

Apple Watch Pixels - davidbarker
http://prometheus.med.utah.edu/~bwjones/2015/07/apple-watch-pixels/

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joosters
Sub-pixel rendering on a pattern like that must be complicated?

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panic
Sub-pixel rendering isn't really worth it on high DPI displays like this. It
also doesn't work that well with iOS's CoreAnimation compositing model.
Blending sub-pixels properly across transparent layers in particular is
difficult.

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tgb
Does the apple watch downscale like their phones? Can apple implement subpixel
downscaling? It seems like an easy win if already downscaling abbreviations if
you can do it in hardware.

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appletree
Hardware gets a flat image. It can't differentiate between foreground text and
background. It has to be done by the compositing layer.

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tgb
I'm not convinced that is necessary. Here's my first thought. If I'm given a
higher resolution image and am to downscale, knowing it will be displayed on a
particular screen, then I would sample the blue pixel not from the "center of
the pixel" but from the position of the blue dot in the screen. Similarly for
red and green pixels. Couldn't an approach like that give subpixel precision?

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eridius
If you're guaranteed that the image is displayed properly aligned to pixel
boundaries _, then doing that might do something, but it 's probably not worth
it.

_Which it probably will be, but it's certainly not guaranteed.

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plg
"I am infinitely more comfortable with an Apple device collecting personal
information than I am with some of the competing products from other
companies"

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diminishedprime
I couldn't help but notice that quote, either. I wonder why the author found
it necessary to put that in on an article about the pixels of the Apple Watch?
I don't see that information doing much besides inciting a flame war.

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HappyTypist
It's a footnote. I guess the author is going for a "stream of consciousness"
around Apple watch pixels. (Don't get me wrong, I don't think this is a
positive contribution to the article)

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naoru
So it's a PenTile display [0].

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PenTile_matrix_family](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PenTile_matrix_family)

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userbinator
From what I've seen, PenTile appears to be mainly a cost-reduction trick that
works well for displaying photographs and other images with gradual
variations, but looks horrible for text and sharp, straight lines. A similar
pattern has been used in cheap cameras for many years:

[http://www.dansdata.com/images/cdv350/screenb560.jpg](http://www.dansdata.com/images/cdv350/screenb560.jpg)

The Apple Watch pixels are not in the traditional stripe pattern, but there's
still 3 distinct subpixels for each pixel and they're arranged in a square
pattern. The unequal subpixel sizes are due to OLED brightness fade; the blues
wear out the fastest, while the reds last the longest:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OLED#Disadvantages](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OLED#Disadvantages)

~~~
jsight
Don't the latest Samsung phones (S6) still use pentile? I don't think those
look bad at all.

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mirsadm
They look fine now because the resolution of the screen is so high. Previously
you could definitely notice issues with it.

