The new iPad: How Apple pulled off the impossible

Apple has done it again: the iPad 3, available for pre-order now and shipping on March 16, will have a 9.7-inch 2048×1536 Retina display, cellular radios up the wazoo (including 4G LTE), a new A5X SoC with quad-core GPU, and an iPhone 4S-grade camera, for the same price as the iPad 2: $499. The iPad 3 is slightly thicker than its predecessor (9.4mm vs. 8.6mm) and a little heavier (1.46lbs vs. 1.325lbs), presumably to accommodate a larger battery. Battery life is still 10 hours, and 9 hours on 4G.

The big question on everyone’s lips is: How did Apple do it? How did Apple squeeze in a screen the likes of which have never been seen before? How did Apple keep battery life the same, while cramming in a faster processor and 4G? Most importantly, how does Apple keep the price the same?

The simple answer is: 28nm. The long answer is that while the iPad 3 might seem to be the most miraculous fondleslab to ever grace this humble, green Earth, and it might be produced by the progeny of Jobs Himself, but it is still confined to the laws of market economics and classical physics. Let’s tackle the screen first.

Way back in October, a rumor emerged that both LG and Samsung were working on 2048×1536 LCD panels, and that full-scale production would begin in November. This might seem crazy, with laptops and desktops sporting 1920×1080 resolutions, but that’s beyond the point. If LG and Samsung can reliably produce 2048×1536 panels, then that’s that. It might help if you remember that 1920×1080 panels have been rolling off the production lines for years now. For all we know, 2048×1536 is a walk in the park for Samsung. As far as cost is concerned, as long as Samsung’s yields are high enough, a 2048×1536 panel doesn’t cost any more than the 1024×768 panel found in the iPad 2.

The new processor, radios, and reduced power consumption (to keep the battery life the same) all come down to a new 28nm process. By dropping down from 40nm to 28nm, Apple instantly reduces power consumption by around 30%. The additional GPU cores will add to the A5X’s footprint, but then it’s fairly safe to assume that the two Cortex-A9 cores (if they are still A9s!) might have been tweaked to reduce their power usage. The 4G radio is probably a second-generation 28nm part provided by Qualcomm. It will suck down power, but significantly less than the first-generation 40nm parts. 28nm parts are cheaper to produce, too, because you can squeeze more of them onto the same silicon wafer.

When it’s all said and done, though, it’s important to bear in mind that despite the move to 28nm, the iPad 3 doesn’t have a longer battery life than the iPad 2; it’s the same. As we mentioned before, the iPad 3 is slightly heavier (660g vs. 600g) and fatter than its predecessor — both of which will accommodate a larger battery. 60 grams is actually quite a lot; the Galaxy S II only weighs 116g. Where the iPad 2 has a 6,930mAh battery, the iPad 3 battery might be almost double that, towards the 10,000 mAh region. In other words, the new display and array of cellular radios require a lot of juice.

In conclusion, then, the new iPad is nothing short of sensational, but not some kind of technological miracle. As always, this is yet another case of Apple’s supply chain utterly destroying the competition. Apple has just cemented its dominance for at least another six months. We can probably expect a Samsung tablet with the same kind of screen, but probably not for a few months and probably powered by a version of Android that doesn’t support that kind of resolution. I wonder if Microsoft has some Windows 8 tablets lined up with that kind of resolution…

The new iPad: How Apple pulled off the impossible