Current iPad is Plan B Design
Ever wondered why the new iPad was a bit thicker than the iPad 2? Well, we appear to finally have the answer – it’s Apple’s Plan B design and it’s all to do with that high resolution Retina display. They initially wanted to make the new iPad even thinner than the iPad 2, by using new technology for the display. However, the new technology, indium gallium zinc oxide (IGZO) from Sharp just wasn’t ready in time, so they had to go with the more conventional amorphous silicon technology.
Unfortunately, it had the following negative effects on the design: new iPad is thicker, has less efficient light transmission (bigger transistors blocking the light) requiring twice as many LEDs and a 70% larger battery. So now you know.
“The plan was to use this new technology called IGZO from Sharp — a lot higher electron mobility that allows them to make the transistors a lot smaller and the circuit elements a lot smaller. There’s no question that the iPad 3 is Plan B. They pushed amorphous silicon to a higher [pixels per inch] than anybody else. But the light throughput is not good. So it has roughly twice as many LEDs, and they had to get a 70 percent larger battery,” Soneira said, referring to today’s third-generation iPad.
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