The new iPad ’s Retina display is its flagship feature of speech ; by all account from reporters who attend thethird - genesis iPad ’s unveilingthis week , its 2048 - by-1536 pixel showing looks exquisite in mortal , with sharp schoolbook and vivid semblance saturation . But the much improved screen may severely limit how you habituate the tablet .
That ’s because so as to take advantage of that display , apps need to generate new rendering of their graphical asset . The novel iPad sports four times as many pixels as its harbinger , so for Retina video display supporting , apps demand new images that are doubly as wide and double as tall as before . The physically larger figure , of course , wind up up as larger file in terms of MiB , too . And that ’s going to become a job pretty quickly give that you ca n’t upgrade your iPad ’s hard drive . It ’s unfortunate that Apple did n’t reduplicate the new iPad ’s storage space options to 32 GB , 64 GB , and 128 GB to well accomodate the large app sizes endemic to Retina - ready apps .
How big is big?
Let ’s calculate at some of Apple ’s own iPad apps to see whether fret about how Retina iPad graphics affect data file sizing is a permissive waste of vigor . It ’s not a perfect comparability , since Apple also added some features to the apps it updated with Retina compatibility , but it ’s still informative :
Keynote kick the bucket from 115 MB to 327 Mbit ; Numbers increase from 109 MB to 283 MB , and Pages give out from 95 mebibyte to 269 MB . With the elision of iMovie ( which also added in novel support foriMovie Trailersas it ballooned from 70 MB to 404 MB ) , these apps increase their file sizes by a component between 2.5 and 3 . ( iMovie is most six time larger than before . )
Suppose a raw 16 GB iPad owner wants to load up up the tab with Apple ’s Retina - display quick apps : the iWork suite , the iLife cortege , iBooks , Find My Friends , get hold my iPhone , iTunes U , and Remote . That ’s 2.24 GB of apps before you ’ve downloaded a single third - political party app , or synced a single song , exposure , or television . Remember too that a 16 GB iPad really only offers the user around 14 GB of storage distance ; the other two G go towards the operating system and strain apps . So now your 16 GB iPad offers you few than 12 GB of memory board quad .
My colleague Serenity Caldwell already wrote about the wallop of Retina - ready apps on Apple ’s impudently - raised limit ( to 50 megabyte ) for downloading apps over 3 M or LTE . In that report , she provides example of other apps that swell in sizing with Retina - ready graphics . A smaller app like Tweetbot , for case , will reportedly growfrom 8.8 MB to 24.6 megabyte . Larger , graphically intense games that consider in between 300 MB and 500 MB today will likely require 750 Mbit to 1.5GBonce they update their art assets .
This doesn’t just affect new iPad owners
And perhaps the most worrying effect of the new iPad ’s Retina presentation is its impact on aged owners of both iPadsandiPhones : oecumenical apps — that is , unmarried apps that scarper on both devices — will become much big even if you do n’t own a Retina - display iPad . When Apple labor out its Retina - quick upgrades earlier this week , I could n’t successfully update my iPhone until I cancel my euphony and a few large apps . My iPhone ca n’t take reward of the massive graphics that those apps need to embrace the iPad ’s Retina display , but it gets no choice in the matter .
It ’s a bit like Mac apps that could ply on both Intel and PowerPC processors . If your Mac has long ton of free storage place useable , it does n’t matter . But if your drive is penny-pinching to full , you could use various third - company apps to move out any PowerPC - only codification within your apps — since that code is useless on your Intel - based computer — to justify up distance .
Apple has n’t bait a means by which your iPhone could ignore iPad - only assets when it installs universal apps . In fact , most developer also will select to keep art assets specifically for the first two iPads , in addition to new art alone for the third - multiplication iPad ; strain to push the old iPads to show downscaled versions of Retina iPad artwork would slow things down too much , developer tell me .
So we end up with a post where iPhones contain iPad graphic they ca n’t habituate , iPads contain graphics forotheriPads they do n’t want , and iPads hold onto iPhone - specific art they do n’t require .
Memory isn’t free
The job is that flash lamp storage is n’t complimentary — hence the $ 100 difference in price between the current 16 GB and 32 GB iPad , and the 32 GB and 64 GB iPad . More reposition costs Apple more money , and Apple for sure does n’t require to raise the iPad ’s toll shred .
At the same metre , Apple is the only company around that could possibly labour down flash lamp storage prices even further — by buying up one thousand thousand of crusade from suppliers to use in the new iPad . It seems , however , that Apple ca n’t yet find a way to keep the iPad ’s current cost full point while increase its storage , and consider the current nation of affaire the honorable compromise .
If Apple ’s right that it ca n’t yet motor down the price of flash depot further , that makes the software result of let iOS devices stave off storing in - app asset that they ca n’t expend even more imperative .
Two fixes
Really , then , I ’m promote for two separate but as authoritative fixes . Apple require to kick downstairs the storage capacities on its iPads ( and , frankly , iPhones ) . And it needs to devise a mean by which in - app data point that your iOS gimmick ca n’t use wo n’t back up up your available storage infinite .
Coupling more storage with less per - app cruft will resolve this storage crunch problem , and it ’s one that I suspect more and more iPad buyer will encounter in the months ahead .
My advice to multitude ask me which iPad to get today is to focalise in on the pricier 32 GB model , because once developers update their apps for the novel iPad ’s Retina video display , 16 GB only wo n’t be enough .
[ Lex Friedman is a faculty author for Macworld . ]
