After flirting with the implementation of resolution independence several years ago, Apple allowed this ability to decouple the size of displayed items from the underlying pixel density to languish mostly unused in OS X. But as pointed out above by Srice, iOS takes this in its stride (at least for predefined display density multiples).
If Apple is to introduce very high density displays then it will have to get real with Mac resolution independence support. Frankly that would be welcome even for those of us not using high density displays.
They already "got real" with it. As of Lion, Apple dropped their old vector-based resolution independence implementation in favour of the bitmap-based approach in iOS. Mac apps can now contain double-res images for use on double-res (retina) displays.
I expect no app developers have bothered to implement it yet because no devices support it, but it's there in the OS, and apps that just use standard widgets, vector drawing and text should get the benefits automatically when run on a retina Mac.
Unless Apple makes it possible to increase the size of the text in menus, the retina displays will be hard to use for many. Even now, the high resolution displays in the 15- and 17-inch MacBook Pros have menu text that is too small for some people.
This is a real issue but Lion has been extensively reworked to be resolution independent. We should get sharper text not smaller.
5120x2880 on a 27" TB display would be 217.57 PPI. That might be enough for a standard distance desktop monitor to be Retina. Not sure of that formula.
3438 ÷ 217.57ppi = 15.80" from eyes with 20/20 vision.
Lion effective is drawing vectors now in real world dimensions not pixels. Effectively this makes vector operations in Lion resolution independent. This was not the case before Lion.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Socrates
They already "got real" with it. As of Lion, Apple dropped their old vector-based resolution independence implementation in favour of the bitmap-based approach in iOS. Mac apps can now contain double-res images for use on double-res (retina) displays.
I expect no app developers have bothered to implement it yet because no devices support it, but it's there in the OS, and apps that just use standard widgets, vector drawing and text should get the benefits automatically when run on a retina Mac.
The bit about poorer visibility [of AMOLED] in sunlight is wrong, as shown by multiple comparative videos on youtube and comparative review articles.
AMOLED visibility is poorer than LCD in bright sunlight. The difference is smaller today with the best AMOLED displays, but still real. The comparison videos are typically shot at an angle to the displays, which exacerbates the problem with LCD. If you can't see the camera reflected in the display, then the video probably wasn't shot head-on.
The color accuracy of the LCD in your MBP is far superior to what you'll find in any AMOLED smart phone. The cost to mass produce AMOLED displays of 11" or larger is simply prohibitive. Recall the Sony XEL-1 11" television was not even 720p and cost $2500.
The genius of Steve Jobs was not only his taste but his sensibility of when the market was ripe for a technology.
IOS is resolution independent, the so called 2x mode is foe bitmaps where bit maps are used. Vector drawing and even font drawing is resolution independent. This is why text and other graphics drawn on iOS device screens looks so much sharper. A font for example might have twice as many pixels defining its image.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kgbwnet
You guys must have forgotten HiDPI in Lion , Apple is no longer going resolution independence but rather 2x modes just like the iOS.
How did the battery life go from iPad 1 to iPad 2? You can use that as guideline I guess. EDIT: I meant iPhone 3GS to iPhone 4, but yes, the bigger the screen the more likely it's going to impact battery life.
Computer display resolution has stagnated because the UI is still pixel based. Regardless of the display resolution the same number of physical dots are used to draw each element. So what was once the size of a post it note on your screen is now the size of a postage stamp (not that the current generation even knows what that is). It's much sharper, but it's proportionally smaller at the same time. That's no improvement. For many, in fact, it's worse because some text has gotten so small it can no longer be read without magnification.
The "retina" display on the iPhone changed things by mandating the use of graphics with 4x as many dots as before so elements appear the same size on both retina and non-retina displays. That means app developers have to create two versions of everything and include both in the app bundle increasing its size. Luckily downsampling images to half their original dimensions is easy, but it's still work that has to be done. Ensuring downloaded content is available in multiple sizes to support the variety of devices out there requires greater effort. Some simply refuse to do it and instead have the device do the scaling. Inevitably those apps perform poorly because the phone is doing much of the work and the resulting images can show artifacts of the scaling process. Unless your phone has exactly the same resolution as the developer's and all downloaded content is similarly designed specifically for your phone, elements in the app are being scaled on your phone and that just isn't going to look as good or perform as well as it could.
That's one of the hurdles faced by Android. In the last 15 months Android devices have shipped in 13 different screen resolutions from 240x320 up to 800x1280. To make matters worse there are 6 different screen shapes ranging from 4:3 (1.33) to 16:9 (1.778).
It's impractical to include 13 different sets of graphics and UI layouts in your app so elements get stretched, shrunk, cropped and shifted around when you move from one device to the next. The idea of a perfect match between graphic design and finished product is impossible.
Despite having designed the Dock, an affront to all that's good in this world, a UI element that changes size, shape and layout when an item is added or removed and on mouse-over if the hideous magnify feature is turned on, I think Apple will try to avoid the Android issue when moving to higher resolution computer displays.
I also believe they'll wait until they have a stable system wide scaling system in place to double the point size of text on the high res displays the way text on the iPhone 4 is exactly the same size as on the iPhone 3. The current Mac lineup has a variety of different pixel densities, but they're all within a fairly narrow range making the physical size of the word File on one Mac is roughly the same as it is on all other contemporary Macs.
Application developers with their own rendering engines will have to adapt.
First off, just because Apple offers a higher rez screen on the MBP 15" does not mean they will offer one on the 13" or 17". A certain level of production would be needed to make any new display feasible. Ramping up production on 3 new hi-rez screens would not be cheap and the margins could be low.
A 17" hi-rez would attract the professional graphics/photography/video market but I am not sure Apple would offer that right away. They might wait to gauge the reaction and support issues generated by offering a 15" with a hi-rez screen. And it would probably only be an optional upgrade. Normal rez screens will probably still be available.
Also, more graphics power will be required to handle the greater number of pixels, so I doubt the GPU built-in to the new Intel chips would be able to handle that and give performance close to what a 15" MBP has now.
I could see a MacBook Pro 13" with a screen resolution the same as now, but with no additional GPU chip, using only the Intel built-in GPU. This would help keep costs down and margins up. If you want more pixels you will have to move up to the 15", or 17" if it is offered.
Also this would give Apple an opening for a 15" MBA. It would have normal rez screen and use the built-in Intel graphics but no additional GPU chip to keep power, heat, and space requirements down.
Remember without actual screens to test your technology on you really don't have a product. Especially if there is nothing to ship to consumers.
As to resolution independence it is very nuch in Lion right now. All drawing is now done in real world coordinates. Further the code is set up to take arbitrary multipliers.
The 2X pixel increases that everyone fixates on is all about bitmaps. People fail to realize that bitmaps are still part of software development, a 2x increase in resolution means developers can minimize efforts required to produce those bitmaps. However vector and font drawing has little to do with the need to simplify bit map handling.
The reality is arbitrary scalability is there in Lion, for vector operations. The support of 2X bitmaps is there to solve other issues. I'm just shocked at the mis information that is flowing through this thread. The 2x bitmaps are there because scaling bitmaps sucks and at times just looks ugly.
Quote:
Originally Posted by CMF
For how many years has Apple said "Resolution Independence is coming"? They had rudimentary support for this all the back in Tiger, if I remember correctly. What's happened since then? We've gone backwards. Leopard was close, but Snow Leopard actually regressed. Scroll down to the Resolution Independence section and you'll see what I mean.
Arbitrary scalability is gone in Lion (HiDPi only supports 2x and 4x resolutions), but the mechanism to change this is still buried in the Developer Tools. This probably means it's not finished, but compared to some of the other technical issues they've solved, this one is EASY.
They're going to have to, if they want the MBP's to remain relevant as iPads and other iOS devices go retina.
You're too concerned with what is largely marketing here. An ipad doesn't really function as a direct replacement to a macbook pro, and it uses a significantly smaller display. The costs do go up significantly doing this on larger displays, but I really wouldn't expect to see it greatly impact the sale of Macs. The ipad doesn't function well as a sole standalone machine. Until that changes, pretty pixels mean very little.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SSquirrel
5120x2880 on a 27" TB display would be 217.57 PPI. That might be enough for a standard distance desktop monitor to be Retina. Not sure of that formula.
You guys are way too obsessed with this. Larger displays have been lagging behind with relatively stagnant growth and that it's significantly more difficult to implement such a solution in a larger display with the increased error chances in manufacturing. Articles on the tech sites suggest 2016 or so for higher resolution desktop displays. 15" laptops have been sporting the typical resolution of a 24" display panel for some time now.
It's probably a matter of when panel manufacturers are actually able to make these things cost effectively.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MacBook Pro
I think the poster indicating that AMOLED is amazing is absolutely correct. AMOLED is a vastly superior technology.:roll eyes: After all, when the display if life-critical AMOLED is considered the standard. Oh, wait. For diagnostic purposes in medical imaging we use > $10,000 USD 4 MP+ TFT AM Color LCD Dual Domain IPS-Pro monitors.
This just reflects what I've mentioned in previous. Displays aren't fully defined by their panel technology. Display manufacturers take what is available and design something that will perform up to spec.
I think the poster indicating that AMOLED is amazing is absolutely correct. AMOLED is a vastly superior technology.:roll eyes: After all, when the display if life-critical AMOLED is considered the standard. Oh, wait. For diagnostic purposes in medical imaging we use > $10,000 USD 4 MP+ TFT AM Color LCD Dual Domain IPS-Pro monitors.
Not always. Some hospitals are now using iPads for medical imaging.
IOS is resolution independent, the so called 2x mode is foe bitmaps where bit maps are used. Vector drawing and even font drawing is resolution independent. This is why text and other graphics drawn on iOS device screens looks so much sharper. A font for example might have twice as many pixels defining its image.
To say you're "shocked at the ignorance here" is a bit much - I suspect most people who've commented on 2x mode do actually understand it, but it's difficult to explain accurately and completely to non-developers.
Technically, drawing on Mac OS now supports true resolution independence, but it doesn't work the same way as the old implementation, and it doesn't do all drawing using vectors, which is what a lot of people would assume resolution independence would require.
All existing vector drawing, such as core graphics, OpenGL and text is now resolution independent, but to be honest that's not much of an achievement since they were all vector-based to begin with. What's new in Lion is support for automatic loading and display of @2x bitmaps, allowing resolution independence for non-vector-based drawing (which is still what most apps use for user interface widgets, including Apple's apps) with minimal effort for developers.
And if iOS is anything to go by, I think it's unlikely that Apple will support this feature for anything other than 2x resolution (i.e. one virtual pixel mapping to four real pixels) because the the bitmap scaling won't look great for any other scale (although any scale factor is technically supported, including non-integer scale factors).
i can't help but to think battery life is going to suffer big time from an upgrade like this. I hope i am wrong....
If they eliminate the DVD drive, there will be plenty of room to increase battery size. Likely, they can do that and decrease the overall size and bulk of the machine too.
You guys are way too obsessed with this. Larger displays have been lagging behind with relatively stagnant growth and that it's significantly more difficult to implement such a solution in a larger display with the increased error chances in manufacturing. Articles on the tech sites suggest 2016 or so for higher resolution desktop displays. 15" laptops have been sporting the typical resolution of a 24" display panel for some time now.
Not really. I knew the formula to figure out PPI, but wasn't sure what the formula was for Retina, so I posted what the current TB Display resolution increased similarly would be. Notice I had been answering someone who was claiming iMacs and the displays would be getting replaced w/these hi-res monitors shortly after laptop ones were. Really just curiosity honestly.
If Samsung introduce a laptop with good build quality and a super AMOLED screen, I think I will go Hackintosh as I am not happy with the low quality/high price Apple delivers.
Which laptops are popular for Hackintosh conversions?
While I'd appreciate a higher resolution on my current 13" MBP (1280x800 leaves a lot to be desired), I don't understand the logic in a retina display on such a monitor. With the iphone and ipad, we are likely much closer in viewing distance. 2560x1600 is the res of my 30" monitor at home. At a proper seated/working distance the pitch is fine and it's plenty clear. If you were to pack all of that into a 13" display, I'd go bonkers trying to utilize it and I doubt it would yield an increase in clarity I would appreciate.
Ummm....no. The 13 inch display will display those elements that work well on a 13 inch display. Judt like it does now.
Remember without actual screens to test your technology on you really don't have a product. Especially if there is nothing to ship to consumers.
As to resolution independence it is very nuch in Lion right now. All drawing is now done in real world coordinates. Further the code is set up to take arbitrary multipliers.
The reality is arbitrary scalability is there in Lion, for vector operations. The support of 2X bitmaps is there to solve other issues. I'm just shocked at the mis information that is flowing through this thread. The 2x bitmaps are there because scaling bitmaps sucks and at times just looks ugly.
True, that until they have a display that uses this, it doesn't mean all that much. My earlier point is still valid: Most users don't know this is happening and if they did, wouldn't understand what it means until they see it on a real product ("What's 'Quartz Debug'?", they might say...).
As to your assertion that Apple supports other resolutions, I only meant it in the context of HiDPi. Read the notes on Resolution Independence in the Ars review (if you haven't already), eventually ALL resolutions should default to this, I'm just discouraged that it's taken this long, given how much progress has already been made. Consider that TextEdit (One of Apple's favorite demo weapons of choice for showing new OS features) was 64-bit capable (In Cocoa, from what I can tell) AND largely resolution-independent in 2006. Probably wasn't completely done, but they were close, and then it seems like they stopped working on it.
Comments
After flirting with the implementation of resolution independence several years ago, Apple allowed this ability to decouple the size of displayed items from the underlying pixel density to languish mostly unused in OS X. But as pointed out above by Srice, iOS takes this in its stride (at least for predefined display density multiples).
If Apple is to introduce very high density displays then it will have to get real with Mac resolution independence support. Frankly that would be welcome even for those of us not using high density displays.
They already "got real" with it. As of Lion, Apple dropped their old vector-based resolution independence implementation in favour of the bitmap-based approach in iOS. Mac apps can now contain double-res images for use on double-res (retina) displays.
I expect no app developers have bothered to implement it yet because no devices support it, but it's there in the OS, and apps that just use standard widgets, vector drawing and text should get the benefits automatically when run on a retina Mac.
Unless Apple makes it possible to increase the size of the text in menus, the retina displays will be hard to use for many. Even now, the high resolution displays in the 15- and 17-inch MacBook Pros have menu text that is too small for some people.
This is a real issue but Lion has been extensively reworked to be resolution independent. We should get sharper text not smaller.
5120x2880 on a 27" TB display would be 217.57 PPI. That might be enough for a standard distance desktop monitor to be Retina. Not sure of that formula.
3438 ÷ 217.57ppi = 15.80" from eyes with 20/20 vision.
They already "got real" with it. As of Lion, Apple dropped their old vector-based resolution independence implementation in favour of the bitmap-based approach in iOS. Mac apps can now contain double-res images for use on double-res (retina) displays.
I expect no app developers have bothered to implement it yet because no devices support it, but it's there in the OS, and apps that just use standard widgets, vector drawing and text should get the benefits automatically when run on a retina Mac.
The bit about poorer visibility [of AMOLED] in sunlight is wrong, as shown by multiple comparative videos on youtube and comparative review articles.
AMOLED visibility is poorer than LCD in bright sunlight. The difference is smaller today with the best AMOLED displays, but still real. The comparison videos are typically shot at an angle to the displays, which exacerbates the problem with LCD. If you can't see the camera reflected in the display, then the video probably wasn't shot head-on.
The color accuracy of the LCD in your MBP is far superior to what you'll find in any AMOLED smart phone. The cost to mass produce AMOLED displays of 11" or larger is simply prohibitive. Recall the Sony XEL-1 11" television was not even 720p and cost $2500.
The genius of Steve Jobs was not only his taste but his sensibility of when the market was ripe for a technology.
You guys must have forgotten HiDPI in Lion
How did the battery life go from iPad 1 to iPad 2? You can use that as guideline I guess. EDIT: I meant iPhone 3GS to iPhone 4, but yes, the bigger the screen the more likely it's going to impact battery life.
The "retina" display on the iPhone changed things by mandating the use of graphics with 4x as many dots as before so elements appear the same size on both retina and non-retina displays. That means app developers have to create two versions of everything and include both in the app bundle increasing its size. Luckily downsampling images to half their original dimensions is easy, but it's still work that has to be done. Ensuring downloaded content is available in multiple sizes to support the variety of devices out there requires greater effort. Some simply refuse to do it and instead have the device do the scaling. Inevitably those apps perform poorly because the phone is doing much of the work and the resulting images can show artifacts of the scaling process. Unless your phone has exactly the same resolution as the developer's and all downloaded content is similarly designed specifically for your phone, elements in the app are being scaled on your phone and that just isn't going to look as good or perform as well as it could.
That's one of the hurdles faced by Android. In the last 15 months Android devices have shipped in 13 different screen resolutions from 240x320 up to 800x1280. To make matters worse there are 6 different screen shapes ranging from 4:3 (1.33) to 16:9 (1.778).
It's impractical to include 13 different sets of graphics and UI layouts in your app so elements get stretched, shrunk, cropped and shifted around when you move from one device to the next. The idea of a perfect match between graphic design and finished product is impossible.
Despite having designed the Dock, an affront to all that's good in this world, a UI element that changes size, shape and layout when an item is added or removed and on mouse-over if the hideous magnify feature is turned on, I think Apple will try to avoid the Android issue when moving to higher resolution computer displays.
I also believe they'll wait until they have a stable system wide scaling system in place to double the point size of text on the high res displays the way text on the iPhone 4 is exactly the same size as on the iPhone 3. The current Mac lineup has a variety of different pixel densities, but they're all within a fairly narrow range making the physical size of the word File on one Mac is roughly the same as it is on all other contemporary Macs.
Application developers with their own rendering engines will have to adapt.
A 17" hi-rez would attract the professional graphics/photography/video market but I am not sure Apple would offer that right away. They might wait to gauge the reaction and support issues generated by offering a 15" with a hi-rez screen. And it would probably only be an optional upgrade. Normal rez screens will probably still be available.
Also, more graphics power will be required to handle the greater number of pixels, so I doubt the GPU built-in to the new Intel chips would be able to handle that and give performance close to what a 15" MBP has now.
I could see a MacBook Pro 13" with a screen resolution the same as now, but with no additional GPU chip, using only the Intel built-in GPU. This would help keep costs down and margins up. If you want more pixels you will have to move up to the 15", or 17" if it is offered.
Also this would give Apple an opening for a 15" MBA. It would have normal rez screen and use the built-in Intel graphics but no additional GPU chip to keep power, heat, and space requirements down.
As to resolution independence it is very nuch in Lion right now. All drawing is now done in real world coordinates. Further the code is set up to take arbitrary multipliers.
The 2X pixel increases that everyone fixates on is all about bitmaps. People fail to realize that bitmaps are still part of software development, a 2x increase in resolution means developers can minimize efforts required to produce those bitmaps. However vector and font drawing has little to do with the need to simplify bit map handling.
The reality is arbitrary scalability is there in Lion, for vector operations. The support of 2X bitmaps is there to solve other issues. I'm just shocked at the mis information that is flowing through this thread. The 2x bitmaps are there because scaling bitmaps sucks and at times just looks ugly.
For how many years has Apple said "Resolution Independence is coming"? They had rudimentary support for this all the back in Tiger, if I remember correctly. What's happened since then? We've gone backwards. Leopard was close, but Snow Leopard actually regressed. Scroll down to the Resolution Independence section and you'll see what I mean.
Arbitrary scalability is gone in Lion (HiDPi only supports 2x and 4x resolutions), but the mechanism to change this is still buried in the Developer Tools. This probably means it's not finished, but compared to some of the other technical issues they've solved, this one is EASY.
It's just depressing...
They're going to have to, if they want the MBP's to remain relevant as iPads and other iOS devices go retina.
You're too concerned with what is largely marketing here. An ipad doesn't really function as a direct replacement to a macbook pro, and it uses a significantly smaller display. The costs do go up significantly doing this on larger displays, but I really wouldn't expect to see it greatly impact the sale of Macs. The ipad doesn't function well as a sole standalone machine. Until that changes, pretty pixels mean very little.
5120x2880 on a 27" TB display would be 217.57 PPI. That might be enough for a standard distance desktop monitor to be Retina. Not sure of that formula.
You guys are way too obsessed with this. Larger displays have been lagging behind with relatively stagnant growth and that it's significantly more difficult to implement such a solution in a larger display with the increased error chances in manufacturing. Articles on the tech sites suggest 2016 or so for higher resolution desktop displays. 15" laptops have been sporting the typical resolution of a 24" display panel for some time now.
It's probably a matter of when panel manufacturers are actually able to make these things cost effectively.
I think the poster indicating that AMOLED is amazing is absolutely correct. AMOLED is a vastly superior technology.:roll eyes: After all, when the display if life-critical AMOLED is considered the standard.
This just reflects what I've mentioned in previous. Displays aren't fully defined by their panel technology. Display manufacturers take what is available and design something that will perform up to spec.
I think the poster indicating that AMOLED is amazing is absolutely correct. AMOLED is a vastly superior technology.:roll eyes: After all, when the display if life-critical AMOLED is considered the standard.
Not always. Some hospitals are now using iPads for medical imaging.
I guess that supports your point even further.
So true (for me at last!)
Impossible to use even higher res on a 17" screen! Maybe time to do something with a vector based ? resolution independent ?interface? (PLEASE!)
You need to understand that Apple makes both the software and the hardware, so they are optimized for each other.
Resolution independence sounds grand, but Apple knows every size of monitor it makes, and OSX is optimized for them.
Only if you want to jerry rig some sort of off-resolution POS to a Mac does resolution independence become important. That is a Windows thing.
Apple designs its software for Apple hardware. That is why it all just works. Perfectly. Every time.
IOS is resolution independent, the so called 2x mode is foe bitmaps where bit maps are used. Vector drawing and even font drawing is resolution independent. This is why text and other graphics drawn on iOS device screens looks so much sharper. A font for example might have twice as many pixels defining its image.
To say you're "shocked at the ignorance here" is a bit much - I suspect most people who've commented on 2x mode do actually understand it, but it's difficult to explain accurately and completely to non-developers.
Technically, drawing on Mac OS now supports true resolution independence, but it doesn't work the same way as the old implementation, and it doesn't do all drawing using vectors, which is what a lot of people would assume resolution independence would require.
All existing vector drawing, such as core graphics, OpenGL and text is now resolution independent, but to be honest that's not much of an achievement since they were all vector-based to begin with. What's new in Lion is support for automatic loading and display of @2x bitmaps, allowing resolution independence for non-vector-based drawing (which is still what most apps use for user interface widgets, including Apple's apps) with minimal effort for developers.
And if iOS is anything to go by, I think it's unlikely that Apple will support this feature for anything other than 2x resolution (i.e. one virtual pixel mapping to four real pixels) because the the bitmap scaling won't look great for any other scale (although any scale factor is technically supported, including non-integer scale factors).
This is AWESOME. I've been waiting for a Retina display laptop since I first experienced it on iPhone4. I. AM. STOKED. Go Apple!
I agree completely. If Apple does this, the MBP will be VERY nice indeed.
i can't help but to think battery life is going to suffer big time from an upgrade like this. I hope i am wrong....
If they eliminate the DVD drive, there will be plenty of room to increase battery size. Likely, they can do that and decrease the overall size and bulk of the machine too.
You guys are way too obsessed with this. Larger displays have been lagging behind with relatively stagnant growth and that it's significantly more difficult to implement such a solution in a larger display with the increased error chances in manufacturing. Articles on the tech sites suggest 2016 or so for higher resolution desktop displays. 15" laptops have been sporting the typical resolution of a 24" display panel for some time now.
Not really. I knew the formula to figure out PPI, but wasn't sure what the formula was for Retina, so I posted what the current TB Display resolution increased similarly would be. Notice I had been answering someone who was claiming iMacs and the displays would be getting replaced w/these hi-res monitors shortly after laptop ones were. Really just curiosity honestly.
If Samsung introduce a laptop with good build quality and a super AMOLED screen, I think I will go Hackintosh as I am not happy with the low quality/high price Apple delivers.
Which laptops are popular for Hackintosh conversions?
While I'd appreciate a higher resolution on my current 13" MBP (1280x800 leaves a lot to be desired), I don't understand the logic in a retina display on such a monitor. With the iphone and ipad, we are likely much closer in viewing distance. 2560x1600 is the res of my 30" monitor at home. At a proper seated/working distance the pitch is fine and it's plenty clear. If you were to pack all of that into a 13" display, I'd go bonkers trying to utilize it and I doubt it would yield an increase in clarity I would appreciate.
Ummm....no. The 13 inch display will display those elements that work well on a 13 inch display. Judt like it does now.
But they will each be crisper. That is all.
I only smoke the highest quality weed, and I consider myself to be a true connoisseur of cannabis.
Any recent Cannabis Cup winners that you count among your favorites?
Remember without actual screens to test your technology on you really don't have a product. Especially if there is nothing to ship to consumers.
As to resolution independence it is very nuch in Lion right now. All drawing is now done in real world coordinates. Further the code is set up to take arbitrary multipliers.
The reality is arbitrary scalability is there in Lion, for vector operations. The support of 2X bitmaps is there to solve other issues. I'm just shocked at the mis information that is flowing through this thread. The 2x bitmaps are there because scaling bitmaps sucks and at times just looks ugly.
True, that until they have a display that uses this, it doesn't mean all that much. My earlier point is still valid: Most users don't know this is happening and if they did, wouldn't understand what it means until they see it on a real product ("What's 'Quartz Debug'?", they might say...).
As to your assertion that Apple supports other resolutions, I only meant it in the context of HiDPi. Read the notes on Resolution Independence in the Ars review (if you haven't already), eventually ALL resolutions should default to this, I'm just discouraged that it's taken this long, given how much progress has already been made. Consider that TextEdit (One of Apple's favorite demo weapons of choice for showing new OS features) was 64-bit capable (In Cocoa, from what I can tell) AND largely resolution-independent in 2006. Probably wasn't completely done, but they were close, and then it seems like they stopped working on it.