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Apple faking 489 to 815 PPI on iPhone 4 ads

81 points| pmikal | 16 years ago |digitalsociety.org | reply

52 comments

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[+] MarcusA|16 years ago|reply
Also, none of my friends are as attractive as the models used on the Facetime page. Stop faking my friends. Apple, please fix this.
[+] redstripe|16 years ago|reply
As a side note, doesn't the guy talking to the woman with the baby look like a younger and chubbier steve jobs? You know iClone is coming soon. Everyone will get a hot model. Hell with Microsoft, I'm switching for sure when that happens.
[+] dieterrams|16 years ago|reply
What on earth are you expecting? Should Apple load pictures of your friends off Facebook or Flickr?

Models used in advertising have always been more attractive on average. Even the comparatively unattractive models are more photogenic on average. And what does this have to do with the topic?

Stop cluttering HN with petty complaints about Apple.

[+] rbranson|16 years ago|reply
Isn't this obvious to anyone seeing the ads? I don't think people skiing are actually going to fly out of my TV when I see those ads, or that a humanoid rabbit is actually going to try to steal my Trix.
[+] rudyfink|16 years ago|reply
I think a better example would be do people think they will experience similar changes to the people in the before and after photographs (beauty/weight loss/dental) or do they believe the examples of computer speed/performance improvement (download times or computing performance) products.
[+] pchristensen|16 years ago|reply
I also posted this on the article:

No one that sees these videos or ads on the web will be using a 300dpi screen so they need to overcompensate. A more interesting comparison will be what resolution they show in their print ads.

[+] rbanffy|16 years ago|reply
> No one that sees these videos or ads on the web will be using a 300dpi screen so they need to overcompensate

No reason to overcompensate. What Apple shows is one enormously blown-up pixelated "before" screen compared to an "after" one displayed on the native best-possible resolution of the display people are seeing. They show much more than a 2x improvement (it's twice as high, not 4 times, because resolution is measured linearly, not by area)

[+] amalcon|16 years ago|reply
They could always take the approach those ads for some television with George Takei took: simply inform the viewer that their current display is inadequate to the task (1) of showing the screen image, make a joke about it, and not-so-subtly hint that they go check it out in the store.

1- Whether or not this is, in fact, the case is not relevant.

[+] confuzatron|16 years ago|reply
Well, looking at the keynote slide, the samples are heavily zoomed in so 'old' pixels are depicted as tens of screen pixels high. For an honest portrayal, it's easy: 'new' pixels just need to be depicted as half-as-high. Sorry, but the '300dpi' blather is complete reality-distortion nonsense. :)
[+] Groxx|16 years ago|reply
Actually, I just realized... for the effect of what they're claiming (pixels smaller than you can see), this is a perfect comparison. Blocks to none. Sure, they're achieving it by bending the rules, but I got the impression that 300dpi played second fiddle to "your eye is unable to distinguish individual pixels."[1]

[1] http://www.apple.com/iphone/features/retina-display.html

edit: their side-by-side comparison shows the correct number of pixels between the two.

[+] silvestrov|16 years ago|reply
The side-by-side hover-loupe (under "In a word, resolutionary") is very very good at demonstrating the difference.

The loupe uses the image below. You can open them and verify that no cheating has been used. The 3GS image has 2*2 pixel blocks all over. The images don't have subpixel antialiasing (as they have to be viewable on all kinds of monitors), so I expect them to look a tiny bit better IRL.

iPhone 3GS: http://images.apple.com/iphone/features/images/retina-resolu...

iPhone 4: http://images.apple.com/iphone/features/images/retina-resolu...

Try view the images. A truly great difference.

[+] SandB0x|16 years ago|reply
I liked the old adverts that tried to show you how sharp DVDs were...on VHS.
[+] graywh|16 years ago|reply
I seem to recall current ads doing the same thing comparing digital cable to analog....
[+] miguelpais|16 years ago|reply
It was not the high-quality of the "a" on the right that was exaggerated, it was the low quality of the one on the left.

The "a" on the right is fine, it is there to represent the kind of image in which you no longer are able to detect pixillation, going above of the supposed 300dpi limit, like what would happen on the iPhone4. On the other hand, presenting on the left an "a" with half the quality of the one on the right would probably be too difficult for people to spot the difference.

If they were fair on that slide, it probably would be interesting to analyze if people would really notice the difference or if they would just pretend they did (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperors_New_Clothes). Sure thing, it would not have that much of an impact, at least until all of those people get the chance of having the new iPhone in their hands.

[+] not_an_alien|16 years ago|reply
Adding to that the fact that their clever semantics is making it sound better than it is (claiming '4x more pixels' - which is true, but it's just 2x the resolution)...

It's the best mobile device screen out there, hands down. They really don't need to do that.

[+] thenduks|16 years ago|reply
People always seem to forget that this is marketing. They're trying to show what the difference is like, they don't need to be exact.
[+] nooneelse|16 years ago|reply
"I'm not lying about how big the fish was, just giving you the effect of what it was like to catch it."
[+] smackfu|16 years ago|reply
I was wondering about that. It did look like the "after" image was just someone using the font at full resolution, rather than being properly scaled down.
[+] alanh|16 years ago|reply
The ratios in the demo are correct if you compare them not to the iPhone 3G but to desktop monitors at 72dpi.

But seriously, this is all to demonstrate the difference. It’s not a ‘claim’. After all, 815dpi will look the same to the human eye as 370dpi…

[+] confuzatron|16 years ago|reply
The graphics may not be honest, but they are indeed truthy.
[+] gaborcselle|16 years ago|reply
I don't understand how the author of this article gets his numbers of 489 to 815 PPI. Can someone explain this?
[+] sirn|16 years ago|reply
Original iPhone = 163 PPI.

25x more pixels (5x the resolution, count the block) = 815 PPI.

[+] fleitz|16 years ago|reply
From the article: "Do you really need 300 PPI on a 3.5 inch phone?"

Do you really need a phone? Marketers don't sell needs, they sell wants.

[+] hackermom|16 years ago|reply
This is a bit of sensationalist non-news, isn't it? I mean, we all know how exactly every single computer software/hardware manufacturer always use "resolution-less" photographs in their ads on computer screens, cellphone screens and so on.
[+] confuzatron|16 years ago|reply
I think when you're specifically comparing resolutions, and you make one resolutionless and the other not... well, I'm sorry but it's not quite the same.
[+] draper|16 years ago|reply
"So you’re calling Apple out on their supposed exaggeration of the pixel density

based on… Screenshots from compressed videos?"

unbelievably dumb blog post.

[+] jrockway|16 years ago|reply
Oh right, because compressing video adds information...