How so? Because they bought up all hi-res panel supply? Other manufacturers will catch up sooner or later on this, or they will face sale declines. I don't see how Apple intentionally prevent others from moving to retina displays.
If anything, the rest of the industry has to blame itself for delaying so long and investing so little on good displays. Now they have to bite the bullet by competing with each other for the remaining supply of hi-res displays. Would they see this coming a few years ago when Apple invested heavily for such strategic thing?
They've done that in other parts of the supply chain, but I was thinking more about patents. It wouldn't surprise me to find that they've patented how to have a lot of pixels in a particular geometry.
iFixit seemed to suggest the panel is from LG Phillips. I doubt Apple have much to do with the panel per se, but the actual design of the new cover glass and the way they make it that thin might be patentable.
