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What is this from the Mountain Lion Video? Proof of Retina Macs?
- Thread starter appleguy123
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I find myself explaining this over and over
Retina display means in Apple terms "We give you the same screen physical size but with 4x the resolution"
Not true at all. Retina display in Apple terms means "the pixels are so small that you can't differentiate them at normal viewing distance". That could mean 2x, 4x, 4.3x, 1.65x, or any number in between. It's true that HiDPI mode will likely stick to integers (ie. 2x) but that just means the screen elements will be different physical sizes, something apple has no problem with doing.
Look at their current notebook lineup. You can get a macbook pro in several different resolutions, each of which presents screen elements in a different physical size. Apple finds this to be acceptable because the sizes are relatively close. Now apply the same thing to the retina macbook air... if 1920x1200 qualifies as retina (ie. pixels are too small to detect) then they can ship it as retina and allow users to choose from HiDPI (sharper but biggger) or normal (less sharp but more screen real estate). I see no problem with them doing this, especially since it would make it cheaper than trying to achieve 2x on everything (not just the screen, the graphics card) and able to release sooner.
Note than I'm not saying I don't think apple will try for 2x (4x area), I'm just saying you're making a lot of assumptions. With the iPhone, they wanted to keep the physical sizes of screen elements exactly the same because touch interfaces are designed with a particular size for usability. With their computers, they have no such restriction. They can make the resolution in any arbitrary scale.
I thought for "Retina" they had to hit > 300 PPI, putting the iPad at about 2560 x 1920 pixels in a 9.7" diagonal screen. To extend that to say, the 15" diagonal MBP screen, we would have to hit 3840 x 2400 just to reach ~ 301 PPI. I'm not saying it isn't possible (and believe me I would LOVE to see it), but I don't think we are there yet.
Keep in mind too though that the "retina" PPI does somewhat depend upon viewing distance, but most laptops will be maybe twice the distance as the phone from your eyes (and half the distance to a desktop- sound about right?), so maybe a goal of ~250 PPI? The closest used 8:5 aspect ratio I know of below the 3840 x 2400 would be 2560 x 1600 which gives about 201 PPI. I think to claim "retina" they would have to step up to 3840 x 2400.
That cant be true. You saw the guy with the MacBook pro 15" I saw later on. It listed the computer's supported resolutions, not the AirPlay device's.
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Retina was just a buzz word to get people to investigate the thread. A 1920*1200 11" Macbook Air would be groundbreaking, but probably not retina resolution.
This ^
However much appleguy123 thinks he's on to something, he clearly isn't. The logical explanation has been given several times on this thread already. I'm enjoying someone who can't even work out how a 1920x1200 retina Air would have the same real state as a 960x600 screen thinks they have found some super-secret information. And how would it be an issue with resolution independence?!
Are you guys this simple?
It has a Apple TV hooked to an imac! Imac screen is 1920x1200 !
Are you guys blind, even the video shows clearly that the screen is an imac computer!
Are you sure?
1st: No iMac model since late 2009 has a resolution of 1920 x 1200.
2nd: Only the 24" iMac had a resolution of 1920 x 1200.
3rd: Only the 17" MBP is the one Mac currently having a resolution of 1920 x 1200 pixel.
4th: Where do you see an iMac?
If you want to see the video again: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eioa7qlgMuE&hd=1
I was referring to this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=SAEH1H-4Siw
It seems, I was talking about differend video what you guys are talking...
Yup. Your video uses a 15" MBP with a HighRes display and a 16:9 iMac, probably the 21.5" one with 1920 x 1080 pixel.
As was pointed out multiple times, 1920x1200 wouldn't constitute a retina display resolution on a MacBook Air. It's really hard to get around this argument, which pretty much kills the theory. Apple does have standards for what it considers "retina" in terms of DPI. I don't buy the argument that as long as it "looks" like pixels aren't visible that it'd be considered retina — 1920x1200 is far too low a resolution.
Secondly, the display listed clearly isn't built into the MacBook itself. "fri_ip2003" seems to indicate that it's an external display, most likely a TV.
Thirdly, even if the built-in display had been listed as supporting a 1920x1200 resolution, this would ignore another point that was raised — that the MacBook Air's display was potentially copied post-production from another device.
It's very easy to disprove the retina display theory, and very hard to prove it. Just saying...
Secondly, the display listed clearly isn't built into the MacBook itself. "fri_ip2003" seems to indicate that it's an external display, most likely a TV.
Thirdly, even if the built-in display had been listed as supporting a 1920x1200 resolution, this would ignore another point that was raised — that the MacBook Air's display was potentially copied post-production from another device.
It's very easy to disprove the retina display theory, and very hard to prove it. Just saying...
It wouldn't be the real screen in the screenshots. That wouldn't give them the high quality they want. It could have come from any Mac running ML.
Uh ? 1920x1200 is too low a resolution on what sized screen ? On a 7 inch screen, 1920x1200 is 323 PPI, close to the iPhone 4 and 4S's PPI. Is that not retina ?
Also, "retina" is based on the distance at which you view a screen from. Pixels get smaller the farther you look at them from, same for anything really. A good read for anyone who still doesn't "get it" :
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2010/06/10/resolving-the-iphone-resolution/
Possibly. But the Air they're using in the video looks a lot like the 11'' one, which is 16:9, not 16:10.
Besides, they're using the AirPlay menubar icon - who says that's going to be used to control the internal display's resolution? It could just be used to control the AirPlay device's resolution. In the video johto posted, it seems like there's no way to change the iMac's resolution, just the TV's.
On the other hand, I don't completely agree that a retina display on the Air would have to double (or rather, quadruple) the current resolution. On the iPhone and iPad they did it because all current apps are optimized for exactly one resolution, so it wouldn't make much sense to change the resolution to anything other than the quadruple, but on the Air? It would be just as logical to go to 1920 by 1200 because that's effectively a standard, 1080p with bars at the top and bottom to account for the 16:10 display. Like I outlined above, I don't see the video proving that, but I wouldn't be too surprised if it happened, especially since they're calling it HiDPI instead of Retina Display on the Mac.
I don't really understand this threat.
All the displays are being put on in post processing. They're not real screen. Did you not notice, that in Apple website 13" macbook pro screenshots are in fact often rendered to look in fact like they're 1440x900? they don't need to correspond with actual appearance on the computer itself.
Also, I cant possibly imagine what sort of graphic would they need to put into macbooks to render four times the number of pixels... sounds crazy to me. Especially that internet won't suddenly change, and all graphics, logos, etc from the web will need to be stretched, and will look horrible comparing to high-DPI text rendered next to them.
All the displays are being put on in post processing. They're not real screen. Did you not notice, that in Apple website 13" macbook pro screenshots are in fact often rendered to look in fact like they're 1440x900? they don't need to correspond with actual appearance on the computer itself.
Also, I cant possibly imagine what sort of graphic would they need to put into macbooks to render four times the number of pixels... sounds crazy to me. Especially that internet won't suddenly change, and all graphics, logos, etc from the web will need to be stretched, and will look horrible comparing to high-DPI text rendered next to them.
The displays are definitely keyed in post. In the iOS 5 introduction video, there's an ultra-high resolution iMac, but of course, the screen was pure CG.
I just realized that Apple experimented with resolution independence in Leopard with scalable windows, but then removed that and instead added (unsupported) Hi-DPI modes in Lion, which - wait for it - doubles the resolution (in both dimensions). Source: http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2011/07/mac-os-x-10-7.ars/14#hi-dpi
So that suggests they are, in fact, planning to add "Retina" displays to their Macs someday. As does jakobov's find about the wallpaper. It's not a proof or anything, but everything else would just make interface elements impossibly small, now that arbitrarily scalable windows have been scrapped.
But I addressed that here.
In the wild, the resolutions listed match the external display.