A day after Apple CEO Tim Cook stated that it is unclear as to whether Apple will have enough supply of the Retina iPad mini to meet market demand, Digitimes is reporting that Japanese manufacturer Sharp is tied to the shortage, citing low yield rates of displays from the company.
Multiple sources have suggested that the Retina iPad mini will be in limited supply throughout 2013, which has been all but confirmed by Apple's nebulous November release date. According to a report from last week, following its November debut, Retina iPad mini supplies could be "ridiculously tight" until 2014.
However, while supplies of the Retina iPad mini will be constrained, supplies of the iPad Air are expected to be more plentiful, as the company will offer same day in-store pickup for orders of the new full-sized tablet. As noted by Apple during the introduction of the second-generation iPad mini, a Retina display has been one of the most requested features for the smaller iPad since its release last year.
Top Rated Comments
Of course Apple has been trying all year long to get these screens mass produced.
Can you find a mass-produced tablet with a screen bigger than 7" that has 326dpi or more? (the 9.7" iPad air has 264dpi)
The 7.9" retina screen on the mini is 35% bigger than the 2013 Nexus 7 screen (at the same dpi), which makes a big difference in terms of LCD manufacturing reducing yields by an exponential amount.
And the funny thing is that what we consider a "shortage" for the retina mini probably means "only" a few million units, which will be probably more than the Nexus 7 production for the holidays even though the retina mini is much harder to produce.
When I saw the thread, I was wondering how long it would take to get to the Apple market-control conspiracy theory. Thanks!;)
Because Apple is buying TENS OF MILLIONS of panels.. That's multiple factories' yearly outputs. Apple is elling as many iPads with top of the line displays per year now as PC makers (all of them) sell laptops (with many crappy screens) The sheer scale of Apple versus everybody else is staggering.
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Because Samsung can't be respectful as a business PARTNER when Apple delivers multiple BILLIONS of dollars of sales to its factories. Proper business partners don't badmouth their CUSTOMER'S products on TV.
suppliers usually know quite a long time in advance that they will have to manufacture upcoming products
how can they be short on stock ?
and considering how long they have been working with Apple already, how could this happen ?
i believe it's simply an excuse made up by Apple just to force people buying the more expensive iPad Air during iPad mini retina shortage
Not totally sure, but I'm pretty confident that IPS refers to the pixel display technology and IGZO refers to the material used to make the "transparent wires" used to address each pixel. Sort of analogous to light bulbs vs. the type of wire used to connect them to a power supply (e.g. aluminum vs. copper wires.)
And I've heard that IGZO can be used in OLED screens as well. Different pixel chemistry, same low-resistance IGZO conductors. IGZO has 40% less resistance than the current transparent conductor technology (amorphous silicon.)
Just as a thought experiment, let's say that Apple has already implemented IGZO-based IPS LCD panels in the iPhone 5S and both new A7-powered iPads. Do you think they would hype IGZO? Or would they just hype the fantastic battery life + lighter weight + thinner enclosure? The way they did at last week's iPad event? I'd say they do the latter.
Shortages ? or Marketing Tactic ? :rolleyes:
Hmmmmm ;):apple: