Why the iPad doesn't need to double the pixels

You hold a smartphone a foot away from your face.  That’s why a “Retina Display” at 1 foot away has to be >300 PPI.  But few of us hold the iPad a foot from our face.  In fact, Steve Jobs made a point of showing it being used in his lap at the iPad intro event.  That’s 2-3 feet from your eyes.  At 2 feet away, “retina” becomes somewhere between 150 PPI see chart (via) below.

iPad is currently at 132 PPI which would be pretty close to “Retina” at a little over two feet away.  The current Macbook Air is 11.6″ (Widescreen) 1366×768 is 135 PPI by comparison.  Doubling the screen resolution to 2048×1576 would put the screen resolution way into the invisible range at 2 feet.  That doesn’t make a lot of sense, does it?

Perhaps I’m wrong on the 2 feet thing?  Does anyone use the iPad at 1 foot from eyes?

Update: A lot of commenters are 1 footers.  Who knew?

Thanks Dennis D from Rotterdam