The Retina iPad Apps To Test Tonight And Tomorrow
The new iPad nears. Apparently Walmart will be selling them in just a few short hours, well before Apple itself does tomorrow morning. Meanwhile, the first direct-to-consumer shipments should be hitting anytime now.
Context & Ripple Effects
The new iPad lands tomorrow morning after Apple's March 14 announcement pitched a display packing roughly a million more pixels than an HDTV. The launch follows a playbook Apple has run before: back in 2011 it had Apple Stores opening early for iPad sales, and the retail channel has widened since Walmart first carried the original iPad in its stores in October 2010. The wrinkle this cycle is timing — Walmart reportedly selling hours ahead of Apple, though that remains unconfirmed.
The real story for this list post is the software side: the same week Apple pushed 1080p encodes onto iTunes, developers raced to ship Retina-ready updates so their apps don't look blurry on day one — MacStories flagged Kindle 3.0's new library design and Retina graphics as among the first out of the gate, with Evernote among the other names in circulation.
First-order effects
- Buyers unboxing the new iPad tonight or tomorrow get an immediate visual test case: any app not yet rebuilt for the Retina display looks soft next to Apple's own software and freshly updated titles like Kindle.
- Developers who shipped Retina updates in time — Kindle, Evernote and peers — get free placement in launch-week roundups like this one, while laggards wear the blur publicly.
Second-order effects
- Every major iOS app publisher now faces an unplanned art-production sprint: double-resolution asset pipelines become table stakes within days of launch, not a nice-to-have.
- Content partners feel the pull too — Apple's 1080p iTunes movie push, which Ars found beats 720p encodes, gives owners of the sharper screen a reason to re-buy or stream at higher bitrates.
Third-order effects
- Display density is consolidating as the primary tablet spec battleground, forcing Android rivals to answer on pixels-per-inch rather than price alone, and pushing the iOS ecosystem toward a norm where launch-day hardware refreshes trigger synchronized software overhauls.
The trend: Tablet competition is shifting from raw specs to screen fidelity, with each Apple display jump resetting the software-quality bar across the entire iOS catalog within days.