Why do I have to cannibalize my screen resolution to simply increase font size in Apple Music or other apps?

[McPaul]

Just bought a 16" Macbook Pro. you have to go system preferences > Display > Scaled to adjust font size so I can more easily see text on the apple apps such as Apple Music, Maps or Apple News? All I want is to increase text size a bit.

It doesn't seem fair that I can't use the full capabilities of my new machine.

 

[maflynn]

Life is full of compromises ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Oddly enough I opted for a FHD based laptop for similar reasons, I had a 4k laptop that I found the text too small unless you boosted the resolution. My opinion is that 4k on a 15" laptop was just not a good fit. I'm now enjoying something that is a lot more easier on my eye.

I know that doesn't directly help you, but its more about the point I'm making - a higher resolutions on small display panels will need higher scaling because of the tiny text. I'm sure there are many people out there that don't need to scale up their laptop, but I'm not one of those.

 

[Sanpete]

What capability are you trying to use that was there before but that's missing now?

 

[profcutter]

Yeah it is annoying that OS X never developed true resolution independence. I’d love there to be a preference somewhere, like there is in Mail, to change the font sizes for apps, but it never really got off the ground. It would make working at higher resolutions much easier.

 

[RogerWilco6502]

There is a magnifier you can set up in the accessibility options. You would get to magnify the text but not interfere with screen resolution.

 

[profcutter]

The magnifier is OK in a pinch, but not the same thing.

 

[MacGizmo]

Apple's fascination with tiny text and interface items just pisses me off. News is absolutely unreadable for me (though the features make it undesirable to me anyway).

 

[RogerWilco6502]

I am a bit curious about why you would need 4k resolution on a laptop screen tbh

 

[profcutter]

I could imagine a 4k screen being useful if you were editing 4k and wanted to watch the video pixel for pixel. Unlike the 5k iMac, for example, you wouldn't have room for controls, but you could at least do a full screen pixel peep from time to time. That said, the pixels are so small at 16 inches that I can't imagine you could do much useful peeping.

 

[RogerWilco6502]

I could imagine a 4k screen being useful if you were editing 4k and wanted to watch the video pixel for pixel. Unlike the 5k iMac, for example, you wouldn't have room for controls, but you could at least do a full screen pixel peep from time to time. That said, the pixels are so small at 16 inches that I can't imagine you could do much useful peeping.

That's what I'm thinking. A 4k display is useful, but a 4k 16" display would have to have such a small pixel size it probably wouldn't be super useful for the most part.

 

[Sanpete]

4K looks really nice too, even up close. A retina screen is only retina at a normal distance. Not a matter of need here, but I'd be happy with 4K since I'm often close up.

 

[pshufd]

I'd use 4K on a 17 inch display but I have a particular application for it. I'm currently using it on a 27 inch monitor.

It would be nice if macOS programs gave you a lot of choices for fonts used in the program. Some programs do this but not all. If it were a big issue for me, I'd consider an external monitor which I could pick for the resolution and font size that I like.