Tech wisdom behind the iPad screen

The gorgeous iPad screen is one of the things we love about this device. Let's take a closer look at which technologies makes the screen so wonderful.

Technically speaking, the iPad's screen is a 9.7-inches flat LCD-backlit display with a resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels. With this screen size, it produces a gorgeous 132-pixels-per-inch (ppi) picture, which is truly high-resolution.

Besides a high-resolution picture, the iPad's display has another great feature: it can be viewed at a wide angle of up to 178 degrees without any loss of picture quality. This capability is provided by the IPS (In-Plane Switching) technology, which was invented back in 1996 by Hitachi. At the time, this technology (as well as LCD displays themselves) was quite expensive and available only in expensive monitors for some professional applications (e.g. those used for medical imaging and high-end graphic displays). The iPad's display is supplied to Apple by one of the biggest IPS LCD manufacturers: LG.

The essence of the IPS technology is in its positioning and moving crystal molecules in LCD (which stands for liquid crystal display) horizontally towards the screen's surface. Before IPS, the movement of the crystal molecules was arranged perpendicularly to the surface of the screen.

One more great thing about the iPad's screen is its oleo-phobic coating. In common language, that means that the screen repels all kinds of oils and oily substances so that you can still use your iPad after eating french fries.