Ben Dodson

Matthew Panzarino for TNW:

Now, with the release of the iBooks 2 application, the Retina-ready images are on display yet again, but our source says it is highly doubtful that including them this time is an accident.

These images would display correctly on a screen 2048×1536 pixels in dimension (double the res of the iPad 2′s screen) at a PPI of 260. That is lower than the iPhone 4/4S display, which clocks in at just over 300 PPI, but should still qualify as a Retina display due to the viewing distance to the iPad being greater.

These @2x files appeared in a version of iBooks during August 2010 but turned out to be a red herring (or an accident as TNWs source puts it). However, with rumours ramping up for a March launch of the iPad 3, it’s highly likely that these retina display graphics are now needed.

The thing that confuses me is that iBooks doesn’t come pre-installed on iOS so Apple could easily push out a v2.0.1 safe in the knowledge that a non-retina version wouldn’t end up on the new iPad. This is undoubtedly what will happen with the iWorks suite of apps (a minor update to add retina compatibility) so why add @2x versions of UI components to iBooks now?

In my opinion, this was either a mistake (again) or Apple are planning on having iBooks installed by default on the iPad 3.

Comments

Jason Kneen makes a good point on Twitter about the possibility of iBooks being bundled with iOS:

Installing by default would surely mean incremental updates would be more difficult and have to be done as OTA OS update?

It's something I hadn't considered but I still think that the benefits to Apple (iBooks in front of more people) are more beneficial than the negatives particularly when you consider that iBooks doesn't get that many updates. This should also be easier when you consider that Over-The-Air updates are built into iOS 5 - this means that an iOS 5.1.1 update to fix something in iBooks would only weigh in at a few MB (as OTA updates are deltas) and most iOS users would perform the update.