The announcement of the features for the new version of the iPad were not filled with the joyous delight that many other Apple announcments have been met with. I thought the addition of the Retina display was a huge step forward for the device. When I got my iPhone 4 I was really surprised how much better my experience was with the Retina display. When I go back and use a non-Retina display it seems very blurry to me. I think folks underrate just how much important this feature is to the overall tablet experience.
One issue out of the gate for developers and content providers will be making sure the images they use are of high enough quality for the new display. Popluar Science has a little piece on it:
Every developer we've spoken to ultimately views the four-fold resolution increase on the new Retina display as a very good thing. But most now have their work cut out for them to fill all those pixels, which is not a trivial task.
For digital magazines and newspapers, the increased pixel density will bring the new iPad's screen close enough to the dots-per-inch of print that the distinction is basically unnoticeable, which will mean gorgeous visuals and razor-sharp text. Behind the scenes, it won't be tremendously difficult to update magazines (since publications that also exist in print are already dealing with high-resolution files), but it will take some time to adapt them to digital formats. All photos and videos have to be swapped, layouts will have to be adjusted, interfaces may have to be altered, and measures must be taken to ensure that the right version is delivered to the right customer (no sense sending the high resolution version to older iPads).