for bitmaps, as far as I know. Bitmaps will always have to be 2X, then restrained by 50%. You could link a bitmap within an SVG (and then you wouldn't have to restrain with CSS), but it would just add more overhead because the XML for the SVG is going to be more than the CSS. Either way you have to serve the original bitmap at 2X.

    Inline email is the worst offender IMO. I have yet to see an email show up on my iPad where someone designed it so that the iPad would request a 2X image and then scale it to 50%. Why would they? It's crazy. It's wasted on non-iPad devices, there is no way to segment, and it just makes everything take longer to load. Most mail clients don't support SVG AFAIK. I don't even know if the Mail app supports SVG.

    I'm glad I got this thing, but because I work content side the iPad just made my life a whole lot more difficult. It's a whole new consideration, and given that older people with money are now using the iPad as their primary computing device (especially for purchasing), it's a pretty serious consideration. I'll go ahead and just say this now: If you are doing B2C e-commerce you better find 2X resolution images of EVERYTHING and redesign your mobile site so that all the UI elements are smaller. What you really need is 3X images, because you can make product images bigger and UI elements smaller, since the text will still be very legible. If you had a 200x200 product image before, you should 600x600 and restrain it to 50% while shrinking down other UI elements (other than the buy button) by like 10-25%.

    What a freaking nightmare. I should have been more aware of this months ago, but TBH I didn't really think Apple was going to be able to pull off a 2048x1536 display. I didn't think it was even possible to get decent yields on densities like that in a 9.7" panel, and I really didn't think we have the mobile graphics technology to drive a display like this. Even modern mobile graphics cards can choke at this resolution. If I drive a 2560x1440 display with my MacBook Pro it doesn't take much to pin my fan at max RPM.
    Do they really look that bad though? I thought the point of going quad res was so images could scale 1px->4px for compatibility reasons.
    PC: Corsair 550D
    4280k | Asus Rampage Gene | Mushkin 4x4GB | EVGA 780
    Intel 120GB SSD + 2TB Seagate | Seasonic 660 Plat
    2x Alphacool XT45 | Laing DDC | Bitspower

    Currently playing: Civ 5
    Last Game Beaten: Walking Dead

  12. #72
    LOLWUT ImaNihilist's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2001
    Location
    San Francisco
    Posts
    14,034
    Quote Originally Posted by Timman_24 View Post
    Do they really look that bad though? I thought the point of going quad res was so images could scale 1px->4px for compatibility reasons.
    Resolution doubling won't distort a graphic if that image is made of squares. Anything with anti-aliasing becomes incredibly soft and fuzzy. In order for that image to "look good" again it needs to be anti-aliased at the higher resolution, otherwise the image just ends up with anti-aliasing artifacts (I'm guessing there's a term for this, I don't know what it is). Non-photo based images (JPEG, GIF, and PNG) end up looking pretty terrible, with bitmap circles and triangular letters being the worst offenders.

    Photos are okay by themselves, but the second you put them next to high resolution text or buttons they look horrible by comparison. If you pick one up or go to the Apple Store you'll see what I mean. Look at NYTimes.com and then look at the NYTimes app. Most of the photos in the app are pixel doubled, but none of the images on the .com are. The app looks a LOT better. But even in the app you notice these hideous, fuzzy leaderboard ads on the right, with high resolution images, UI elements and crisp text everywhere else.

    It's like playing a game at 1024x768, but all the UI elements and the chat box are being rendered at 2048x1536. Take a screenshot of Minecraft and then wrap the UI from WoW around it at a super high resolution. That's what it's like.

    It's going to force a lot of companies to think about how they architect webpages. The days of quick sprite maps are over. There's going to be a LOT of work out there in the next 2-3 years. I never really learned Photoshop. Good enough, but not great. I learned Freehand and Fireworks instead. That may end up being a bit better now, since a lot of my Fireworks files can be ported to Illustrator fairly easily. Fireworks has always been the ugly stepchild of image editing because it blends both bitmap and vector tools, but it's much easier to port a file from Fireworks to Illustrator because most shapes are vector. The only vector objects in Photoshop are those drawn with the pen tool.
    Last edited by ImaNihilist; 03-22-2012 at 05:36 PM.

  13. #73
    I don't roll on Shabbos! Timman_24's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2004
    Location
    Urbana, IL
    Posts
    12,648
    Quote Originally Posted by ImaNihilist View Post
    Resolution doubling won't distort a graphic if that image is made of squares. Anything with anti-aliasing becomes incredibly soft and fuzzy. In order for that image to "look good" again it needs to be anti-aliased at the higher resolution, otherwise the image just ends up with anti-aliasing artifacts (I'm guessing there's a term for this, I don't know what it is). Non-photo based images (JPEG, GIF, and PNG) end up looking pretty terrible, with bitmap circles and triangular letters being the worst offenders.

    Photos are okay by themselves, but the second you put them next to high resolution text or buttons they look horrible by comparison. If you pick one up or go to the Apple Store you'll see what I mean. Look at NYTimes.com and then look at the NYTimes app. Most of the photos in the app are pixel doubled, but none of the images on the .com are. The app looks a LOT better. But even in the app you notice these hideous, fuzzy leaderboard ads on the right, with high resolution images, UI elements and crisp text everywhere else.

    It's like playing a game at 1024x768, but all the UI elements and the chat box are being rendered at 2048x1536. Take a screenshot of Minecraft and then wrap the UI from WoW around it at a super high resolution. That's what it's like.

    It's going to force a lot of companies to think about how they architect webpages. The days of quick sprite maps are over. There's going to be a LOT of work out there in the next 2-3 years. I never really learned Photoshop. Good enough, but not great. I learned Freehand and Fireworks instead. That may end up being a bit better now, since a lot of my Fireworks files can be ported to Illustrator fairly easily. Fireworks has always been the ugly stepchild of image editing because it blends both bitmap and vector tools, but it's much easier to port a file from Fireworks to Illustrator because most shapes are vector. The only vector objects in Photoshop are those drawn with the pen tool.
    Hmmm seems like a good way to go forward is have the device send the display DPI to the webserver instead of resolution. Then the webserver can serve the appropriate graphics rescaled from an archive of high resolution assets. DPI used to be roughly standard throughout computer displays at around 72-96, but now we see a huge difference.

    The bad part about only querying resolution is that the server knows nothing about the physical size. At the moment the server doesn't know whether it is serving graphics to a 120" projector or a 9.7" iPad 3.

    It will be very interesting to see how this is fixed, if it is. I doubt we will see a large scale adoption of very high DPI computer screens except for Apple in the next few years. Although, LCD makers most likely are looking for the next big thing to sell consumers. LCD margins are so low right now and 3D fell flat.
    PC: Corsair 550D
    4280k | Asus Rampage Gene | Mushkin 4x4GB | EVGA 780
    Intel 120GB SSD + 2TB Seagate | Seasonic 660 Plat
    2x Alphacool XT45 | Laing DDC | Bitspower

    Currently playing: Civ 5
    Last Game Beaten: Walking Dead

  14. #74
    LOLWUT ImaNihilist's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2001
    Location
    San Francisco
    Posts
    14,034
    Quote Originally Posted by Timman_24 View Post
    Hmmm seems like a good way to go forward is have the device send the display DPI to the webserver instead of resolution. Then the webserver can serve the appropriate graphics rescaled from an archive of high resolution assets. DPI used to be roughly standard throughout computer displays at around 72-96, but now we see a huge difference.

    The bad part about only querying resolution is that the server knows nothing about the physical size. At the moment the server doesn't know whether it is serving graphics to a 120" projector or a 9.7" iPad 3.

    It will be very interesting to see how this is fixed, if it is. I doubt we will see a large scale adoption of very high DPI computer screens except for Apple in the next few years. Although, LCD makers most likely are looking for the next big thing to sell consumers. LCD margins are so low right now and 3D fell flat.
    You know what? That is a very good solution, and I don't think it exists. It would need support from both webkit and the web server, but that would work out rather nicely.

  15. #75
    I don't roll on Shabbos! Timman_24's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2004
    Location
    Urbana, IL
    Posts
    12,648
    It is unfortunate that people didn't look ahead. They took MS's standard of 96DPI/PPI and Apple's 72 and designed everything around that without thinking to the future. It will take a decade or more to sort it out smoothly. The only short term solution is for Apple to employ a very smart browser to sort things. They could hamfist it by loading the page twice, once at high res and once at low res. Take the CSS/text from the low res, supersample the high res graphics, and merge the two. They could ignore graphics on the low res pass and CSS/text on the high res pass to save bandwidth. It would be a true feat to see that work quickly in real time.
    PC: Corsair 550D
    4280k | Asus Rampage Gene | Mushkin 4x4GB | EVGA 780
    Intel 120GB SSD + 2TB Seagate | Seasonic 660 Plat
    2x Alphacool XT45 | Laing DDC | Bitspower

    Currently playing: Civ 5
    Last Game Beaten: Walking Dead

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •