Retina iMac

Here's what you're missing:

kaellar said:

yet another guy with the magnifying glass to look for those pixels from a very short distance.. at the desktop screen..
that brainless retina-everywhere-mania truly frustrates me.

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Since I switched to retina displays, my eye-strain has completely disappeared. This is no joke nor hyperbole. For people that read text on a monitor all day, the retina display (or comparable res) will be a must-have.

If you've been an software engineer for 10-15yr. and you don't get eye strain from normal monitors.... well, congrats. But it doesn't work that way for everyone, so don't be pretentious.

newalexandria said:

Since I switched to retina displays, my eye-strain has completely disappeared. This is no joke nor hyperbole. For people that read text on a monitor all day, the retina display (or comparable res) will be a must-have.

If you've been an software engineer for 10-15yr. and you don't get eye strain from normal monitors.... well, congrats. But it doesn't work that way for everyone, so don't be pretentious.

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You seem to think that displays fall into only 2 categories, retina and non-retina.

But of course that is nonsense. As someone else stated, the current iMac at normal viewing distances is almost retina as it is. At 2,800 across instead of 2,560 it would be retina. Screen resolution is a question of degree, not yes or no.

So your assumption that non-retina = bad; retina = good is far too simplistic. And of course it makes no allowance for the other screen characteristics such as flicker and PWM noise, which might actually have been the cause of your headaches in the first place, and which might have zero to do with retina.

Of course retina displays can be made in any size desired. It is just a matter of marketing. Apple thought they would make more money selling the old displays.

Apple may have miscalculated as it is clear many people will not buy another Apple product without this feature.

Some people said that standard definition TVs were as good as HD! Why is this silly argument still out there? Shills trying to unload old technology?

The viewing distance thing is just wrong in practice. Better is better at any distance and in any size.

carlgo said:

Of course retina displays can be made in any size desired. It is just a matter of marketing. Apple thought they would make more money selling the old displays.

Apple may have miscalculated as it is clear many people will not buy another Apple product without this feature.

Some people said that standard definition TVs were as good as HD! Why is this silly argument still out there? Shills trying to unload old technology?

The viewing distance thing is just wrong in practice. Better is better at any distance and in any size.

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This is exactly right. Why were huge desktop monitors created in the first place? Because some people needed to see a lot of pixels and if pixel density is low the only way to get there is with a larger surface area. LCDs also made them more affordable than back in the days of CRTs. A retina 21.5 or even 20" would probably be a better experience for 95% of users than the current 27" display. And who really wants a behemoth monitor sitting on their desk anyway.

I find that I prefer using a MBPr 15 over an iMac sitting side by side, even with the Macbook's dinky 15" display. There are days I won't even turn on the iMac because, by comparison, the display looks almost defective. It's an odd thing. You don't realize how good a retina display is until you have to use a display with less than half the resolution. The trend is towards smaller, higher res displays, particularly in smart phones and tablets--with touch capability. I don't need a Mac pro, I'm neutral on a need to touch the screen--although I am finding it pretty handy on my wife's Windows 8 computer, but I definitely will not buy another iMac unless it gets a much higher resolution display--4k (3840/2160) sounds about right and is a useful standard. Using the pixel density of a MBPr 15, the display could be less than 21.5 inches to achieve that.

4K TB Display this year, not 4k/Retina iMac

I think the only major upgrade in the Haswell iMac will be 802.11ac. There will be no Retina/4k iMac this year. Retina/4k displays are expensive and not widely available yet. I think Apple will introduce a 4k Thunderbolt 2 Display alongside the new Mac Pro. The iMac is geared towards the everyday user. Right now, 4k displays are only geared towards professional users. After prices of 4k displays come down in the next year or two, Apple will release a retina/4k iMac.

I think Apple should forget Retina for a little bit and try focusing on their current display line up due to IR problems and other issues with their displays or better yet find a new source for their current line up because I can only imagine the amount of returns they have gone through, and continuously go through due to people still having issues. Perfect the current so you can prepare and make right or better for the future.

tanker5 said:

geared towards

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What does that even mean? A display is a display. The only thing wrong with current 4K displays is they're 32 inch. And the price, which is an early adopter's bubble.

pmarinac said:

This is exactly right. Why were huge desktop monitors created in the first place? Because some people needed to see a lot of pixels and if pixel density is low the only way to get there is with a larger surface area. LCDs also made them more affordable than back in the days of CRTs. A retina 21.5 or even 20" would probably be a better experience for 95% of users than the current 27" display.

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I have to say, the above is utter nonsense.

A 20" screen with say 3960 x 2160 pixels would yield characters so small that you would have to sit impractically close to the screen in order to read anything. So existing retina screens use more pixels to render crisper text, not to give more screen real estate with miniscule text size.

So I am afraid your logic is completely flawed. 95% of people would not enjoy to replacing a 27" screen with a 20 or 21" retina screen, if their objective is plenty of real estate: they wouldn't be able to read it.