Until the latest iMac revision came out the other day I had believed that we were going to see new sizes and resolutions. Instead, we got what is more or less the same machines as before, just with improved graphics, CPU and the addition of dual Thunderbolt ports. Nothing to scoff at, but not nearly as big or important a change as when the 27" was first introduced with its 2560x1440 resolution.
So while the rumors of larger screens and higher resolution may have been wrong this time, they were probably only premature and inevitably the iMac will see some kind of bump up in resolution, hopefully in the form of a 30" model and I'm guessing the next resolution we can expect is 3840x2160, or Quad Full HD.
Why 3840x2160? Everything we've seen for existing, albeit obscure displays suggests that it's the next step after 2560x1440. While other, "odd" horizontal resolutions like 2880, 3200, and 3600 are possible, they fall short of the "evenness" of exactly four time full HD, and with display technology being what it is, a jump of an additional 1280 pixels isn't out of the question (Witness the iPhone's jump from 480x320 to 960x640 at little additional cost. In time we may see a similar jump on the iPad.)
3840x2160 Quad Full HD would allow Apple to tout "Quad HD" in all their marketing, show off iMacs simultaneously playing back four 1080p trailers, and boast that Final Cut Pro could have side-by-side full res. HD content. And, it would be the perfect "fit" for a technology they've supported, but not yet sufficiently marketed - DisplayPort.
The introduction of Thunderbolt really threw me for a loop. I had thought it was going to come in the shape of USB and the last thing I expected was for it to use the mini DisplayPort form factor. But it did and we now still have what is essentially "DisplayPort" from a usability standpoint, even if the technology behind the port differs. I for one love it, but the one area it's lacking is in bandwidth. Thunderbolt is currently not up to the capabilities of DisplayPort 1.2 and the maximum resolution of DisplayPort 1.2 is 3840x2400, which is the 16:10 version of 3840x2160.
So, if Apple is to eventually update the iMac resolution, presumably keep Target Display Mode, and have an external display with the same Quad Full HD resolution, Thunderbolt should get an update that puts it on par with DisplayPort 1.2. That means not just support for a single display up to 3840x2400, but support for up to four daisy chained 1080p displays as well, and, with sufficient graphics memory, a daisy chain coming off each port would allow eight externals(!)
But there's something about 3840x2160 resolution, or at least any future implementation of it that concerns me. To my knowledge, for as long as LCD displays have been common, there has yet to be one that intelligently displays an even quarter resolution. For every LCD display on the market, be it an external or incorporated such as in laptops and the iMac, selecting exactly one quarter of the native resolution results in unnecessary and ugly scaling. 800x600, for instance, viewed on a 1600x1200 display is needlessly blurry, and this same problem exists when a 2560x1440 display shows 1280x720. The exact technical reasons for this make little difference, and there appears to be no way to turn it off. Usually it's only a concern for gamers or the occasional user wanting to watch some full screen video, but 3840x2160 is, for me, a threshold at which intentional blurriness at 1920x1080 would be a major irritant. There are only a few instances in which I'd want to drop a 2560x1440 display down to 1280x720, but I'd use a 3840x2160 display dropped to 1920x1080 all the time, both for video and some general OS use (Both web browsing and word processing would be easier on the eyes and without the need for scaling text up in size and messing up formatting in the process.) And of course, without perfectly rendered double pixels, use of Target Display Mode through mimicry of a lower res. of 1920x1080 would also be severely crippled - 1080p content that could easily look pristine would have an ugly blurriness that might as well make the feature worthless. However it might be done, Apple would have to give users the ability to show 1920x1080 as crisply as if it were the native res.
So while the rumors of larger screens and higher resolution may have been wrong this time, they were probably only premature and inevitably the iMac will see some kind of bump up in resolution, hopefully in the form of a 30" model and I'm guessing the next resolution we can expect is 3840x2160, or Quad Full HD.
Why 3840x2160? Everything we've seen for existing, albeit obscure displays suggests that it's the next step after 2560x1440. While other, "odd" horizontal resolutions like 2880, 3200, and 3600 are possible, they fall short of the "evenness" of exactly four time full HD, and with display technology being what it is, a jump of an additional 1280 pixels isn't out of the question (Witness the iPhone's jump from 480x320 to 960x640 at little additional cost. In time we may see a similar jump on the iPad.)
3840x2160 Quad Full HD would allow Apple to tout "Quad HD" in all their marketing, show off iMacs simultaneously playing back four 1080p trailers, and boast that Final Cut Pro could have side-by-side full res. HD content. And, it would be the perfect "fit" for a technology they've supported, but not yet sufficiently marketed - DisplayPort.
The introduction of Thunderbolt really threw me for a loop. I had thought it was going to come in the shape of USB and the last thing I expected was for it to use the mini DisplayPort form factor. But it did and we now still have what is essentially "DisplayPort" from a usability standpoint, even if the technology behind the port differs. I for one love it, but the one area it's lacking is in bandwidth. Thunderbolt is currently not up to the capabilities of DisplayPort 1.2 and the maximum resolution of DisplayPort 1.2 is 3840x2400, which is the 16:10 version of 3840x2160.
So, if Apple is to eventually update the iMac resolution, presumably keep Target Display Mode, and have an external display with the same Quad Full HD resolution, Thunderbolt should get an update that puts it on par with DisplayPort 1.2. That means not just support for a single display up to 3840x2400, but support for up to four daisy chained 1080p displays as well, and, with sufficient graphics memory, a daisy chain coming off each port would allow eight externals(!)
But there's something about 3840x2160 resolution, or at least any future implementation of it that concerns me. To my knowledge, for as long as LCD displays have been common, there has yet to be one that intelligently displays an even quarter resolution. For every LCD display on the market, be it an external or incorporated such as in laptops and the iMac, selecting exactly one quarter of the native resolution results in unnecessary and ugly scaling. 800x600, for instance, viewed on a 1600x1200 display is needlessly blurry, and this same problem exists when a 2560x1440 display shows 1280x720. The exact technical reasons for this make little difference, and there appears to be no way to turn it off. Usually it's only a concern for gamers or the occasional user wanting to watch some full screen video, but 3840x2160 is, for me, a threshold at which intentional blurriness at 1920x1080 would be a major irritant. There are only a few instances in which I'd want to drop a 2560x1440 display down to 1280x720, but I'd use a 3840x2160 display dropped to 1920x1080 all the time, both for video and some general OS use (Both web browsing and word processing would be easier on the eyes and without the need for scaling text up in size and messing up formatting in the process.) And of course, without perfectly rendered double pixels, use of Target Display Mode through mimicry of a lower res. of 1920x1080 would also be severely crippled - 1080p content that could easily look pristine would have an ugly blurriness that might as well make the feature worthless. However it might be done, Apple would have to give users the ability to show 1920x1080 as crisply as if it were the native res.
which is ridiculous. While they use 1440p for iMac 27", they sell 720p video on iTunes and claim it as HD. I tried to watch it and it began to look blurred while it looks perfectly okay on my plasma.