The iPhone 5 showed Apple was willing to abandon the existing aspect ratio of a device (3:2) and embrace a widescreen display (16:9). An analyst now says that multiple sources “close to Apple” have told him the iPad will be the next Apple device to “stretch it out!”
Industry analyst Paul Mueller says that having spoken to “at least three people close to Apple”, It’s a “fact” that Apple is currently prototyping a 16:9 widescreen iPad. The Examiner is corroborating, saying they have heard the same things themselves, and that “it appears that Apple is no longer against widescreen devices.”
The Cult of Mac writer, John Brownlee goes on to attempt to debunk the rumor. John says Apple likely changed the aspect ratio of the iPhone 5 in order to isolate the LTE antenna, not just to make it widescreen, saying a problem with LTE is that it makes it hard to keep a signal in a device smaller than 4-inches. Apple didn’t want to go wider, so…
Brownlee believes there’s no reason to do the same thing with the iPad, saying LTE is already in the iPad, and it works just fine. Furthermore, the iPad’s aspect ration (4:3) is designed to mimic a piece of paper, and the vast majority of the users use it for reading. With the big display, letterboxing of videos is no big deal.
I for one would at least like to be able to try out a 16:9 iPad. Sure it might look “comically large” as Brownlee says, but I think viewing movies on it fullscreen would be a great experience, and It would have to be proven to me that the reading experience would suffer. Newspapers, magazines, books, all come in all different sizes and aspect ratios.
The device itself may look a little stretched though, maybe we’d just keep the 16:9 ration for the iPad mini?
What do you think readers? Will there be a 16:9 widescreen iPad? Would the iPad experience be fundamentally changed?
I know I love me some 16:9 iPhone 5 action now, and I’m betting the same aspect ration would be ultra cool on the iPad.
