Apple's iPad Doesn't Support 4:3 Or 16:9 Aspect Ratio

Another flaw I just noticed with the iPad is that the aspect ratio of the screen does not support 4:3 or 16:9 video. (Updated: It appears the iPad is 4:3, but still the viewing experience will suffer. See this article with images of what movies will look like on the iPad and how much black there will be) Does that mean Apple has to re-encode all of their iTunes library just for the iPad? For folks who are really serious about their video, what kind of impact is that going to have on them? While I don't think this alone will keep anyone from buying one, it's just another example of how Apple is hyping this device for video, yet then not thinking about video in the design process.

Comments

[Tim]

I don't understand this objection. The specs say the screen will be 1024x768, with 132ppi. Since it doesn't specify different horizontal and vertical ppi, I'm assuming square pixels. 1024x768 on a square grid is exactly equal to 4:3. What am I missing?

[Dan Rayburn]

Hey Tim, unless I am not doing my math right, the aspect ratio of the screen is different than letterbox.

[Tim]

"Letterbox" isn't an aspect ratio, it's a matte technique used to display a widescreen image on a smaller screen. You're correct that the aspect ratio of th iPad screen isn't 16:9. However, it does appear to be exactly 4:3, so I don't understand the critique that says it is "somewhere in between both of those and does not support a standard size."

[Jim]

A little quick on the draw there eh Danny boy, better do your homework or others will be starting to make a fool of you also...

[Dan Rayburn]

No Jim, I don't think so. The iPad was specifically called out by Jobs as a device that would be great for video and clearly that is not the iPad's strength. Yes, it is 4:3, but I am happy to have gotten the topic out there so that people can start to discuss the bigger picture which is the viewing experience for video on the device.

[Tim]

For folks who are really serious about their video, what kind of impact is that going to have on them?

Folks who are really serious about their video won't be watching it on a device with a ten-inch screen, no matter what the aspect ratio is.

Dan, I think that it would help if you start out by articulating what market you think the iPad is really for before you start criticizing it as having been mismarketed. For portable video it does look like an extraordinary device: it's got a better screen and more flexibility than any other device of its weight or price point.

Widescreen would be lovely, but let's get real: the difference is that the viewing area will be five inches tall, not seven inches tall. You really think that's what's going to make this a make-or-break device?

[Dan Rayburn]

I don't need to articulate the market who the iPad is for, I'm not selling the device. Apple is the one who talked about how big of a deal it is for consuming video, so they have already set the expectations that one of the iPad's main features is to act as a video viewing device. If that's the expectation Apple wants to set, fine, but most won't be happy with the video experience on it when it has no support for Flash, no way to hook up a hard drive, no ability to stand it up on a table, 4:3 support instead of 16:9.... that's not my idea of a device that's best suited for video.

[Wil Adams]

If you had the 16:9, and maintained the same 7.5' width, then the iPad would have to be almost 14" long. That would not fit in a purse, which was one of the mandates.

There will more buyers with purses than there will be "serious videophiles"

They certainly considered a 14" behemoth, but it looked a little unweildy.

[Hector]

I think the 4:3 aspect ratio is also a stupid choice. TV shows, movies, and everything pretty much aired on TV and transmitted over cable is or will be 16x9. Going back to 4:3 makes no sense. For books and magazines, yes 8.5x11 is closer to 4:3, but I would rather see black boxes there than on my video. I'll wait until Apple adds a camera for video conferencing and hopefully a revised screen format. Maybe they'll follow the iPod lineup and have a few submodels.

[Anders]

The iPad will clearly not be perfect to display video in 16:9, but I will rather prefer browsing the internet in 4:3 than 16:9. Browsing will be the major selling point in my view.

All 16:9 video in either 1080p or 720p will probably be scaled down to 1024x576 and pose no viewing problems.

[Streaming Wizard]

I think you are messing things. If the screen is 1024x768 you can use a 16:9 resolution of 1024x576 in your videos and there you are.

[mass]

Dan - your bias is so transparent.

You don't like Apple or the iPad because it doesn't fit into your "stream-everything-for-free-because-that-is-what-people-want-and-figure-out-how-to-make-money-doing-it-later" gospel.

And you are going out of your way to discredit the device and company.

[Dan Rayburn]

@Mass: Show me one time, just once, where I said on my blog that I want digital content to be "free". I've never said that and I don't expect content to be free, but I do expect content owners to listen to consumers and give them what they want.

You think I am "discrediting" Apple and the iPad but I don't need to. Apple is doing that themselves. You think Apple is doing what consumers want? Then why doesn't the iPad or iPhone support Flash video? We know consumers want it. Because Apple wants complete control and is not interested in really giving consumers what they want.

[andy beach]

the fact that they went with 1024x768 as the resolution tells me the non video activities the iPad was designed for were getting more priority in the design process; making it a good miniature computer that also plays video, not a video player that also checks email. and maybe that's fine - i guess time will tell. without having touched one i am somewhat disappointed by the res specs and would have hoped for something more akin to the macbook pro specs (1280x800). while still not true 16:9, it would have been much closer and been a better balance overall i think.

[cassus]

I couldn't really care less about the 100 pixel letterboxing on 16:9 movies, especially since that's hardly the standard for movies these days. Yes, 16:9 is the standard for tv shows, but for tv shows I'm fine with letterboxing. Movies come in a lot of different aspects ratios, and most of them will be letterboxed on a 16:9 screen. So I don't really get what all the fuzz is about..

As for no flash, apple has said it time and time again, they will not support rubbish tech. More often than not, the reason for safari/*browser crashes on macs are due to crappy flash implementation from adobe. Adobe has been in a hissy fit for years now because apple bla bla bla apple this and that. It took them more than a year to move their product line over to the intel mac platform and all of that stuff. I think Apple are just bored with them at this point. And will you really miss all the flash banners while you're browsing? Cause I won't. And the flash games.. Seriously.. They are made for mouse and keyboard, so what use are they on the ipad anyway?

Flash is rubbish tech that should have died out ages ago. Flash video (youtube) is rubbish quality compared to quicktime. If flash was introduced today, no one would make use of it. It came out at the perfect time, a time when websites looked like rubbish. Right now, all flash is doing is keeping HTML5 back. And HTML5 really is where the future lies, not with compressed-beyond-recognition video and bad audio quality.

Vimeo is going to convert all their stuff to be iPad compatible btw. IMHO the iPad will do more for the furthering of the web than any other device has done for quite some time.

And yes, I'm an apple fanboy, that being someone who apreciates quality over the freedom to install buggy open source trash.

I would like to run more than one app at a time, though. But only for spotify basically. The reason they have 1 app at a time going is that the content developers know the amount of resources will be available to the app they are making. Let's say a game that has to run at 30fps+ to look good, if you got 8 apps running in the background... That game is screwed.. Consoles don't let you run a multitude of apps for the exact same reasons.

[Gary]

"...buggy open source trash."

Firstly Apple itself does some open source - Webkit rendering engine of Safari anyone?

Secondly all but the most recent Mac OS were essentially constructed atop of kernel, shell and command environments that were open source.
Say FreeBSD and repeat several times.

Apple builds on less and less of the underlying open source these days, but if it wasn't for borrowing heavily from open source, there would have been no early Mac OS
Meaning Jobs and Co would not have had the money from those early Mac sales to pay the engineer time to 'remove' the underlying open source (from which you benefited in the early years.

Born of Unix.

Most Apple fanboy's think that History began with OSX and everything before Year 2000 can be disregarded.
Know your company means know your history.

Here is a thought which seems obvious to me.
Quote: Flash is the application with most crash reports on OSX
Observation: Desktop users do an awful lot of internet browsing these days - why am I not surprised that an internet plugin would be in the top ten count of application crashes.

Next year's revelation from Apple:

The w key on the keyboard should be removed as we have found that people typing www a lot has meant that the w key on Mac keyboards are the most worn keys.

Jobs: We see a bright future for the iPad, iPhart, iStink, whatever without the w key

Faithful: All hail Jobs for pointing out how futile the w key is to our experience zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

[Robin]

Give me 4:3 ratio any day. I hate 16:9 it's OK for videos (for which there is a plethora of existing solutions some of which you probably already have), but a pain in most other respects.

It seems to me the iPad is more of a solution for showing off your digital photos the way you used to share a photo album or packet of photos, as well as for browsing the web and perhaps as an E-book reader. All of which are fine at 4:3.
i.e. Armchair, in your lap activities.