Not the actual golden mean. That is 1.618ish. A 1024x633 display would nearly have that ratio.
It has long been shunned in hardware because it requires one row or column of irregular size to implement, which was never a rational decision.
Also, it's the size of two iPhone screens, making it nice and easy to scale up an iPhone app without black borders.
The iPhone is 320 × 480. The iPad is 1024x768. It's not 2x the size of an iPhone. The AR (aspect ratio) is the same as two iPhones sitting with their long edges touching. The resolutions do not make for easy scaling.