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A Closer Look at the New MacBook Pro's Retina Display
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Thanks for the explanation. So I was thinking of getting the 13.3 inch air over the 11 inch because the 11inch has 1366 by 768 and the 13 inch has 1440 by 900. Will i have more "useable" space on the 13inch?
No matte display, no purchase
No matte display, no purchase. At least as an option. Even if more expensive. Sign the petition at MacMatte (matte petition) http://macmatte.wordpress.com
No matte display, no purchase. At least as an option. Even if more expensive. Sign the petition at MacMatte (matte petition) http://macmatte.wordpress.com
Both of those devises aren't retina so yes, you would theoretically get more space on the 13" as you'd have a taller screen. The difference here is that the 11" and the 13" have different display sizes, whereas previous MBP 15" had the same size space to use, but at optimum retina-ness it's just crisper. It's exactly the same technology used in the iPhone and iPad - the size of the device hasn't changed, the screen just got a whole lot crisper.
Yes. You will have more actual workspace on the 13".
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I take it you're one of those people who can't see the difference between 480p and 1080p.
The screen is reportedly not as glossy as the current MBP. I would check it out first before wasting your energy on a stupid petition.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5998/macbook-pro-retina-display-analysis
I think it is just like the macbook air. Everything is soldered in.
Space for a second drive?
If you want an HD and an SSD you're better off buying the regular MBP and swapping the OD for an SSD aftermarket.
I'm thinking that. Come to think of it - the MBP 15" with hi res matte and now with USB3 is actually exactly what I need. Or maybe even a good deal on the 17". I still don't get why people complained about fonts being too small and such. I'm over 40 and I wear glasses - and I still find that pretty much everything on a Mac looks ridiculously huge and as if made for the visually impaired. Logos, fonts, screen elements - really everything. So in that the 1920x1200 (if working for Photoshop and such) would be even better at 15" for me. But I think the inability to swap anything later makes it a deal breaker. I don't care if it's thin or not. Plus it just doesn't have enough space no matter what. Photos, videos, audio recording files eat up tons of space so there is no way going back to such small drives.
The pixel-doubling and HiDPI stuff is basically an admission that they failed at resolution independence; this is also shown that, as I argued somewhere above, the fact that you can't really change the sizes of UI elements, in particular of fonts, throughout the system, as was possible e.g. on the Amiga, which, in particular with the MUI library, was much closer to true resolution independence than the Mac is...
no, just the difference between a line drawn with a pencil and one made with a brushed aluminum pencil.
But if it enables the same basic end result, does it really matter? The "render at double size and scale final output up or down" method is easier on the developer side and has no ill effects for the end user, especially when the panels are so much higher res than what came before. You can now "scale" the UI to different sizes. No, you can't do it to individual elements, but that was never part of Apple's design goals for OS X's interface. In that sense OS X is "less advanced" than Windows 3.1.
I was thinking that myself, but I think that's not the case: what's actually happening is that OS X is using larger or smaller interface elements, and scaling text accordingly too.
It's not actually doing what other screens would do at smaller-than-native resolutions, which is basically representing each software pixel with more than one hardware pixel with interpolation, which makes things look bad.
I think in every case, every individual hardware pixel on the screen acts as a single software pixel, and it is only the interface elements that get scaled bigger or smaller, actually changing their level of detail.
So for example, if you choose the "bigger text" option, buttons also get bigger, but without losing resolution: they instead are more detailed, bigger versions of the button. The "more space" option will give you smaller text, and smaller interface elements. This is just like when you pinch to zoom in and out in Safari: the text actually gets more detailed when you zoom in, and not pixellated, because it's being re-rendered at a higher resolution. So do the interface elements, and the only thing that can't be scaled perfectly are images.
By the way, will a website that has been designed to be 500 pixels wide be automatically scaled to be actually 1000 pixels wide, using the "retina" setting?
Not quite. The "Larger Text" option renders the OS X desktop at 2048 x 1280 (in HiDPI mode, so with 2x text and widgets and so forth) internally and then scales it UP to the panel's native 2880 x 1900. So, in "Bigger Text" mode on this panel, things will be slightly fuzzy. But my guess is that slight fuzziness will be hidden by the fact that the panel is so high-res and the HiDPI mode still will look way better than an old-style 1024 x 640 screen scaled up to a non-Retina 1440 x 900 panel. And since this mode is pretty much tailor-made for people with poor eyesight, I doubt the tiny amount of blurriness from upscaling will be noticed at all.
Conversely, in "More Space" mode, it'll be rendered at 3840 x 2400 in HiDPI mode and then scaled DOWN to 2880 x 1080. So individual interface elements will have less detail than they would at the native resolution, but each individual display pixel will still have unique content, so to speak (rather than stretched content across multiple display pixels).
But if it enables the same basic end result, does it really matter? The "render at double size and scale final output up or down" method is easier on the developer side and has no ill effects for the end user, especially when the panels are so much higher res than what came before. You can now "scale" the UI to different sizes. No, you can't do it to individual elements, but that was never part of Apple's design goals for OS X's interface. In that sense OS X is "less advanced" than Windows 3.1.
Well, I would have liked the flexibility of true scaling like with MUI on the Amiga, for example because it allows an individual setting for each application.
And it would save some battery if the 1680x1050-simulation-mode didn't have to render at 3360x2100 and then scale down, but you could get the same look and feel by selecting an appropriately sized base-font that everything is adapted to.
But yeah, they didn't shoot so high, and at least they seem to have finally managed this dumbed-down resolution-independence, and the new display must be really great!
Perhaps if I wait a bit there will be an update with a pixel-doubled 1680x1050 display instead of the current 1440x900 ;-)
It will be scaled. Just imagine what happens when you visit a website on The New iPad. Same thing.
This is a very exciting and somewhat awkward moment for those in the web development business because we now have to target more screens than ever, and delivering an optimized viewing experience for those with HiDPI displays will be difficult.
We're also moving into a time where we may just start thinking in terms of 'inches' regarding display real estate instead of pixels. It doesn't apply quite yet, but a few years down the road when HiDPI becomes common for new hardware we will begin to approach screen design more like we do the physical page.
not any time soon... a 2200 laptop on a company that hold 4% share will not even be a blip on the analytics of a site. It would be a waste of time and energy for me to put my designers to deal optimizing viewing experience with this nonsense any time soon.
Thanks for explaining! So for example, in Photoshop, the only way to avoid trouble with software image pixels not being real pixels is to use the default Retina setting? Otherwise if you'd paint a single 1-pixel black dot on the canvas, you'd either end up seeing it as a faint grey pixel as it's supposed to be smaller than a pixel, or as more than one pixel?
I guess true resolution independence is impossible to achieve today, since many things simply can't be vector-based, like images. But wouldn't it be easy to design a vector-based OS interface? Then only images would be scaled, and pretty much everything else would be perfectly crisp at any size?
It's very useful for some people (professionals and photographers) but apparently not you. Even if I didn't need it, I'd buy it if I had money to burn just because it looks so great.
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That's annoying to do, and it abuses the return system. I just want to go to the Apple Store and try it out. Do they have them there yet? Because tomorrow, I have to go there anyway to ask them why my mom's MacBook Pro's CPU went above boiling point when I used 90% of the CPU power.
Wait......... can someone confirm or deny..
Can I use this new Retina Macbook in 'normal' 2880 x 1800 pixels? As in, seeing four times as much screen real-estate? I understand everything would be teeny, but that's okay.
Possible?
In other words, can I disable the hiDPI mode?
Can I use this new Retina Macbook in 'normal' 2880 x 1800 pixels? As in, seeing four times as much screen real-estate? I understand everything would be teeny, but that's okay.
Possible?
In other words, can I disable the hiDPI mode?