Apple's Messages Beta for Mac Includes Retina Sized Artwork

MacRumors · Feb 17, 2012

There has been plenty of evidence that Apple is planning for ultra high resolution Mac displays. In July 2011, we first detailed the existence of a new "HiDPI" mode in OS X Lion. This HiDPI mode was put in place in anticipation of the day that Macs would have double-resolution (4x the number of pixels) "Retina" Displays.

As on the iPhone, Apple's plan was to make it easier on developers to jump to exactly 2x the linear resolution. For example, a 1440x900 pixel screen would go straight to 2880x1800 pixels. This would allow applications to automatically scale up by a factor of two without necessarily having to include high resolution artwork. Apple already made such a transition when going from the iPhone 3GS's screen (320x480) to the iPhone 4's Retina Display (640x960).

In iOS, Developers can include high resolution versions of their artwork designated by the "@2x" suffix. From the developer documentation:

The inclusion of the @2x modifier for the high-resolution image is new and lets the system know that the image is the high-resolution variant of the standard image.

A look at some of the resources from Apple's new Messages app shows several graphics that come in multi-part TIFFs that include regular and double resolution versions. In fact, if you look at the information embedded within the images, you can see the resources were at one point named in the same "@2x" convention. So, it seems Apple's Messages App is already building in support for Retina displays on the Mac.

Rumors have even suggested that we might see our first Retina Display Macs in 2012. One early report claimed Apple was working on a 2880x1800 MacBook Pro for the middle of this year.

Article Link: Apple's Messages Beta for Mac Includes Retina Sized Artwork

patjem · Feb 17, 2012

App crashes

I just removed the app. It crashed and even my whole Mac froze!

MacQuest · Feb 17, 2012

Nice.

I can't wait to see Retina displays on Apple computers.

(there's a reason I didn't say "Macs... what will they be renamed as?)

DESNOS · Feb 17, 2012

This is enough proof for me. Retina macs for 2012.

superfamic0m · Feb 17, 2012

'Retina' resolution would be great! For too long 720p (or there about) has been the norm for laptops.

BobbyRond · Feb 17, 2012

I wonder if Apple makes these little "mistakes" on purpose. Do they want us to discover it? Or is it a genuine mistake to already include the high resolution images?

They must know by now that some people on this planet will try and unveil every secret they are trying to keep...

gkpm · Feb 17, 2012

2012 Year of the Retina

0815 · Feb 17, 2012

Love it - hopefully in a month I will hold an retina display iPad in my hands and maybe by end of the year a retina display MacBook. Only thing missing than to my happiness is a version of iBooks on my Mac (yes, I think there is a use for at least some books on the computer).

gkpm · Feb 17, 2012

BobbyRond said:
I wonder if Apple makes these little "mistakes" on purpose. Do they want us to discover it? Or is it a genuine mistake to already include the high resolution images?

They must know by now that some people on this planet will try and unveil every secret they are trying to keep...

Probably not on purpose. It's just that it would be a LOT of work to clean up every possible trace - you're talking serious CSI here, people find the tiniest of things - so they probably just accept that some things may leak through.

They probably have a list of things that must not get out in ANY WAY and just care about those.

0815 · Feb 17, 2012

patjem said:
I just removed the app. It crashed and even my whole Mac froze!

You are aware that the beta label means 'likely to crash or have problems' ... If you are not comfortable with that, don't even bother installing. I hope you filed a bug report with crash log so that Apple can fix the problem (which is the point of beta releases)

that said, I installed it on three of my macs without any problems (Just wish I also could add my phone number to the list, not only my emails - messages send to my phone number don't show up).

Menopause · Feb 17, 2012

Meow meow, you can almost see the tail of the cat!

kemo · Feb 17, 2012

BobbyRond said:
I wonder if Apple makes these little "mistakes" on purpose. Do they want us to discover it? Or is it a genuine mistake to already include the high resolution images?

They must know by now that some people on this planet will try and unveil every secret they are trying to keep...

its on purpose - its a free promotion dude... we are all talking about it and that's the point

isoMorpheus · Feb 17, 2012

If the iPad 3's screen is thought to be amazing. Just imagine a retina-15-inch MacBook Pro. But can you even imagine a 27 inch retina-display? Everything'd look too damn small right?

igazza · Feb 17, 2012

maybe a 4K iMac this year ?

0815 · Feb 17, 2012

isoMorpheus said:
If the iPad 3's screen is thought to be amazing. Just imagine a retina-15-inch MacBook Pro. But can you even imagine a 27 inch retina-display? Everything'd look too damn small right?

No, nothing will look smaller. That is the whole point of the retina display. Everything will show in greater detail (if supported by the app by suppling higher resolution images/icons) - same size, but more detail.

hppy29 · Feb 17, 2012

kemo said:
its on purpose - its a free promotion dude... we are all talking about it and that's the point

I agree why spend money on advertising... when we all do it for them!

On the downside, it could also put people off purchasing a new mac whilst they wait for a better screen!

djrod · Feb 17, 2012

isoMorpheus said:
If the iPad 3's screen is thought to be amazing. Just imagine a retina-15-inch MacBook Pro. But can you even imagine a 27 inch retina-display? Everything'd look too damn small right?

It would look the same... Why is so many people not understanding what retina like means?

Same screen state but quad the resolution so we see the same but with ultra high detail

Four oF NINE · Feb 17, 2012

I don't know if it's time now to make this kind of move.. Will the developers be able to deal with this obstacle? What if you have an older Mac without retina display?. Are they going to get kicked to the curb?

djrod · Feb 17, 2012

Four oF NINE said:
I don't know if it's time now to make this kind of move.. Will the developers be able to deal with this obstacle? What if you have an older Mac without retina display?. Are they going to get kicked to the curb?

No, developers don't have to make two versions of the same app, only two sets of the app's images. One at normal resolution and another at doyle, hence the @2x for the retina images

Mad Man · Feb 17, 2012

Four oF NINE said:
I don't know if it's time now to make this kind of move.. Will the developers be able to deal with this obstacle? What if you have an older Mac without retina display?. Are they going to get kicked to the curb?

Which obstacle ??? All they have to do is add a graphic in higher resolution - or if they are lazy, they just don't do anything (app would still work and look ok, just less detailed graphics) - none graphical apps would get the benefit without any additional work since fonts would automatically render in higher resolution.

isoMorpheus · Feb 17, 2012

djrod said:
It would look the same... Why is so many people not understanding what retina like means?

Same screen state but quad the resolution so we see the same but with ultra high detail

I do understand. I guess I was thinking more about how incredibly small some pictures that now seem fine would look. Your suspicion does tell me how difficult a time you had with understanding the difference between pixel density and screen resolution. Some offense.

Xenc · Feb 17, 2012

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

Mad Man said:
Four oF NINE said:

I don't know if it's time now to make this kind of move.. Will the developers be able to deal with this obstacle? What if you have an older Mac without retina display?. Are they going to get kicked to the curb?

Click to expand...

Which obstacle ??? All they have to do is add a graphic in higher resolution - or if they are lazy, they just don't do anything (app would still work and look ok, just less detailed graphics) - none graphical apps would get the benefit without any additional work since fonts would automatically render in higher resolution.

If they are lazy? Creating super size assets is not free.

I wonder if "non-retina" apps will look bad on next-gen Macs. Will 1080p video look blurry too?

papaclayts · Feb 17, 2012

iBooks on macbook pro

Only thing missing than to my happiness is a version of iBooks on my Mac (yes, I think there is a use for at least some books on the computer).[/QUOTE]

Hi
You can read from iBooks on your MBP! download Adobe Digital Editions and install. Go to iTunes, highlight the book that you want to read, click on it and click 'open in finder'. When the small box opens, highlight it again, and click on 'open with 'Adobe Digital Editions'. Hey presto, you can read your book,

Mad Man · Feb 17, 2012

Xenc said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

If they are lazy? Creating super size assets is not free.

I wonder if "non-retina" apps will look bad on next-gen Macs. Will 1080p video look blurry too?

And that from someone with an Android Avatar - Android, the master of screen size (resolution) fragmentation causing additional work for developers for no good reason.

And no - nothing will look blurry - it will look the same as on current displays - no need to spread BS

Splen · Feb 17, 2012

I would speculate that the retina display for MacBooks will be a BTO option, at least to begin with; and, moreover will not be cheap. I'd love to be wrong about that though!

Apple's Messages Beta for Mac Includes Retina Sized Artwork

macrumors bot

macrumors regular

macrumors 6502a

macrumors 6502

macrumors newbie

macrumors regular

macrumors 6502

macrumors 68000

macrumors 6502

macrumors 68000

macrumors 6502a

macrumors 6502a

Guest

macrumors 6502a

macrumors 68000

macrumors 6502a

macrumors 65816

macrumors 68000

macrumors 65816

macrumors newbie

Guest

macrumors 65816

macrumors newbie

macrumors newbie

macrumors newbie

Our Staff