Apple Including Ultra High Resolution Artwork in Lion for Possible Retina Displays?

[orthorim]

^^ good analysis! It's extrapolating *tons* of information from a single image with higher resolution ... but still it all sounds reasonable.

I think we can safely assume that Apple is not going to make a 40" cinema display. Desktops in general are on the way out, etc - so I think this is clearly for new HD or retina displays. Making enough retina displays to meet demand is going to be challenging no matter how they're introduced. I think they'll gradually arrive in the laptop range - it would make sense to start with a new MBP design, a premium machine for a premium price and lower volumes.

I don't think that Apple has to quadruple pixels for OS X like they have to do for iOS - keep in mind that in iOS every application takes up the entire screen, and is sized to work on the exact iOS screen sizes (now 2, iPhone and iPad). Therefore for iOS it's imperative that pixels double with a higher resolution.

Laptops and desktops don't have that constraint. They'll stay in the same ballpark as they are now - legibility vs. amount of content demands that - but they have a little more flexibility there.

I wonder if they'll have seamless scaling built into the OS, too... probably wishful thinking.

BTW I have a 17" MBP and it's fantastic, but I don't think I'll get one next time around, not with high definition 15" models around. It's the slimmest, lightest, most portable 17" laptop on the market, and comparable in size to many 15" PC laptops - but it's just a little bit too large. I use it as a portable machine and carry it around every day....

 

[bhtooefr]

So, here's the thing. Right now, higher resolution doesn't mean higher quality, it means more desktop area.

Let's say they make a 3200x2000 27" iMac - after all, that's the highest resolution that looks likely to be supported, at this point.

Because of the approach Apple is now using, due to too many programs that would break when vector scaled (look at Windows Presentation Framework, and that was designed from the ground up for vector scaling), everything will have to be pixel quadrupled if they want ANY increase in resolution without making everything smaller.

So, a 3200x2000 27" iMac would have the same desktop area as a 1600x1000 display - everything would be HUGE, and there wouldn't be much desktop area. The alternative would be 140 ppi, going retina at 24.6" - which is pushing it for a desktop, desktops rarely go much past 110 ppi. Something to consider is that OSHA recommends 20-40" viewing distances for a desktop, to prevent eye strain, and such an iMac would be retina for most of that range. While that's good if UI elements are appropriately sized, they won't be, to get decent desktop area.

(Of course, I've got freaky vision (20/120 right eye that needs bifocals to not cause major eyestrain when focusing, but it's a lazy eye, so it's still 20/120, and a 20/20 left eye that, with bifocals on, is more like 20/10), which is why I own a 204 ppi IBM T221, and have a 171 ppi display in my ThinkPad. Right now, I want a 13.3" MBP with either a 2560x1600 or 2732x1536 IPS display. I'd disable the pixel quadrupling support, too, as I'm after more desktop area. They can even leave the integrated graphics in, the Sandy Bridge integrated graphics beat the crap out of the FireGL in my current ThinkPad.)

 

[houkouonchi]

I'm not impressed if this is where the iMac display is potentially going , the current GPUs can barely drive the resolutions they have now in anything other than simple desktop apps . , can you imagine what video card you would need to drive a game (say portal 2 which has low to modest requirements) at 30fps + on a screen with 3200 or higher resloution ? Well whatever that GPU is , apple will ship with the one released 2 years ago and half the RAM it shipped with on the PC .

I love the mac OS , I love the mac design , I hate the "last years tech with a shiney shell" we seem to have to put up with , super high res screens and faster I/O ports are all well and good , but put a decent GPU in now the mac is becoming a contender as a home gaming platform .

Think I ranted a bit then , sorry

LOL, how many years have people been saying this? My dad runs portal on his machine at 3840x2400 and it was getting between 30-50 FPS on a relatively low powered ATI HD5770 (eyefinity 5) video card. A high end video card could do 100 FPS no problem..

 

[bhtooefr]

To be fair, though, Portal is almost 4 years old.

(Then again, modern games tend to be ports from consoles, now, and therefore the progression in hardware requirements has slowed down.)