Apple's Messages Beta for Mac Includes Retina Sized Artwork

[DESNOS]

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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?

YouTube 4K all the way. It's interesting that after 2012, it looks like there will be no Apple products besides the iPhone and AppleTV not capable of playing 1080p video. Quite a thought! It seems highly likely that Apple's TV set is going to be 1080p at the very least too, so the AppleTV may join the club.

 

[Lesser Evets]

Everytime I hear about the doubling, I think of this 30" Cinema Display I am using and my head spins. If I had this resolution on a 20" screen, I'd use the 20" screen. These 30" jobs are nice, but they are silly-big.

2012 Year of the Retina

I'm hoping the year of Retina and 1080 across the board.
It would be incredible to finally have a mesh of TV/computer/iOS devices that integrate to form a beneficial experience. I'm sure Apple is going there, but they are painfully slow about it.

 

[kemo]

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!

Maybe, maybe not..I believe Apple knows what to do...

 

[arn]

I do understand. I guess I was thinking more about how incredibly small some pictures that now seem fine would look.

Those pictures would be the same size. They would automatically be doubled by the OS.

arn

 

[djrod]

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.

I didn't men to offense you, but every time is a new thread about retina Macs or retina iPads there is a lot of people with the same question : " wouldn't my Mac/iPad look sooo small? ", when in the same article explains it would be 2 images what makes it very logical to think it would be just like in the iPhone

 

[isoMorpheus]

Those pictures would be the same size. They would automatically be doubled by the OS.

arn

That's certainly true. In that case I think it's slightly helpful to talk about two different type of pictures. Sure on the on side, controlled by Apple, things would look wonderful. The app icons, in-app buttons, folder icons, trash can icons, etc, would look great. The other side is what I'm thinking about. A 800x600 picture, on my current MacBook Pro, takes up a bit shy of a third of the screen to display in its full-res. When retina-displays are out, those relatively low-res pictures would take up a little less than something like one sixth of the screen. This is fine at a time when most pictures are "HD," as Steve liked to refer to them as. But a website would need to resize its contents for a front page like the Times to not look ridiculous. And given how much courage they've shown in phasing out Flash, I just wonder how weird many things would look, at least initially. Again, I'm not worried, nor do I think Apple should delay their progress in what is clearly the right direction. I just pause.

 

[MacUser5]

I will give $_______ for a 15" Retina display MacBook Air.

Apple, please fill in whatever number you want.

 

[arn]

A 800x600 picture, on my current MacBook Pro, takes up a bit shy of a third of the screen to display in its full-res. When retina-displays are out, those relatively low-res pictures would take up a little less something like one sixth of the screen.

I don't think that's true.

Your 800x600 pixel image will take up 1/3 of the screen on your current MacBook Pro, and would also take up 1/3 of the screen on your Retina MacBook Pro.

Your 2880x1800 pixel screen would think it's a 1440x900 pixel display. It would just be sharper than a 1440x900 display. All apps would think they are running on a 1440x900 pixel display. It will technically be called a 1440x900 HiDPI mode. For Apps "in the know", they can compensate with double-rez images. For everything else, they will act like they do on a regular 1440x900 screen.

Read this for details: https://www.macrumors.com/2011/07/25/os-x-lions-hidpi-modes-lay-groundwork-for-retina-monitors/

edit: presumably you could run it at a true 2880x1800 rez, in which case everything would be tiny.

arn

 

[iAshley]

[/COLOR]

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'm guessing it's because increasing the resolution on a PC makes everything smaller including icons.

 

[isoMorpheus]

I don't think that's true.

Your 800x600 pixel image will take up 1/3 of the screen on your current MacBook Pro, and would also take up 1/3 of the screen on your Retina MacBook Pro.

Your 2880x1800 pixel screen would think it's a 1440x900 pixel display. It would just be sharper than a 1440x900 display. All apps would think they are running on a 1440x900 pixel display. It will technically be called a 1440x900 HiDPI mode. For Apps "in the know", they can compensate with double-rez images. For everything else, they will act like they do on a regular 1440x900 screen.

Read this for details: https://www.macrumors.com/2011/07/25/os-x-lions-hidpi-modes-lay-groundwork-for-retina-monitors/

edit: presumably you could run it at a true 2880x1800 rez, in which case everything would be tiny.

arn

It's trickier than I thought. I think you are saying that even though the density of pixels on the screen has increased, the picture would look equally large. But I can't help but think that if the resolution has increased, even if by apparent size they look the same, there would still be some visual differences. What the differences would be liked I'm not so sure.

 

[Tarzanman]

I guess its time for me to go on the record about hi PPI ('retina') displays.

I am a current owner of a 30" 2560x1600 monitor. As much as I would *love* to see high resolution displays become mass market devices....I just don't think it will happen.

Right now, 2560x1600 monitors cost about $1000 and up (this is up from ~$800-900). They are 2-3x the price of their similarly sized cousins with 1920x1080 resolutions.

Any high PPI display is going to cost lots and lots of $$$$. If you thought that macbooks were expensive already, then these new displays will kick the msrp even higher.

It's trickier than I thought. I think you are saying that even though the density of pixels on the screen has increased, the picture would look equally large. But I can't help but think that if the resolution has increased, even if by apparent size they look the same, there would still be some visual differences. What the differences would be liked I'm not so sure.

It isn't tricky at all. An image sized to the same physical dimensions on two displays with different resolutions will show more sharpness and detail on the monitor with the higher resolution.

 

[djrod]

It's trickier than I thought. I think you are saying that even though the density of pixels on the screen has increased, the picture would look equally large. But I can't help but think that if the resolution has increased, even if by apparent size they look the same, there would still be some visual differences. What the differences would be liked I'm not so sure.

Iphone 4 has 4x the resolution of the iPhone 3GS, but since it's the same screen size (3.5"), everything looks exactly the same size

 

[parish]

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,

Thanks for the heads-up

Of course ADE won't sync your books with your other devices through iCloud but at least you can read them.

Can't understand why there isn't an iBooks app from Apple though - maybe they don't think people want to read books on a Mac? Or maybe it's a licensing condition of the publishers (too easy to make illegal copies on a computer)?

 

[ipodlover77]

Honest questions for you guys, if apple does make the mac screens "retina" like, does that single handedly kill the purpose of the thunderbolt display? Yeah the TBD may be 27 inches but its resolution and ppi would quiver compared to the "retina" display. Is it size>ppi or the other way around?

 

[Lord Flashheart]

How would a retina display on a McBook Pro affect gaming? Say, for example, WoW. Would it be blurry at non retina resolutions? and how powerful of a video card would be needed for native resolution?

 

[goobot]

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I hope the Retina MacBook pro comes around June.

 

[Four oF NINE]

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I hope the Retina MacBook pro comes around June.

I think an April release would be superior to waiting until June, but I hope they're not going to make everything into an AirBook.. AirBook doesn't have the functionality of a Pro!!

 

[isoMorpheus]

Image

Iphone 4 has 4x the resolution of the iPhone 3GS, but since it's the same screen size (3.5"), everything looks exactly the same size

Right, same size, but icons on the 3GS's look choppier? No?

 

[nickgri]

Retina Sized

Why would they use a tiff when the .png would be smaller-as long as I've ever know jpgs and pngs were much smaller than the same file in tiff-which we only used for print.

 

[DeathChill]

I guess its time for me to go on the record about hi PPI ('retina') displays.

I am a current owner of a 30" 2560x1600 monitor. As much as I would *love* to see high resolution displays become mass market devices....I just don't think it will happen.

Right now, 2560x1600 monitors cost about $1000 and up (this is up from ~$800-900). They are 2-3x the price of their similarly sized cousins with 1920x1080 resolutions.

Any high PPI display is going to cost lots and lots of $$$$. If you thought that macbooks were expensive already, then these new displays will kick the msrp even higher.

This is where Apple's investments in LCD manufacturers going to pay off, along with its massive buying power.

I don't see it as impossible, especially with the iPad 3 likely with a retina display coming next month.

 

[kjs862]

It's really nice to see Apple pushing for high resolution, especially since their display's resolutions have been fairly modest for as long as I been using them (about 10 years).

 

[ABernardoJr]

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

lol I don't really know either to be honest, the iPhone 4 didn't make anything smaller but sometimes it seems that people don't apply that transition from the 3Gs to 4 where things only looked sharper, not smaller, to anything else that gets the Retina Display.

 

[Michael73]

Looking forward to a retina display 30" ACD in matte.

A guy can dream, can't he?!?

 

[iSee]

Right, same size, but icons on the 3GS's look choppier? No?

Yeah, you're getting it:

When an optmized app (includes "@2x" images) runs on a retina display everything looks very sharp.

If an unoptimized app runs on a retina display OR an optimized app runs on a non-retina display it is not so sharp. BUT... it looks no worse than before there were retina displays.

And actually, even an unoptimized app often gets benefits from running on a retina display. That's because stuff that the OS draws, like text, will take advantage of the display.

You're right to be concerned about the quality of unoptimized apps running on a retina display: unoptimized images have to be upscaled to take up the same amount of physical space on the screen. In general upscaling can make an image look worse. But Apple thought that. By making retina displays exactly double the resolution in each direction, the upscaling needed will be exactly 2 x 2. In that special case upscaling looks very good because each pixel in the impage maps exactly to 2x2 pixels on the screen.

 

[JHankwitz]

The thing with retina displays is that you need to get closer and closer to take full advantage of it. How close you need to be to maximize its effect is a function of pixel density. If you were to view a 27" display with pixel density similar to the iPhone 4, you'd have to view it from about 8" away to take advantage of it, which isn't practical.

At some point in time, pixel density may become so great that you could mount two displays in a pair of glasses and experience real lifelike 3D images.