Some technical folk have been digging deep into the iOS 5 SDK over the last couple of weeks and have uncovered all manner of juicy details about what Apple will have up its sleeve in the future for their iPad and iPhone.
We’ve had info that the new iPhone will be able to record and display 1080p video after it was uncovered in the iOS5 SDK.
The latest juicy nuggets found are graphics for the iPad capable of displaying a 2048×1536 resolution on its display.
The amount of pixels just so happens to be exactly double the resolution of the current iPad, making the graphics compatible with a future iPad donning Apple Retina Display.
Earlier this year, iPad 2x graphics were found in the iBooks application and it was suggested that the iPad 2 was going to feature a Retina Display, this of course did not happen, but it's looking likely that new iPad 3 might well make the jump to a Retina Display.
Today's graphics are said to be found in the Twitter Frameworks portion of the yet to be release iOS 5 SDK. The iOS 5 is the first SDK to be designed for a future iPad so it would make sense that some iPad 3 elements would be present.
iOS 5 will be the base operating system that the next-generation iPad will support, so it makes sense that we would find iPad 3 graphics in the iOS 5 SDK, not the iOS 4 SDK - in which iPad 2X graphics were previously found. Additionally, the Twitter framework is something only present in 5.0, so next-gen graphics for a planned iPad 3 being found in this portion of the SDK would be no surprise.
Also embedded in iOS 5 beta is information that Apple is working on two models of iPad, referred to in the USB config files as iPad 3, 1 and iPad 3, 2.
Other reports suggest that iPad 3 will have NFC-capability, Thunderbolt I/O, and a higher MP camera – as Apple has placed an order for 8MP camera sensors from OmniVision for iPhone 5 and will probably sport a fiber-in-matrix type material like carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) casing, instead of aluminium.
It would seem that it’s a safe bet that the screen will get a hefty upgrade for the next iPad – and the thought of a Retina Display on a tablet as thin, if not thinner, as the current iPad 2 would make a tablet that will fly off the shelves in 2012 or 2013. Fingers crossed that this becomes reality in the future.