Why 960 x 640 - <AUTHOR> http://daringfireball.net/2010/04/why_960_by_640 <comment><USER2> I really do think Gruber's going to have to eat his own chowder on this one.

There's just no precedent for Apple doing this. They've never played the resolution game. Remember 15" laptops a few years ago? While Sony and other higher-end makers started cramming more pixels in each year, Apple slowly went from 1280x854 to 1440x900 and stopped there. Only in 2010 have they started to offer (and only as a BTO option!) the 1680x1050 res that you've been able to get on Vaios for years. Apple just prefers to concentrate on their antialiasing algorithms than to pump pixels.

I think a much more likely resolution bump would be 1.5x each dimension for 720x480. It'll be a little short of HTC and Motorola's 852x480, but if Apple doesn't cut the color resolution with a Bayer pattern, their display will still look better. And most importantly, it'll use less memory and run faster than a full 960x480.

<comment><USER3> A 1.5x scale factor would make existing apps look terrible. They will look fine scaled 2x. If they increase the resolution (and they will; the recently leaked prototype is irrefutable proof) they must increase it 2x for this reason alone.

<comment><USER2> 1.5x would indeed look bad for "legacy" apps, but I think even this fits in to Apple's current developer strategy: Update or get left behind.

I mean, remember, Apple was willing just recently here to risk the incredible backlash of 3.3.1 for the sake of platform direction. I think they'll gladly risk developers complaining about redrawing UI bitmaps.

<comment><USER4> I think 3.3.1 is primarily a developer issue, whereas resolution is very much a user-facing issue as well.

With the iPad, Apple didn't force developers to recode their iPhone apps, instead it allowed the older apps to run at native or double resolution. Granted, the double resolution doesn't look pretty, and Apple is strongly encouraging developers to produce iPad native apps, but they definitely seem to be taking advantage of their 185,000 app head start, and 1.5x would presumably look even worse on an iPad than 2x.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "I believe the on-screen typography on the next-gen iPhones will be indistinguishable, or nearly so, from high-quality print."

... except that high-quality print doesn't use Marker Felt...

<comment><USER6> Conversely, no one typesets their throw-away napkin notes.

<comment><USER5> Hey, are you insinuating that I use tacky handwriting on tacky yellow paper, with a tacky felt marker?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Amusing fact: 960x640 is exactly the same number of pixels as a 1024x600 netbook, in a much saner aspect ratio.

<comment><USER8> I feel like they're eventually going to try to sell me a laptop with a 2048x100 pixel screen where I have to read one very long line of text at a time. What is wrong with laptop screen manufacturers? I haven't bought a notebook in years from anyone but Dell (upgraded screen each time) and Apple (generally saner than other manufacturers).

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> When I realized we're only a resolution doubling or two away from being beyond the limits of human visual perception, I realized why the much-discussed Resolution Independence feature keeps not making it into each release of Mac OS X.

<comment><USER10> I think it's funny how no one has noticed that the iPhone/iPad SDK essentially has resolution independence built-in. All the Interface Builder default controls are vectorized and can scale beautifully.

<comment><USER11> Except that if you want to use an image (say, on a button), you're still stuck with rasterized types. The only way to have resolution independence for buttons would be to use custom Quartz drawing.

There's no SVG or no PDF support in UIImage; the only part of the SDK that supports SVG is UIWebView. And Quartz PDF support is more suited for displaying pages of PDF's, not small images in a button.

<comment><USER12>
        There's no SVG or no PDF support in UIImage; the only
        part of the SDK that supports SVG is UIWebView. And
        Quartz PDF support is more suited for displaying pages
        of PDF's, not small images in a button.

This.

I'm currently working on an iP* app, and I had to roll my own UIView class to handle PDF pages to provide vector imaging without resorting to a heavyweight web view.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Gruber ignores the Droid, which has sold far more units than the N1, does not have the Pentile subpixel reduction, and has an 854x480 display. A 960x640 display would rock but given that the LCD is smaller than current iPhones, I think it will be a 1.5x increase which will look fine with antialiasing and font/UI element scaling. So 480x720.

</comment><comment><USER14> It doesn't matter what the resolution is; until they get some typographical taste, it's not going to rival print. iBooks looks like [insert rude word] and it's not because of the resolution.

<comment><USER15> full justification without hyphenation -- barf!

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> So what's the deal with the iPad? It deserves to have this great text fidelity (i.e. insane PPI) just as much as the iPhone.

Is the 2nd generation iPad going to have a significantly better screen?

<comment><USER17> $500

<comment><USER18> Also, 10 hours of (promised) battery life. more pixels are not only mor expensive to switch, they are also more expensive to render the UI for.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Everyone who has been following Apple closely for more than 10 years knows that 300+ dpi on every device has always been Apple's goal. They haven't pushed it in OSX due to the massive legacy effects. The Mac typographic layout system was designed for a 300 dpi future.

</comment><comment><USER20> tl;dr Because 960x640 will give a picture quality (in particular for texts) comparable to high-quality prints.

But that's not much of an answer. Why higher resolution? Because it will look better. Why 960x640 precisely? Because it's exactly 4 times the current resolution. But beyond that…

I guess I'm missing a more insightful conclusion like: "since Apple is putting iBooks on the iPhone, they want to make it a decent e-reader".

<comment><USER21> _Why higher resolution?_

Because competing devices have higher density displays. And high density allows for prettier, crisper, more natural graphics. iBooks are just the icing on the cake.

 _Why 960x640 precisely?_

Because it makes things simple. Whether you have a bitmap or some procedural drawing (vector if you will) you can easily translate it into coordinates on the new screen - just multiply by 2. No need to worry about sub-pixel drawing and artifacts occurring as result of rounding errors.

<comment><USER20> These questions were actually rhetorical. (I actually answered them, though in less detail)

The thing is that I was kind of surprised by the length of the post compared to the relative lack of insight. Usually John Gruber brings interesting points and reflection to his posts, going in depth on a lot of his arguments; but with "Why 960x640" as a title, I was hoping to read something I didn't know or didn't think about. Here he mostly stated facts without, in my opinion, really answering the question "why does an iPhone need a higher resolution/pixel density?".

<comment><USER22> Well, there's this: "The next-gen iPhone is shooting for that caliber of resolution — not merely to exceed the resolution of competing devices, but to rival the optical quality of print." He doesn't belabour it, because it's obvious: high quality text is really pleasant to look at, and that will sell more iPhones.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This was by far the easiest thing to see coming to the 2010 iPhone. [http://martin.drashkov.com/2009/12/iphone-4g-predictions.htm...](http://martin.drashkov.com/2009/12/iphone-4g-predictions.html)

I recently ported my company's iPhone app to Android (they both have the same look, rather than using each platform's look) and the difference between the two images side by side when testing on the Nexus One was striking. Quite simply, Apple could not have gone into the 2010 holiday season against Android phones with spectacular, dense 4" displays.

</comment><comment><USER24> Seems that the important question has not been answered. You may want the iPhone to have the same quality as print, but why? Is iPhone competing with magazines now? Do Apple customers want that, and would they be happy to pay for it?

Probably... the brand and marketing is so strong Apple could probably reduce the resolution of the screen and charge more for it. The fact that its the new iPhone would be enough to make up for it.

<comment><USER25> If you use a really high resolution screen for a while, every lesser screen looks bad in comparison. It's the expectations ratchet.

<comment><USER26> Agree. I wouldn't have entertained switching from my previous or current laptops (1400x1050 and 1680x1050 pixels respectively) to a 15" MacBook Pro with a lower resolution screen. The recent refresh suddenly makes them more tempting though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Whatever the actual resolution is, the iP* line definitely needs the upgrade. It's amazing how "fuzzy" everything looks when I switch from my N1 back to my iPod Touch. It makes a very noticeable difference when displaying and reading web sites.

I'm sure if it wasn't for Apple's amazing design skills this would have made their devices look outclassed long ago, but because everything is so beautifully done they have gotten away with 320x480 well past its use by date.

</comment><comment><USER28> Wondering about what will be Apple's next big product ...

Internet TV?? OMG!

iPad will rule the world because of the Internet TV!! iPad will be the perfect interface for controlling a TFT on steroids, and the target markets fits so well it makes a lot of sense. Does anybody agree to me?

I see the iPad as an enabling device, it's ease of use and hipness will create a big market on the less technology savy.

<comment><USER28> Could you at least verbally disagree? It's the reasoning wrong?

The style is provocative but just to get some attention to the idea.</comment></comment>


An introduction to reinforcement learning - <AUTHOR> http://www.slideshare.net/pauldix/an-introduction-to-reinforcement-learning-rl <comment><USER2> I'm currently taking an AI class where we covered reinforcement learning--I thought it was one of the coolest topics in a class full of interesting ideas.

The class is taught by one of the most popular CS professors here, and the lectures are available on Youtube. The first of two lectures about RL is here: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ztxHnR0Hss&list=PL9CBFBB...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ztxHnR0Hss&list=PL9CBFBB1FE9D0EB7A&index=9&feature=plpp_video)

If you have some time, you should definitely watch it--it is much clearer than just reading some slides. It would help to know what a "Markove Decision Process" is, but they're not very complicated.

</comment><comment><USER3> This seems to be related to machine learning. I was hoping for something about human language learning.

<comment><USER4> What do you mean for human language learning? Like the process to learn new foreign languages?

So, Zen Habits had a post about learn foreign languages, <http://zenhabits.net/fluent/>.

<comment><USER3> There is a method of learning foreign languages, usually by help of computer software, where repetitions are spaced at certain intervals intended to maximize the memorization effect. I'm interested in learning more about this, but the info is sparse.

<comment><USER5> You mean Spaced Repetition Systems like Anki, right? There isn't much research beyond "yeah, they work."</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: MediaPickerInstagram – A photo picker (Instagram-like) for Android - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/NodensN/MediaPickerInstagram <comment><AUTHOR> Hello HN! I've not found any PhotoPicker component suitable for my needs for Android so I made this one. :)

It's a Photo picker component that aims to replicate the experience provided by Instagram.

The features I plan to add are : Photo taking functionality Video taking functionality Photo editing with filters and stuff

Hope this helps! Some help is much appreciated, there is much work that could be done. :)</comment>


America's Cities Are Running Out of Room - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-22/america-s-cities-are-running-out-of-room?cmpid=BBD052217_BIZ&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_term=170522&utm_campaign=bloombergdaily <comment><USER2>
      > The wealthiest residents are the only ones who can buy,
      > and a vicious cycle is created.

It's the exact same vicious cycle as with sprawl. The difference is that sprawl is unmaintainable, whereas there's an equilibrium to be found with centralization and the lifecycle of urban neighborhoods. Maintaining all the infrastructure of sprawl will increasingly consume the entire municipal budget of cities, as it does for so many today.

Anybody living in the suburbs: look outside your window and calculate how much it would cost to repave your street and replace your water and sewage. Now look at your property taxes. For the vast majority of you the numbers will blow your mind, and that's before you even consider public schools and other expenses. I can tell you exactly what will happen when it comes time to pay the piper: well-off people will move to some place new, the poor will move into [some of] the vacated neighborhoods, and the infrastructure will continue to rot.

Suburban neighborhoods won't gentrify because it's not cost effective to renew the infrastructure. A suburban neighborhood is nothing but a liability from day 1.

50 years from now the long-gone blight of inner-city rust belts created by post-WWII migration to the suburbs will pale in comparison to what various suburbs are increasingly becoming. The extent of blight will be measured in square miles instead of square blocks. It will be epic. Heck, take a road trip across the U.S.--it's _already_ epic.</comment>


Baidu swaps tickets for facial recognition in historic Chinese 'water town' - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2016/11/17/13663084/baidu-facial-recognition-park-wuzhen <comment><USER2> I'm wondering what is the false positive rate of their face recognition system? What would a falsely identified person do now that they don't have tickets to show for?</comment>