The rumors that appeared in the last days I guarantee the launch of an iPad Mini tablet in the fall of this year, but nobody knows for sure what kind of screen this product would have. John Gruber assumes that the new tablet would have a screen identical to that of the iPhone 3GS, iPad or iPad 2, and its resolution would be 1024 x 768. He says that the screens are built to much larger sizes than those we see in devices, companies cutting large screens into small pieces to include in smartphones or tablets.
Here's the logic behind such a display. Displays aren't manufactured at their finished size; rather, they're made on big sheets, and then cut to size. I believe the iPad Mini (or whatever it's going to be called) uses the same display as the iPhone 3GS. So instead of cutting these sheets into 3.5-inch 480 × 320 displays for the iPhone 3GS, they'll cut them into 7.85-inch 1024 × 768 displays for the smaller iPad. Same exact display technology, though — display technology that Apple has been producing at scale ever since the original iPhone five years ago. These are displays Apple knows they can produce efficiently and in enormous quantities. All they have to do is cut them into bigger pieces.
He says that the use of such a screen would allow those at Apple to ensure that they do not have problems with stocks and would avoid a fragmentation of the platform. The 1024 x 768 resolution is already used in the iPad 1/2, so the iPad Mini would run the applications already in the App Store without the slightest problem, and the developers would not be obliged to redo the graphics of the respective applications. From a technical point of view, the use of such a screen is logical and I believe that Apple will choose to follow the logical path, leaving the Retina Display for the future.
