Product Design

A Tale of Two Displays

Our fine friends at Macrumors sent us a special little something in the mail the other day—the same purported iPad 3 screen with which they confirmed the existence of a “Retina” display! Since they had no means of hooking up the LCD to an iPad 2, we investigated the issue a bit further and saw if we could get their LCD running on the current-gen iPad.

So, does the “iPad 3” LCD work in an iPad 2? No. And here’s the reason why:

iPad 2 and iPad 3 LCD cable
iPad 2 LCD cable (left) vs. “iPad 3” LCD cable (right)

The iPad 3 LCD cable is a completely different type than the one found in the iPad 2. Our efforts to plug it in – even partially, if possible – were unsuccessful.

But that didn’t stop us, no siree… We took out our USB microscope and double-verified that this display was indeed a “Retina” display, and also noted some other interesting discrepancies between the two displays. MJ explains it all in this wonderful tale of two displays: