Retina Displays Also Coming to Next-Generation iMac?

[BK.]

Having a retina display while actually losing screen real estate seems a bit counterintuitive...

This. I was hoping they'd up the 13" MBP to 1440x900 as standard and then retina-ify it, and make the 15" MBP 1680x1050 by default and then retina-ify that.

I (personally, before anyone comes for my throat) would prefer retina AND more physical space on screen, or if I had to choose, just more physical space on screen.

I'm not too fussed about retina. Sure it's cool, but it isn't a replacement for more physical work space. I'd rather make the 13" more usable (multi-tasking on the 13" is slow purely because of the amount of time you have to spend flicking between windows/Mission Control/etc.) and have the 15" have the high-res screen without having to BTO.

 

[JustMartin]

You and the rest of the internet can go on a regular pc with regular resolution monitor. Apple is not pushing down Retina down your throat.

Actually Apple isn't pushing any large Retina displays at all right now.

I think all this reports tells us is that there are ABC reporters reading these forums as well

 

[One Bad Duck]

I reckon this news is deliberately "control leaked"

I think this news was control leaked to those "reliable" resources by Apple to warn developers that this is coming. This is a substantial upgrade but doesn't want its most loyal of developers to be caught behind..

 

[mrsir2009]

It's all action.

 

[BK.]

Also, to the people talking about gaming and how it won't be possible on these resolutions blahblahblah.

You're. Buying. A. Mac.

They're not the gamers choice. Sure, you might be able to game on some of them reasonably well, but if your main consideration is gaming and you're considering a Mac then you're dumb.

The high-end models at the moment can cope decently well with gaming but this is the one thing that a Windows PC will do better 98% of the time.

You can't buy a Mac and then complain about it not gaming well. It'd be like installing Linux and crying because you can't get Microsoft Word to work properly on it.

 

[dylin]

This has certainly rustled my jimmies

 

[Liddle]

This has certainly rustled my jimmies

 

[Millah]

Also, it would be a huge step backwards to make the 27" a doubled 1920x1080 monitor. You would have a very sharp image that had the same desk space as the current 21". Not good.

To you maybe. Some people don't like the huge empty spaces on both sides when Safari is full screen. I'd much rather have larger, much sharper text and UI elements. A 1920x1080 workspace is enough for most.

However, seeing as the current 27" workspace would be a resolution size smaller than the HiDPI mode, I imagine you'd be able to lower the resolution and have a larger 1x workspace.

Seems like a huge step forward to me.

 

[MizuInOz]

Hmmm

I didn't know that Joanna Stern and ABC News were a part of the planning, design, implementation, production and marketing groups of Apple.

Sounds like wishful stinking on her part. NO ONE KNOWS outside of the people on the inside of Apple.

Period...

Well, this is the MacRumor site - so, rumors abound!

In regards to a retina display in an iMac... waste of money, time, effort and technology. On a laptop (MacBook Pro or macBook Air) - Hell yes!!! in a heartbeat!!!

 

[iMcLovin]

I want a 30" retina display iMac with all the juicy hardware you can get. I want a screen I can use as a desktop without having fullscreen, were I can just put stuff around wihout feeling of layers of layers with stuff hiding behind eachother.

 

[Millah]

Also, to the people talking about gaming and how it won't be possible on these resolutions blahblahblah.

You're. Buying. A. Mac.

They're not the gamers choice. Sure, you might be able to game on some of them reasonably well, but if your main consideration is gaming and you're considering a Mac then you're dumb.

The high-end models at the moment can cope decently well with gaming but this is the one thing that a Windows PC will do better 98% of the time.

You can't buy a Mac and then complain about it not gaming well. It'd be like installing Linux and crying because you can't get Microsoft Word to work properly on it.

Actually, no. You can game cheaper on a PC, but a Mac isn't incapable of gaming. It does it rather well. Unless you're the most hardcore of PC gamer, then yea, but a hardcore PC gamer probably doesn't like Apple to begin with.

Didn't Diablo 3 just launch today, for both PC and Mac? I can't think of a higher profile PC game than D3.

----------

I didn't know that Joanna Stern and ABC News were a part of the planning, design, implementation, production and marketing groups of Apple.

Sounds like wishful stinking on her part. NO ONE KNOWS outside of the people on the inside of Apple.

Period...

Well, this is the MacRumor site - so, rumors abound!

In regards to a retina display in an iMac... waste of money, time, effort and technology. On a laptop (MacBook Pro or macBook Air) - Hell yes!!! in a heartbeat!!!

It's called a controlled leak. Apple does this all the time. And given the surge of news today about Macs, it's almost guaranteed Apple did a controlled leak today.

 

[d0vr]

Bad squishy.. I mean bad mac rumors!

Don't get us all excited with this much news in one day!! We'll all be very disappointed if there isn't retina displays for everyone come June.









Sooooo much high res goodness... Soooo excited.... Never been this excited for a display in my life :/

 

[irishgrizzly]

I think the idea of it for general use is nice, but it's gonna really suck for games, the last gen type video cards Apple typically uses in their machines are gonna have a hard time rendering at those resolutions.

Just turn down the resolution for games?

 

[rogan]

retina can screw off if it means less real estate, thats 100% dumb

 

[beowulf70]

love Mac rumors, after months of iStories

amen to that

 

[Winni]

Wow. If they make the whole Apple linup Retina they will be so ahead of the game :0
Apple out-spec'ing most pcs on the market... Who'd have thought

You do know that Apple do not develop the displays themselves but buy the technology from other companies like LG and Samsung?

 

[d0vr]

Using half the resolution of a 2X display looks identical because one pixel at the lower resolution maps exactly to 2x2 pixels of the higher resolution. That's why the iPhone and iPad doubled the resolution: Because old graphics looks identical as before, not worse, and new graphics looks better.

You're assuming a doubled resolution in every display though. Whilst this would extremely appreciated by many, especially as you can just run anything using 1x graphics as easily as you said, I wouldn't be placing too many bets right now on a straight 2x retina display.

 

[leman]

I see no point in increasing the resolution of the iMac without increasing the screen size. The iMacs are already 'retina' at their respective view distances and an increased resolution won't give you any more work space (unless you want to read your text with a magnifying glass). The downsizes would be higher power consumption and production costs. Besides, there are no monitor panels in production which would satisfy the demand, and I highly doubt that Apple managed to build a secret retina display panel lab — they don't have the technology to build panels like that given that experienced monitor makers only now start experimenting with those.

 

[d0vr]

To be honest I doubt a hidpi display is coming to the iMacs. it would be very expensive to manufacture these displays at such large sizes without significantly increasing costs, unless Apple wants a smaller profit margin, but that's not going to happen.

I was thinking about this whilst eating lunch today actually. My thoughts were that whilst unlikely, Apple might settle for a smaller profit margin in the short term to reestablish themselves as industry leaders... Think about it, displays will get to a point where there is no need for a higher resolution and things such as contrast (just an example) will be the 'next big thing' for consumers to learn about, and inevitably, retina displays will become cheaper to manufacture.

Retina prices will probably come down rapidly actually as more companies use that technology, so Apple might want to be able to claim 'us-first- rights like they typically do, and would be able to afford to do so. Like I said, unlikely, but you never know with Apple.

 

[Coastercub]

Apple could instead offer a display at 3840x2400 that would present itself with a Retina workspace of 1920x1200.

NOOOOO The whole point of a 27" display is to have more desktop real estate.. My current 24" monitor offers 1920x1200 I want more not the same.

 

[scottrichardson]

I know plenty of guys running TWO 27" Cinema Displays off a SINGLE Radeon 5870 GPU with 1GB RAM, and they run perfectly fine.

Now let's jump TWO generations in GPUs. Either we're gonna get Radeon 78XX, 79XX, or GeForce 6XX cards. With regards Macbook Pros, we're definitely looking at the mobility versions. With the iMac, there's the possibility of either a mobile version OR a desktop GPU.

It' is ALMOST A CERTAINTY that ALL of these GPU's will have 1GB or GREATER RAM. Meaning the cards will be 2 generations above that of the 58XX in the Mac Pro, and have AT LEAST as much RAM.

If the 5870 can power TWO 2560 x 1440 screens, we need DOUBLE the GPU performance. What's the figures like for the 79XX and 680 cards? Are we looking at a 2X jump over 2 generations ago?

Don't forget, for gaming purposes, who's to say you can't jump back to 2560 x 1440 on the 27" or 1920 x 1080 on the 21"?

My greatest concern would be for the new Mac Pros... where there is the possibility Pros will use TWO of these enormous Retina displays... we'd definitely need TWO graphics cards, or something crazy like a 690 or 7990 dual GPU.

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I see no point in increasing the resolution of the iMac without increasing the screen size. The iMacs are already 'retina' at their respective view distances and an increased resolution won't give you any more work space (unless you want to read your text with a magnifying glass). The downsizes would be higher power consumption and production costs. Besides, there are no monitor panels in production which would satisfy the demand, and I highly doubt that Apple managed to build a secret retina display panel lab — they don't have the technology to build panels like that given that experienced monitor makers only now start experimenting with those.

SHARP's been doing demos of an 8K display in relatively small 40 - 50" screens. Noting 8K is 7680 x 4320 pixels! So the density is likely in the realm of possibility, but I don't think it's possibly to do cheap for consumers this year.

 

[vladi]

Are they seriously talking about 5120x2880? LOL

 

[BK.]

Actually, no. You can game cheaper on a PC, but a Mac isn't incapable of gaming. It does it rather well. Unless you're the most hardcore of PC gamer, then yea, but a hardcore PC gamer probably doesn't like Apple to begin with.

Didn't Diablo 3 just launch today, for both PC and Mac? I can't think of a higher profile PC game than D3.

Oh wow, another person on here that can't read properly.

Where did I say Macs were incapable of gaming? If my memory serves me correctly, I said the opposite. High-end models are pretty damn capable of gaming.

But you don't buy a Mac to game. Buying a Mac to game is like buying a brand new car so that you can walk everywhere, or buying a house so that you can sleep in a tent in the garden.

Sure, if you buy a Mac and you end up gaming on it, that's cool. But don't complain that it's a less than perfect experience because Macs aren't and never have been advertised or aimed at hardcore gamers. If people care that much about gaming, they'd be on a console and not a PC anyway.

I don't buy a microwave and complain that I can't type up my essays on it.

 

[Sackvillenb]

Lots of juicy rumours lately...!

The iMac may indeed present some more challenges for a retina display... It'll be very interesting to see exactly how the pull this off. Hoping that this will result in some decent gpu upgrades though... you could "downscale" the resolution to 1080 during gaming, and you should, in theory, gain some graphics processing power when not in retina mode... perhaps...

Guess we have to wait a month to find out...!

 

[spcdust]

I just cannot see a retina display iMac on this update, Macbooks this is more likely to happen - but for the iMac I reckon it will be next year - this year seems to early. Surely you would need a good desktop grade GPU to power this and then you'd loose any gains from a desktop GPU just to power the screen. In the iMac's current form it would struggle to accommodate a desktop GPU - possibly you could loose the optical drive but I have my doubts on this being an option this time around.

Personally I reckon the iMac will keep it's current form for this refresh as we haven't seen any indication or leaks of new parts etc. Next year we'll see a re-design of the chassis / body which will be engineered to accommodate a better GPU (with a higher tdp) to power a retina display screen.

As a side note.......I know as much about what's in store as these ridiculous analysts and lazy reporters who just seem to make it up as they go along or read forum posts and then report on discussions as though they have some inside authority. Every year, for the last 4-5 years, they've advised that Apple are on the brink of launching a dedicated Apple TV - I guess if you keep saying it when it does eventually happen you can claim that you were right.