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Comment by wvenable | Hacker News Reader

How many school projects have HDMI inputs?

(Edit: Didn't realize the original did VGA -- I don't see how HDMI is such a big deal for presentations then)

I assume the iPad 2 hasn't lost the original's capability of outputting VGA.

Edit: the reason it's a big deal is that the original iPad had to have the app specifically coded to deal with the external screen/projector (and few are). The new version just lets you mirror the content, whatever app you're in. It'd be nice if the new iOS retroactively made this possible on the original (at least at same resolution?) but I kind of doubt it. We'll see next week.

It hasn't. But the key here is support for mirroring, which wasn't built-in even when using the VGA Adapter.

It looks like HDMI output is available to all current gen iOS products, as well as iPad 2:

http://macdailynews.com/2011/03/02/apples-hdmi-cable-works-w...

That's pretty curious. Why would they keep that capability quiet for so long?

http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC953ZM/A#overview

The iPad2 is the only device which supports video mirroring.

For all other devices, restricted video out remains, even with the Digital AV Adapter. It will only send video when the application supports it.

Yeah, I read that bit. I guess I wasn't clear: it means the iPad, iPhone4 and iPod Touch 4g have had the ability to output HDMI all along. It's pretty weird they'd keep that quiet IMO.

All our projectors at work have DVI input so a simple HDMI to DVI adapter would make it work.

But more and more lately I see big LCD TVs on meeting room walls instead of projectors. Those almost always have HDMI inputs.

Yup sorry, from the iPad 2 site: "Just plug in the Apple Digital AV Adapter or Apple VGA Adapter (sold separately) and your HDTV or projector becomes a bigger version of your iPad."

I didn't see anything non-HDMI mentioned in the liveblog so I wasn't sure if Apple made it work retroactively. Glad that they did!

The mirroring doesn't work. Having forced my iPad to do it via jailbreaking, it's clear the A4 chip isn't fast enough to do it for apps with any video or animation at all.

Choose the more likely answer:

a) Apple is shipping, and loudly promoting, a feature that "doesn't work" because of a fundamental, immutable hardware deficiency.

b) The software implementation of an unsupported hack, used by an infinitesimal number of users, written by someone who is unpaid and not intimately familiar with the hardware stack and firmware, is inefficient.

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