The Retina Display was never coming to the iPad 2. It wasn’t feasible when Engadget first wrote about it, and it’s not feasible now: the technology simply hasn’t reached the economy-of-scale necessary to cram Retina Display technology into a $499 tablet. Daring Fireball’s John Gruber agrees. It’s always been bunk, and the soonest anyone should expect a Retina Display in the iPad is in 2012.
Let’s get a few things straight. No one knows whether or not the next iPad will be called the iPad 2. Second, no one really knows for sure if a Retina Display will be inside the next iPad. I doubt that it will, but only Apple and its display suppliers know for sure. And I don’t think it was ever Apple’s plan to cram a Retina Display inside a US$499 version of the next iPad. Whether or not there will be a $499 version of the next iPad, I don’t know, but the Retina Display-equipped iPad would probably sit at the very top of the line and costing quite a bit more than $499. And finally no one, including Brownlee, knows when an iPad with a Retina Display will be coming except for Apple and its display suppliers. It could be this year or next, but my bet is on this year. Read iPad 3.