> So is seeing believing? This is where it gets sticky. Wired’s Brian X. Chen, who was also present at the Apple event and [saw the device for himself afterward](http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/06/gallery-hands-on-iphone-4/5/), wrote a piece with the surprisingly definitive headline, [“iPhone 4’s ‘Retina’ Display Claims are False Marketing.”](http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/06/iphone-4-retina/) The story’s lead sentence: “The iPhone 4’s screen may be the best mobile display yet, but its resolution does not exceed the human retina, as Steve Jobs claims.”
>
> Wired’s confident claims that Steve Jobs was fibbing were apparently the result of a single source: a physicist named Raymond Soneira, the president of [DisplayMate Technologies](http://displaymate.com/). According to Chen, Soneira has studied displays for 20 years. Soneira told Chen: “[The iPhone 4’s screen] is reasonably close to being a perfect display, but Steve pushed it a little too far.”
>
> Soneira objected to Jobs using pixels as a measurement of eye resolution in the first place, because eyes use something called angular resolution, while a flat display uses linear resolution. After working the numbers, Soneira concluded that a genuine “retina display” would need 477 pixels per inch to look perfect from a foot away.
>
> Piling on was PCWorld, which ran its own [interview with Soneira](http://www.pcworld.com/article/198402/does_the_iPhone_4_really_have_a_retina_display_updated.html). He told them that unless you held the iPhone 4 at least 18 inches away, it couldn’t achieve retina quality. He added further that the iPhone “actually needs a resolution significantly higher than the retina in order to deliver an image that appears perfect to the retina.”
>
> But just as the Internet makes it possible for news organizations to call corporate CEOs liars based on the opinion of a single physicist, it also makes it possible for other experts in the field of optics to come out of the woodwork to question the statements of a single physicist.
>
> First up was Phil Plait, author of the popular Bad Astronomy blog and a scientist who knows a thing or two about optics and resolution based on the work he did calibrating a camera on the Hubble Space Telescope. Plait [deconstructed Soneira’s entire argument](http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2010/06/10/resolving-the-iphone-resolution/) and explained just what people mean when they’re talking about resolution.
>
> In the end, Plait’s verdict was that while Soneira is correct that a person with perfect vision would be able to detect pixels on the iPhone 4’s display held 12 inches from their eyes, a person with average eyesight (20/20, let’s say) would not be able to detect those pixels. Plait concluded that both Jobs and Soneira spoke accurately, and suggested that Wired is the party at real fault for blowing the story out of proportion and writing a misleading headline. “Jobs wasn’t falsely advertising the iPhone’s capabilities at all,” Plait concluded.
via [macworld.com](http://www.macworld.com/article/151997/2010/06/retina_display.html?lsrc=rss_main)
My take on this: Seriously, who cares? Marketing always exaggerates a bit about every single product on earth. If you believe what you hear in commercials, I feel sorry for you.
The point is that it’s a really, really good screen. Once people see it, I think it will be obvious that no one is touching the quality of the experience on a phone at this point.
I think what Jobs said about the new camera sums it up for me: “A lot of people talk about megapixels. What we do is ask, ‘How do we take better pictures?'”
That’s what separates Apple from other companies in this game. They didn’t adopt AMOLED, even though on a spreadsheet that looked like a better screen technology. They went with a much higher res IPS screen instead. Because that provided the better screen viewing experience. Better color integrity. Better viewing angle. Much better readability, particularly outside.
They do what’s actually better, rather than what everyone else claims is better. And thus, they drive truly better technologies forward, rather than pushing crap out to the masses.
Back when Apple was in its decline, pushing superior technology forward was much more difficult. Firewire lost to USB; ADC lost to DVI. Several years of Microsoft dominance actually slowed down the world’s progress, because there was no real competition in the market.
Nowadays, with the popularity of iOS devices, and some real life in the mobile market, the tables have turned. We’re starting to see a new renaissance in technology.
My prediction: for the rest of this year, we’ll be seeing new devices with IPS LED screens, rather than AMOLED screens. Not just because Apple did it, but because side-by-side comparisons are going to demonstrate that Apple is right about this choice, and the market will be forced to agree.
