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I think you misunderstood my question. I want to use OLD apps - without Retina-enabled functionality - specifically for the advantage of having all of the ui elements at half the size and a very large desktop. These are not apple apps.

Simply I just don't want apple to double the pixels for non retina enabled apps -- optionally of course as most people will want the pixels doubled. I want the buttons and interface tiny as if it were just a regular hi res screen.

Once the are Retina-enabled the whole point is lost and the screen adds no functionality for my uses just aesthetic eye candy which I can do with out.

Is that possible?

I believe so... AirDisplay for the "new iPad" achieves this functionality by allowing you to chose between "2048x1536" or "1024x768 HiDPI" modes from the Display Preferences Panel


Examples

I should note that when not using HiDPI mode its extremely hard to read text without straining my eyes...



 
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I wonder how HiDPI mode handles multiple displays? For instance, if I use my normal 1920x1200 desktop monitor as a second monitor... will apps I drag over suddenly become *HUGE*? or just look normal?

It's going to be interesting to see how Apple put all this together.
 
I wonder how HiDPI mode handles multiple displays? For instance, if I use my normal 1920x1200 desktop monitor as a second monitor... will apps I drag over suddenly become *HUGE*? or just look normal?

It's going to be interesting to see how Apple put all this together.

if your in HiDPI mode when you drag over a app it appears the same size, but text is incredibly sharp... when not in HiDPI mode and you drag a app over the app becomes very small...
 
if your in HiDPI mode when you drag over a app it appears the same size, but text is incredibly sharp... when not in HiDPI mode and you drag a app over the app becomes very small...

So you're telling me that as the app is being pulled across the two displays, the font gets dynamically rerendered at the higher or lower resolution?

If so, this sounds so damn cool and I want to witness it now. :)
 
So you're telling me that as the app is being pulled across the two displays, the font gets dynamically rerendered at the higher or lower resolution?

If so, this sounds so damn cool and I want to witness it now. :)

Exactly... Been playing with it since the Day 1 of the new iPad... which is why I'm already sold on the retina MacBook Pro
 
A very small and insignificant thing I noticed: the little dots on the background are pushed out. My dashboard background dots are pushed in.

The widgets are so nice and clear though. It's amazing.

Rotate the image 180 degrees and BOOM!

Like so:
 

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What I'm asking about is the screen. How noticeable will it be if I swap out my iMac's 24" for this thing's 15"? I suspect that, pretty as it is, I'll definitely miss the real estate I'll lose. I enjoy having two Xcode projects + documentation + Safari with a bunch of tabs open all visible at once and not overlapping. This is doable without having the screen feel too cramped on my iMac. On this new MacBook Pro, I suspect it'll feel very cramped.

Sorry I missed the point of your question the first time around...

NO this will not compensate the real estate of a 24" display, UNLESS you have 20/20 vision and deactivate the scaling that's applied out of the box (preferences -> display), then you would have more space for the apps, but hard to read.

The switch to retina isn't supposed to bring more real estate, but more details for the apps (once they have upgraded their non-vectorial graphics).
While it's a beautiful machine (comfortable SSD, Great GPU, more than enough RAM), I (dev) was hopping for a refreshed iMac 27" to jump towards some needed large screen.

Now (with an iMac refresh months away) I'm just wondering if that computer with a cheap external 27" display wouldn't be just right. (The MBPRet being well priced compared to a MBP configured with the same amount of RAM and a SSD).
 
Sorry I missed the point of your question the first time around...

NO this will not compensate the real estate of a 24" display, UNLESS you have 20/20 vision and deactivate the scaling that's applied out of the box (preferences -> display), then you would have more space for the apps, but hard to read.

The switch to retina isn't supposed to bring more real estate, but more details for the apps (once they have upgraded their non-vectorial graphics).
While it's a beautiful machine (comfortable SSD, Great GPU, more than enough RAM), I (dev) was hopping for a refreshed iMac 27" to jump towards some needed large screen.

Now (with an iMac refresh months away) I'm just wondering if that computer with a cheap external 27" display wouldn't be just right. (The MBPRet being well priced compared to a MBP configured with the same amount of RAM and a SSD).

Personally, I'm just waiting to hear the new iMac can dock the new MacBook Pro. The pro would get charged and offer additional CPU/GPU/RAM to the iMac. Thus I could have a mega desktop at home with a 27" retina screen, or a really nice portable when I'm away. It'll never happen, but I can dream...

I guess I need to decide: is it time to replace my original MBA? And if so, what with? Can I justify spending $2K+ on the new pro, or should I be more frugal? (I'm 30K in debt so far and still in school...)
 
ha this is a joke! The whole idea of this article is to click the image to be able to see how the retina resolution looks.... um sorry im on a previous gen macbook pro and it just looks exactly the same! So why bother if you haven't got the resolution capable of seeing this in its true form!
 
ha this is a joke! The whole idea of this article is to click the image to be able to see how the retina resolution looks.... um sorry im on a previous gen macbook pro and it just looks exactly the same! So why bother if you haven't got the resolution capable of seeing this in its true form!

Are you viewing it in safari? You'll see a magnifying glass replace your cursor if you are. Click and it'll expand the image to show how many pixels there are.
 
Looking at the image, it appears that they've turned off sub-pixel anti-aliasing on text now.

(thats the slight red/blue tinge you get around text)
 
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