No Retina Display in Next-Generation iMac?

[Roller]

Even the UK has officially adopted the metric system; besides, I don't understand why people still refer to "inches" and "feet" in an international forum, when we should at the very least have both standards indicated for the sake of non-US/Burma/Liberia readers.

Not in aviation. As you're boarding your next flight, tell
the pilot when commanded by ATC to "descend and maintain 5,000" to ask the controller if they're referring to feet or meters and see what they say. (There are only a few exceptions in the air, and some on the ground.)

 

[kiljoy616]

A photographer can see more of the image, so they do not have to scroll as much.

For me as an app developer, I will be able to see a retina iPad at full resolution on screen. Currently a developer has to go through the build process and deploy to the device to do that. That takes many times longer. Iteration time is critical for being able to polish an app as much as possible.

Two ways in which a retina screen would make people more productive. It doesn't take long to think of more.

Imagine games on something like that. Sure non right now but once out who knows what some companies would do. The whole we don't need something reminds me of the difference between console players and their 600 or so resolution games and playing the same game in 1900x1200 resolution its night and day if the game is done right. I personally can imagine games with all those perfect pixels and no needs for processing to hide the imperfections. Its one of the things I do love about the new iPad 3.

Bring it Apple I am sure plenty of people will figure how to use all those pixels. Who cares what the PC world side is doing or what they want.

 

[akbarali.ch]

Thats fine

That's fine Apple....unleash the new imacs without retina...cant wait longer..

 

[Randomoneh]

"None of you are familiar with studies behind 4K, 8K resolutions? Limits of human visual system (expressed as angular resolution)? No?"

99% of people go off their experience rather than physics I do too

You most probably never had an opportunity to look at a display with angular resolution of 300+ pixels per degree at normal distance. They [participants in the study] had.

yeah, I think the differences past the "retina" of the iphone are minimal, but studies do show that people with good vision can see pixels down to .3 arc minutes, and the iphone's pixels are 3x that size at about 1 arc minute.

why retina isn't enough

First, difference isn't minimal. Difference is very big. You could say difference between 100 and 400 pixels per degree isn't huge. However, there still is a difference and that difference matters. Why? Here's a quote:

"The higher the angular resolution, the greater the sense of realness, and the sense greatly saturates above about 60 cpd [120 ppd]; above 155 cpd [310 ppd] - images are essentially indistinguishable from the real object."

I would love to know how my inability to discern pixels from my standard viewing distance (~20-24") is in fact me seeing pixels.

Not seeing pixelation doesn't mean your eyes can't appreciate higher resolution image, as pointed out by graphs up there.

I don't think the difference of backlighting should make that kind of difference.

Yeah, higher the contrast - pixels are distinguished more easily.

 

[imacericg]

So to some up this thread:
- The current iMac may, or may not be Retina
- Lots of fuzzy math
- Arguments on measurement system
- Any update is overdue

Did I get everything?

 

[mkimid]

Retina display in iMac ? For what ?

 

[gnasher729]

Only in "Best for Retina" mode. What's to say you won't have a scaling factor that provides 2560x1440 like the MBPR has for 1920x1200 ?

Yes, a 3840x2160 iMac 27" might make sense considering this (they did use the "low-res 1440x900" for the MBPR 15" after all).

Let's do the maths:

On the Retina MBP, we have 2880x1800 pixels displaying 1440x900 points as default, with optional 1680x1050 and 1920x1200. So the number of pixels is multiplied by 1/2, 7/12th, or 2/3rds. If an iMac had a 3840x2400 display, that could be used with the same scaling factors to show 1920x1200, 2240x1400, or 2560x1600.

And since 3840x2400 on a 27 inch display would be bigger pixels, it would make some sense to actually enable non-retina 3840x2400 mode. More sense than 2880x1800 on the Retina MBP. Now imagine if the updated Spaces so that each space can have a different mode. Do your e-mail in 1920x1200, programming in 2560x1600, and image editing in 3840x2400, in different spaces.

 

[Moonjumper]

Retina display in iMac ? For what ?

There are many reasons, but one is very important to me - less eyestrain. The clearer text of a retina display is much easier on the eyes.

Clarity is so much better on my iPhone than my Mac. The drop in eyestrain when I changed from my iPhone 3G to my iPhone 4 was massive. I don't expect such as big leap and my Mac is not so bad, but it will still be a significant.

Mobile screen quality always used to lag far behind computer screens. It is the other way at the moment. I hope that is sorted soon on a computer I want.

 

[Confuzzzed]

Absolute rubbish. I just sold my Windows machine to buy an iMac. The Windows based PC ran as fast after three years as the day I bought it. I was never infected with any malware of any kind. Technology becomes obsolete no matter what OS it runs. There are plenty of Macs out there that will not run Mountain Lion in the the same way there are plenty of computers that will not run Windows 8. Both will run the software they came with as fast as the day they were purchased.

This sort of uneducated Mac v PC rubbish is tiresome and unhelpful. (Macs ARE PCs by the way)

You must be the only person I know who has had that sort of experience with windows based PCs. Maybe try using one on a busy network, within the daily realities of enterprise computing. Then we'll see what state your windows based PC will be after 18 months, never mind 3 years. Now, do tell us also what depreciation did you suffer on your 3 year old PC? Unless very specialist / high end, I suspect >90%. With your new iMac, I suspect it'll be less than 40% after 3 years....Depreciation should tell you something, if your own instinct after using an iMac all of 3 weeks (you bought it on 11 June) won't tell you...

 

[MACdaddy859]

I grew up with PC's. I built several of my own while going through high school and college. I had a crush on the Aqua interface, even trying to replicate it on my PC. Finally, I became a Mac user with my first laptop, a 2005 12" Powerbook G4. I figured a laptop would be a good place to start with the Apple world (along side my iPod of course). I now use a 2010 13" Macbook Pro, Apple TV 3, iPhone 4, and a donated 2006 Mac Mini. I put a 750GB HD in my MBP, but I am still running out of space.

Long story short, I want a desktop again. I want it to be the home of all my data (additional Thunderbolt drives may be needed but iMacs don't move, so you don't really notice extra external drives), AppleTV/Music server, desk computer, and processing powerhouse. The MacPro's remind me of what building PC's was like, but they are very expensive and probably overkill for me.

Regardless of a Retina display, a new, powerful iMac sounds great!

So...

Image

Lol ummmmm the first half of this post was unesscesary. I feel like you're just trying to tell everyone what you got

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You must be the only person I know who has had that sort of experience with windows based PCs. Maybe try using one on a busy network, within the daily realities of enterprise computing. Then we'll see what state your windows based PC will be after 18 months, never mind 3 years. Now, do tell us also what depreciation did you suffer on your 3 year old PC? Unless very specialist / high end, I suspect >90%. With your new iMac, I suspect it'll be less than 40% after 3 years....Depreciation should tell you something, if your own instinct after using an iMac all of 3 weeks (you bought it on 11 June) won't tell you...

Windows 7 isn't bad. It's just how people take care of them.

 

[frank8880]

Lol ummmmm the first half of this post was unesscesary. I feel like you're just trying to tell everyone what you got

I don't think so because what he has is pretty ******, not trying to be rude, LOL but it is

 

[JayLenochiniMac]

I for one am buying a non retina MacBook pro next week. I just want to be able to turn it on and go to work. I don't want to scale anything or change resolutions for different situations or anything like that. I just want everything to look right no matter what I'm doing or what site I'm visiting.

That makes no sense. It'll display everything at the set resolution (which is scaled from the retina resolution), just as it does on the non-retina MBP.

 

[KnightWRX]

I don't think it's a fair comparison. The rMBP doesn't use RAM modules (RAM is soldered), and the flash modules may very well cost Apple as much as the base hard drive in the non-retina model. It's about Apple's cost, not what they charge. They likely need that extra margin from the flash and RAM cost savings to add retina and not have a $3k notebook.

What makes you think those improvements won't filter into the iMacs ? If they save costs...

But frankly what is costly about RAM and flash storage is the actual memory chips, not the plastic PCB, casing and connector parts. The OWC blade SSDs (for MBA) is more expensive than other SSDs on the market. So no, Apple seems quite happy with their margins while keeping the Retina prices low.

 

[thekev]

What makes you think those improvements won't filter into the iMacs ? If they save costs...

But frankly what is costly about RAM and flash storage is the actual memory chips, not the plastic PCB, casing and connector parts. The OWC blade SSDs (for MBA) is more expensive than other SSDs on the market. So no, Apple seems quite happy with their margins while keeping the Retina prices low.

I'm kind of expecting it to filter in. I'm just not confident that we'll see it this year.

 

[KnightWRX]

I'm kind of expecting it to filter in. I'm just not confident that we'll see it this year.

I'm less and less confident we'll see anything new for Macs this year at all (iMac/Mac Mini/Mac Pro). They should have updated them to Ivy Bridge at least by now, wonder what's the hold up.

 

[xgman]

The 27" display res is fine with me. I don't really care about retina, I do care about glare though. I'd take a matte finish over retina any day.

 

[thekev]

I'm less and less confident we'll see anything new for Macs this year at all (iMac/Mac Mini/Mac Pro). They should have updated them to Ivy Bridge at least by now, wonder what's the hold up.

I'm really not sure. Obviously Ivy isn't a huge bump, but everything should be kept up to date. Small cpu bump + usb3 + gpu bump is still significant imo. Apple always seems to stagger releases though. They could wait until Mountain Lion, but this will make some people wait longer. It takes time to see applications fully up to date for a new OS revision combined with the need for initial bug fixes. I personally favor stability over newness when it comes to OS revisions. What irritates me is when some people on here suggest that Apple has limited resources and updating Macs is too taxing on them. Every company has limits, but a pin compatible hardware refresh is not taxing. There are just too many tech illiterate posters.

 

[69650]

Are you missing my point on purpose ? The whole point is that the Retina display does not seem to add any "extra costs" to the MBP. If you read the post I was replying to, it was implying a "Retina iMac would be costly". I simply provided evidence that it wouldn't be much pricier than the current iMac.

Gah, I guess you can't ever be subtle around here.

I understand your point but you are not making a fair comparison. If you take the new MBP and upgrade the spec to the same as the MBP Retina it works out more expensive. But that assumes that I would want to upgrade the spec.

The point I was making was that £1800 and £2300 for the new MBP Retina is simply too expensive for most people. The fact that the new non-Retina MBP with an upgrade spec would cost £2000 or whatever is immaterial - that's even more of a rip off. It doesn't mean (as you seem to want to suggest) that the new MBP Retina is somehow a bargain. It's still too expensive whichever way you look at it and in my view it will not sell in huge numbers just like the old 17" MBP didn't sell in huge numbers because that was also too expensive.

IMHO Apple has lost all sense of perspective with it's MBP pricing. It's no coincidence that the best selling MBP over the past few years is also the cheapest (13"). £2300 for a 15" laptop. It's just crazy. Thank god there are cheaper options with the 13" MBP and MBA otherwise I would have jump ship back to Windows.

 

[slicecom]

IMHO Apple has lost all sense of perspective with it's MBP pricing. It's no coincidence that the best selling MBP over the past few years is also the cheapest (13"). £2300 for a 15" laptop. It's just crazy. Thank god there are cheaper options with the 13" MBP and MBA otherwise I would have jump ship back to Windows.

I remember paying over $2000 for my 12" base model PowerBook in 2003. Apples prices have gotten much more aggressive over the years. I wouldn't say they've lost perspective with their pricing at all. MacBook Pros are meant for PRO's, who typically have higher demands, and higher income to spend for said demands.

 

[7709876]

You must be the only person I know who has had that sort of experience with windows based PCs. Maybe try using one on a busy network, within the daily realities of enterprise computing. Then we'll see what state your windows based PC will be after 18 months, never mind 3 years. Now, do tell us also what depreciation did you suffer on your 3 year old PC? Unless very specialist / high end, I suspect >90%. With your new iMac, I suspect it'll be less than 40% after 3 years....Depreciation should tell you something, if your own instinct after using an iMac all of 3 weeks (you bought it on 11 June) won't tell you...

Macs hold their value better - that is a completely different point altogether.

 

[KnightWRX]

I understand your point but you are not making a fair comparison. If you take the new MBP and upgrade the spec to the same as the MBP Retina it works out more expensive. But that assumes that I would want to upgrade the spec.

Look, that's Apple's MO. They don't do 300$ laptops, they don't do "reduced specs". To get a proper comparison, you have to match the specs and at comparable spec levels, the Retina is essentially free. That was the point. You're looking into it at levels it was never meant to be looked at, derailing the topic to bring to places it's never been and doesn't to go.

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I'm really not sure. Obviously Ivy isn't a huge bump, but everything should be kept up to date. Small cpu bump + usb3 + gpu bump is still significant imo. Apple always seems to stagger releases though. They could wait until Mountain Lion, but this will make some people wait longer. It takes time to see applications fully up to date for a new OS revision combined with the need for initial bug fixes. I personally favor stability over newness when it comes to OS revisions. What irritates me is when some people on here suggest that Apple has limited resources and updating Macs is too taxing on them. Every company has limits, but a pin compatible hardware refresh is not taxing. There are just too many tech illiterate posters.

I'm starting to think Apple is following some old advice it received some 16 years ago :

If I were running Apple, I would milk the Macintosh for all it's worth — and get busy on the next great thing. The PC wars are over. Done. Microsoft won a long time ago.

Seems to me Mac laptops and iDevices are their main area of focus nowadays. The Mini, the iMac and the Mac Pro are starting to look like after thoughts more and more. Sad refreshes (the mini case design was a silent update last time), minor spec bumps, late revisions.

 

[Eriamjh1138@DAN]

Retina displays are obviously one place where Apple is trying to make it's hardware stand out above PCs. Can one even buy a 27" display with the same 2560X1440 resolution as the 27" iMac?

As far as resolution goes, I think a retina iMac display at 3840x2160 would be nice. It would be four 1080p displays and 8.2 megapixels. The current iMac is only 3.6MP.

But everyone fails to notice that these panels DO NOT EXIST. No one makes them and sells them. For Apple to sell them, they have to be manufactured efficiently enough to sell for the right price. Apple has billion$ to invest in manufacturing new panels like that. No one else does.

And if it doesn't make sense, Apple won't do it.

 

[Tezcatlipoca]

I've now heard from multiple sources that while an iMac update is indeed coming this fall, it will not have Retina displays.

This fall? Eh? If the next iMac does not have a Retina display, then why on Earth would Apple wait until the fall?

 

[KnightWRX]

Can one even buy a 27" display with the same 2560X1440 resolution as the 27" iMac?

Hum... yeah, several in fact.

 

[hayesk]

Windows 7 isn't bad. It's just how people take care of them.

Window XP was bad. Vista was bad. What user interface advances are in Windows 7 that make the user more productive and using it more enjoyable?

People always say that the previous versions of Windows were bad, but the current one is great. Yet, other than the ribbon (which is a horrible compensation for badly designed menu bars in Windows and Office), there hasn't been any substantial user iterface changes since Windows95.