iPad iPad mini Questions

Apple seems to use the summertime WWDC to introduce software updates and the fall is when new hardware gets announced. I'm hoping they release a Mini with Retina too. The current display is 1024 x 768 which is 163 ppi. I doubt we will see 2048 x 1536 which would have 320 ppi. But I'm hoping we will at least see something in between.

[shanghaichica]

I'd probably upgrade my mini of they brought in a retina display. Even if they don't I'm quite happy with the screen at the moment.

[drofgnal]

I just bought a mini. I struggled with waiting for the new one vs just getting one now. I was going to maybe get a kindle fire hd, but opted out of that for the mini. When comparing screens, I just didn't see that much difference for my normal reading. It's kind of like trying to tell the difference between 720p and 1080p on a 26" LCD.

[palex481]

iBooks will sync notes to a Mac after they release iBooks for Mac with the next release of OS X that is coming out this fall.

[Scarpad]

I think it will be at least one more refresh cycle before retina comes to the mini, I think keeping the thinness, and getting the battery life needed for the retina screen is still the challenge. I think this years refresh will yield a A6 processor and maybe a better camera, but not retina. For reading books mine is fine, I only find it a challenge for magazines, and smaller website where after zooming the font looks scraggy

[sun surfer]

Originally Posted by Bookworm_Girl

I'm glad you like it. I am still waiting for the iPad Mini with retina display! I was hoping it would be out this summer. I second Synamon's recommendation to try Marvin if you haven't discovered it yet. It's my favorite reading app now on my iPad, and it keeps getting better.

Thanks Bookworm_Girl. I'm fine with this mini and the screen looks great to me, but yes retina sounds intriguing!

I haven't tried Marvin yet. I'm actually a bit embarrassed to admit it with the great suggestions in this thread, but I tried iBooks, and then just stuck with it. I know it's missing loads of features, but still, I find its design pleasing to the eye, I like the idea of using the Apple reading app as long as it's decent enough and really it has everything I need. You might remember I like to take quite a few notes and highlights while reading, and iBooks makes it so simple, and pretty. That's really what sold me on sticking with iBooks. And I love how I can export my notes and highlights to email for safekeeping and how it keeps the nice-looking formatting for the emails even down to highlight colouring, and, and this is big, it sends the entire highlight, not only a portion or snippet (and for ease of understanding even includes non-highlighted contextual text around the highlight)!

There are of course a few things I'd like iBooks to add. Its dictionary isn't so great and it seems almost impossible to look up a word if you can't highlight somewhere exactly what you want to look up. And something got mixed up in the bureaucracy somewhere with that dictionary, because more often than I'd like, when I try to look a word up, it will give me a one-word definition, as if I need to see that other word's definition for a full explanation. Which is fine, except that there is no way at all to go to that other word in the dictionary! You can't click on it in the dictionary pop-up box and there's nowhere to enter it into a dictionary search, that I've found anyway. Plus there are no foreign language dictionaries, as I'd gotten used to with the wonderful Sony dictionaries. But all this isn't so important with a tablet anyway, since it's so easy now to just flip over to Safari and google anything I want quick as a flash.

The one thing that is important though is that iBooks is not fully supported on desktops which is so silly (though in practice it hasn't bothered me nearly as much as I thought it might), but I'm glad to hear that it sounds like they're finally changing this with their upcoming new OS X for Mac.