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Mac OS X Lion Building in Support for Super High Resolution 'Retina' Monitors

While I can appreciate that this type of system is far easier to support than generic resolution independence, it's hard for me to imagine when double-res big-screen LCDs are going to become affordable. So, while I could imagine a new 21" iMac with a 2500x1600 (whatever that res is), I have a hard time imagining a 3840 x 2160 display anytime soon. So Lion brings support of *very* high res displays to the present, but pushes support of *practical* high res monitors to the future.

Unless Apple is farther along in developing large-scale Retina displays than we realize. Maybe some of those billions they invested are actually for laptop and/or desktop retina displays, rather than just mobile displays as we've assumed?
 
This would be great even on existing displays, for the vision-impaired... or people like me sitting way back on the sofa!

I prefer the idea of full non-quantized res-independence, but 2x is probably the size I’d use most. If that helps make things easy for developers, I’m OK with the limitation.

And I want a 27” retina-display iMac. Just because.
 
WTF? 15" and 17" MBP already has some of the most high density display around. At regular viewing distance most people won't be able to tell if it's a retina display.
 
Rudy69 said:
Am I the only one who read about the 15" MBP with a 2880x1800 display and thought I would LOVE to leave the display at a 1:1 resolution (no "retina" bs) and just have more screen real estate? :)
Click to expand...
The Menu Bar at the top would then be about 4mm tall. Literally.
 
Rudy69 said:
Am I the only one who read about the 15" MBP with a 2880x1800 display and thought I would LOVE to leave the display at a 1:1 resolution (no "retina" bs) and just have more screen real estate? :)
Click to expand...

I think they should give a choice, for example:

1440 by 900 with retina (so 2880x1800, but displays as if it was 1440x900);
1280 by 800 with retina;
1024 by 768 with retina.

And:

2880x1800 without retina, but more real estate (1:1) (obviously, not very practical due to too small text);
2560x1800 without retina.

Therefore, you can either have:

- Lots of real estate - but blurry - good for design work: Photoshop, video editing etc;
- Sharp text / pictures - but less real estate - good for web browsing, Word / Pages, Powerpoint / Keynote, reading etc;
- "Less" real estate and blurry - to save battery life, or for games, as a mobile GPU powering a 2880x1800 (retina or not), really? Enough said.

Let me show you something:
Screen-Shot-2011-02-24-at-6.37.49-PM.png


How big do you need spotlight results?
We're not that blind, but I suppose, for the MBA's screen resolution and for touch screens (iMac Touch).
 
If apple will release retina displays, there will be no-one that could compete. I would absolutely love a 17" 1920x1200 with a 3840x2400 retina display.
I couldn't care if apple release c2d's with a retina display, I'd still buy it if it were the same price. But Apple are being reasonable now with their RAM, GPU and CPU. The quad i7's on the 15/17" MBP are very good, I am only disappointed the 13" MBP has a low clock speed, and no 1440x900 display. :(
I also thought the new models should have come with a 128gb SSD standard, even if they solder it onto a chip to save space, it would be much better than a 5400rpm. :)
 
InfoTime said:
I bet you're not yet 40 years old.
Click to expand...

I wear glasses. I need to look into contacts though, getting tired of the glasses after 25 odd years of wearing them.

InfoTime said:
By the time you're 50 you'll be glad that manufacturers addressed the dpi issue. I provide support for lots of 50+ year old computer users. Nearly every one of them wants their display set to make the print larger, optimal resolution be damned. It would be nice for them to buy a bigger display and get bigger AND sharper images (not bigger but jaggier).
Click to expand...

Then they just need a 1920x1200 27" monitor. Duplo pixels galore. Heck, the 24" LED ACD I owned for a few weeks wasn't doing it for me, huge pixels... the 23" 2048x1156 monitor I got to replace it is a bit better, but I'm eyeing dual 21" 1920x1200 monitors.
 
Rudy69 said:
Am I the only one who read about the 15" MBP with a 2880x1800 display and thought I would LOVE to leave the display at a 1:1 resolution (no "retina" bs) and just have more screen real estate? :)
Click to expand...

You can almost get that now. Get a 27" iMac and be happy.

I for one would love to see sharper text and photos on the screen.

However, I hope Apple goes for true resolution independence. It's time things were measured in real units and not varying pixel sizes.
 
Ah, the perennial 'resolution independence' tease surfaces again, but this time with a 2011 twist.
 
wouldnt this mean the GPU has to work much harder.... and all apps would need to support it or programs which means if they didnt support it and you were so used to the x 2 res then youd feel like you were looking at a calculator screen seeing apps not utilising it....

And going into games etc games would never support those kind of resolutions simply because theres nothing capable to render real time game engines at that state at any sort of reasonable frame rate.
 
What was wrong with vector defined graphics? Letters, numbers etc. are already defined that way in OSX isn't it? Is it that difficult to create icons with vectors? Then they could support any arbitrary resolution. Does anybody know why this was deemed impractical?
 
InfoTime said:
I bet you're not yet 40 years old.

By the time you're 50 you'll be glad that manufacturers addressed the dpi issue. I provide support for lots of 50+ year old computer users. Nearly every one of them wants their display set to make the print larger, optimal resolution be damned. It would be nice for them to buy a bigger display and get bigger AND sharper images (not bigger but jaggier).
Click to expand...

Meanwhile Dell sells (or sold) a very reasonable 27" 1920x1200 monitor.


theBB said:
What was wrong with vector defined graphics? Letters, numbers etc. are already defined that way in OSX isn't it? Is it that difficult to create icons with vectors? Then they could support any arbitrary resolution. Does anybody know why this was deemed impractical?
Click to expand...

It's not icons and graphics; lots of icons are available in 512 x 512 pixels and would look fine at any resolution. It's code that assumes everything is a whole number of pixels. Someone writes code to draw ten horizontal black lines, each one pixel wide, one pixel apart. Now increase the dpi by 25%. You want ten horizontal lines, each 1.25 pixel wide, 1.25 pixel apart. And that isn't possible (you can use anti-aliasing, but then it looks rubbish). The app developer has to take care of this properly, and they don't.
 
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KnightWRX said:
Am I the only one left on this earth who buys monitors with higher pixel counts to fit more information on the screen, not to make things "sharper" ? I like the way it works now, more pixels = smaller fonts, smaller pictures, smaller everything so more of it shows up.

My MBA still has huge pixels and could use a higher DPI screen and shrink everything so I can display more.
Click to expand...

Look at the text in the tabs in Safari - you really want that at half the size? If that looks find to you, then good for you - I am envious of your eyesight.
 
But I want the interface objects to be smaller... The menubar is a lot necessary than it has to be, at least for me with my eyes. I wish there was a choice to make it smaller. :)
 
I'm still hoping for real and absolute resolution independence, scaling the UI continuously (just how we can scale the dock, nowadays).

I'm rooting for a 100% vector based UI, too: much more elegant solution for a resolution independent UI, potentially better results in all scales and lightweight (memory-wise but also processor/graphics-wize when using effects or animations on the UI).
 
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gorjan said:
I'm onboard too. I want more screen real estate, the sharpness of icons and text is good enough for me. If you can read the letters, maybe it's time to get glasses?
Click to expand...

Look at the text in the Safari tabs, or the toolbar on this very site. (The one that says "User CP, FAQ/Rules, Community, ...". Do you think it'll be ok for that text to be half the size it is now. I note that Safari won't even let you shrink the fonts that small.
 
hayesk said:
Look at the text in the tabs in Safari - you really want that at half the size? If that looks find to you, then good for you - I am envious of your eyesight.
Click to expand...

-3.75, -0.75 in one eye and -3.25 in the other ? You're jealous of my eyesight ?

I use chrome, and the tab text is even smaller. Yes, it could be smaller still.
 
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