A Lonely Field
According to Investor’s Business Daily, competing tablet makers may not have high-density displays to compete with the coveted Apple retina display until the end of the year, if at all. This leaves Apple in a lucrative position where the company will have the entire market under its control for months.
Many experts declared 2011 to be the year of the non-Apple tablet. Optimists at the beginning of the year declared 2012 to be the year of the non-Apple tablet. Now, the writing on the wall seems clear: non-Apple tablet makers have lost yet another year in their bid to compete with the consumer electronics giant.
Display Problems
In its infinite wisdom, Apple has snatched up so many panels from the world’s leading LCD panel makers that other companies cannot even place orders for panels of similar quality. LG, Sharp and Samsung say that Apple will experience shortages of new iPad displays for several months while panel-manufactures ramp up production capacity. That delay will cause competing problems to face significant delays releasing tablets with competing video capabilities.
Display problems only begin to tell the story of the hardship competing tablet manufacturers face. Companies need to develop and deploy technology to drive new high-definition displays in ways that will evade legal challenges from Apple. Manufacturers will need new processors and firmware to support a new breed of ultra-hihg-definition tablets.
Time to Adapt
Delays in bringing high-definition displays to market provide an opportunity for webmasters who must now develop and deploy websites that go beyond the constraints of traditional HD. The new iPad has a display resolution of 2048 x 1536, double the old standard of 1024 x 768. Human eyes cannot distinguish pixels on the new display, giving users an unprecedented visual experience.
Website designers must now create graphic and video content that will take advantage of this new screen resolution. Website owners have several months to acquire the technology and develop the code necessary to deliver high-quality content to the screens of third-generation iPad users.
Mind the Future
Besides adapting to the new screen resolutions provided by the Apple iPad, webmasters should also consider preparing for gesture-controlled websites that will leverage new capabilities that rests in the hands of mobile users.
