iPad iPad Air and iPad Mini with Retina announced

[MikeB1972]

Originally Posted by Faterson

I'm not sure "tablet optimisation" is about pixels, Mike. To me, it's definitely about screen sizes. As you perhaps know, Apple displays tablet apps in the same way on iPad 2 and iPad 3+, although the latter has double (or quadruple) the amount of pixels, and even though iPhone 5+ offers a width of 1136 pixels compared to only 1024 pixels on iPad 2. Despite that, iPad 2 requests a tablet version of an app, and iPhone 5+ requests a phone version of the same app from the App Store.

Trust me, it's all about pixels, Apple made the resolution exactly double (or quadruple) for the retina screen so the tablet apps look the same on both - and the mini has, again, exactly the same resolution as the iPad.

Again with the iPhone the screen resolution exactly doubled for the iPhone 4, then they changed the height causing lots of wailing and gnashing of teeth amongst iPhone developers.

As android phones/tablets have vastly differing resolutions and form factors it gets trickier.

A 10-inch screen with a resolution of 1024x768 has no where near the screen real estate as Googles Nexus 10 (2560x1600) - just drop the resolution on your computer screen - same screen size but suddenly all the icons and menus are much bigger, giving less useable area.

Obviously this becomes much less of a problem when the screen is high resolution and the images can just be scaled.

Originally Posted by Faterson

The boundaries between "phone" and "tablet" apps are a lot more blurred on Android, and I'm convinced this is intentional: because there are relatively few tablet-optimised Android apps compared to iOS.
Also, you can "get away" with upscaling phone apps on small 7- or 8-inch tablets; it's not as conspicuous as it is on 10-inch tablets.

[Faterson]

Originally Posted by MikeB1972

Trust me, it's all about pixels

It's not, as the iPad 2 vs. iPhone 5+ example shows. It's about how you treat your available pixels, how you employ them relative to the available screen size.

This is especially true of font sizes. A screen width of 2560 pixels does not necessarily mean you can fit 2.5 times more text into it compared to a screen width of 1024 pixels -- because the resulting text would be too small to read comfortably on a 10-inch screen. On a 30-inch screen (which happens to be my main working monitor), things would be different again.

So, for distinguishing between tablet apps and phone apps, I'm convinced the main factor is the optimal utilisation of available screen size, rather than a simple pixel count.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by Faterson

It's not, as the iPad 2 vs. iPhone 5+ example shows. It's about how you treat your available pixels, how you employ them relative to the available screen size.

This is especially true of font sizes. A screen width of 2560 pixels does not necessarily mean you can fit 2.5 times more text into it compared to a screen width of 1024 pixels -- because the resulting text would be too small to read comfortably on a 10-inch screen. On a 30-inch screen (which happens to be my main working monitor), things would be different again.

So, for distinguishing between tablet apps and phone apps, I'm convinced the main factor is the optimal utilisation of available screen size, rather than a simple pixel count.

As an owner of an iPad 2 I certainly agree with you. The screen size is the dominate factor. Resolution permits a more subtle improvement in the display and the ability to make fonts so small you can't read them easily. Real estate is the primary consideration is screen arrangement and how much freedom you have to arrange stuff. For PDF reading a 10.9 inch screen is preferable to a 4" screen with the same or even better resolution.

Dale

[afv011]

Originally Posted by MikeB1972

Trust me, it's all about pixels, Apple made the resolution exactly double (or quadruple) for the retina screen so the tablet apps look the same on both - and the mini has, again, exactly the same resolution as the iPad.

Again with the iPhone the screen resolution exactly doubled for the iPhone 4, then they changed the height causing lots of wailing and gnashing of teeth amongst iPhone developers.

As android phones/tablets have vastly differing resolutions and form factors it gets trickier.

A 10-inch screen with a resolution of 1024x768 has no where near the screen real estate as Googles Nexus 10 (2560x1600) - just drop the resolution on your computer screen - same screen size but suddenly all the icons and menus are much bigger, giving less useable area.

Obviously this becomes much less of a problem when the screen is high resolution and the images can just be scaled.

You are wrong. A 1280x800 and a 2560x1600 10" tablet would display the same content on Android. The difference is that the 2560x1600 tablet would have much sharper text and more detailed images, but the content would be identical. That's because both fall into the same bucket for layouts. What needs to be different, though, are the images, because they have different DPIs, so developers have to provide a few sets of images so they look sharp at all resolutions, rather than one set that gets blown up or scaled down.

[mgmueller]

Originally Posted by jocampo

...iPads offer 4G connectivity, while Nexus does not (as far as I know)...

There is a 3G/LTE model of Nexus 7: https://play.google.com/store/device..._32gb_2013_lte
From what I've read, it sells pretty well (at least in Germany).

[MeSue]

Even ignoring the OS differences, I'll always prefer the 4:3 screen ratio of iPads over the 16:9 ratio of the Android tablets.

[Faterson]

Me as well; although the Nexus 7 is 10:16.

[afv011]

Originally Posted by MeSue

Even ignoring the OS differences, I'll always prefer the 4:3 screen ratio of iPads over the 16:9 ratio of the Android tablets.

Most Android tablets are 16:10, as far as I know there are no 16:9 Android tablets, though the 1024x600 come close. There are also 4:3 Android tablets.

[Canuck_in_Japan]

Well I think I'm "out" as a potential Apple customer. I really thought this was going to be the year that I finally got an iPad but I just can't get past the outright greed of Apple when it comes to memory prices. I was willing to accept the walled garden and I was willing to accept the mundane icons which don't display any worthwhile information and I was even willing to accept the "Apple way or no way" but in the end I just can't see myself paying $500 for a mere 16GB in almost 2014.

[Faterson]

Depends on what you need to do with the tablet, Canuck. 16 GB is perfectly enough for certain needs (such as mine, and I'm not known as a "modest user"), given the availability of cloud software. Even if my iPad offered 128 GB of internal storage, I would prefer to use cloud software instead, for most purposes.

[afv011]

Originally Posted by Faterson

Depends on what you need to do with the tablet, Canuck. 16 GB is perfectly enough for certain needs (such as mine, and I'm not known as a "modest user"), given the availability of cloud software. Even if my iPad offered 128 GB of internal storage, I would prefer to use cloud software instead, for most purposes.

But the fact that someone only needs 16GB in no way excuses the greed Canuck was referring to. The $100 memory upgrade had half a reason to be in 2010 when the iPad was the only 10" tablet in town and memory prices were higher, but at the tail end on 2013 it's simply pure greed.

[TallMomof2]

If you don't mind carrying an additional device, the Kingston Wi-Drive provides additional storage for a lot less. I have a 64GB drive that cost well under $100 and is compatible with both Android and IOS. The drive is wireless and you can share content with up to 3 users.

[leebase]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Exactly ...Android or iOS; either one would work for me. Android wins because the devices are cheaper and have more features.

Unless you count "made for tablet apps" as features....which I do.

Still, to each his own.

[leebase]

Originally Posted by afv011

The only app I have that is not tablet optimized is Dropbox. Dropbox should get on with the times and offer a tablet layout. All other apps I have installed have a tablet layout.

And it sucks, right? Even though it scales...it sucks. Evernote on my 10" Android is just as good as on my iPad. Why? Because it's not a phone app that scales up. It's built for tablets on android.

The number of such great tablet apps is FAR behind what the iPad has. The 1 million phones don't matter when speaking of tablets.

[MeSue]

Originally Posted by afv011

Most Android tablets are 16:10, as far as I know there are no 16:9 Android tablets, though the 1024x600 come close. There are also 4:3 Android tablets.

My mistake. I meant 16:10.