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Comment by nlogn | Hacker News Reader

Yeah and considering the iPad gpu already has fillrate issues at 1024x768, quadrupling the number of pixels seems unreasonable.

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Thinking of the GPU - what choices does Apple have if they are considering a GPU upgrade? Not sure how much better SGX540 is in dealing with greater number of pixels and if Series 6 is not that much far in the future to get in on an iPad2.

Tegra2 is technically a better solution but with all the A4 hype it would be tough for Apple to switch to Nvidia.

Given all this, the iPad2 is more likely to be an modest upgrade with cameras and SGX540 at the best. Or a little more wilder guess would be Cortex-A9 based A-5 and SGX540.

I wouldn't be surprised if the iPad got a slight bump to 1280x960 just to fill out the "720p HD" spec though.

That would create big headaches with existing apps though, which is worth it for major improvements in resolution (e.g. the Retina display) but probably not for more minor improvements in resolution.

Also, the scaling would be awkward, because it isn't a multiple.

Breaking or blackboxing every single application in the process?

I don't think so, that's not how Jobs leads Apple. If you didn't see the iPhone's resolution change until the doubling in the iPhone 4, you won't see any different on the iPad.

Jobs has broken every single app several times before, I wouldn't put it past him (not that I think a retina like display is coming to the iPad).

Breaking as in "they don't fucking launch" sure, but breaking as in "those things look like shit now"? Not a chance.

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