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.
In the bad old days, you could hook up just about any old mongrel display to Apple's products.
But now, with just an exception or two, each and every Apple product is a one-piece unit. The screen is a known factor.
There is no need to accommodate the weirdo displays anymore. Apple knows exaclty which display is to be used, and that is good enough. The devs all appreciate it.
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.
You think it was possible to produce the retina display?a display with a pixel density so high the eye can't distinguish between them?cheaply and on a mass scale in 2006? If Apple does one thing right, it's not jumping on new technology before its ready and able to produce a superior user experience.
Display tech' has been pretty lethargic for some time.
Getting some retina tech into the iPad 3 (a 1st buy for me...) and a Mac Book makes sense.
It builds on Apple's tablet momentum and delivers retina tech' to the Mac line to further that platform's momentum.
As a creative type, having a 'retina' display on a Mac excites me most.
However, a retina display on an iMac may be further out than the laptops perhaps?
I remember when Apple first delivered the cinema displays...and the impact they had at 22 inch and later the big whopper 30 inch displays.
Going retina really puts the hurt on the PC competition. Maybe they've partnered with a firm to deliver all that display tech' across their iPad, Mac and even the 'Apple TV' line (which I'm guessing won't be retina...
Yes. An iMac with retina display, 6 cores and a beefier gpu with 8 gigs of ram and a flash drive?
I'd go for that... But I won't hold my breath for the foreseeable future.
Screen resolution is a measure of the number of pixels.
Note the x between the values is a multiplier. Each value is doubled, that means 2x, which gives a total pixel count that quadrupled, that means 4x, but the resolution is still stated as n1 x n2 hence resolution is doubled, not quadrupled.
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.
I should have read back a post or two. I think the forum is a bit overly optimistic on higher resolution displays. Development work for phones and laptops will eventually creep upward, but 27" panels are currently quite expensive. Using a fully custom panel rather than a variation on a generic LG solution would most likely be cost prohibitive (other manufacturers were unable to to really compete with LG on cost), but I'd expect to see a thunderbolt (or whatever they choose to call it) display before an imac. If we see some of the extreme resolutions in laptops next year, it could still be a couple years before the imacs catch on. Higher pixel densities have been available for years in desktop displays, but only in displays designed for medical use, and even then they're not at the level being discussed here. I looked up a couple to find 2048x1536 @ 21" (older format, not a wide screen) and 4096x2560 @ 30". Even at that level they're not what people on here would like to see. I'm less optimistic on timeline than some of the others. I get that you aren't as concerned with "retina" as I previously thought, but the exact formula here remains more of a marketing hype than anything.
The problem as I see it is that resolution independence and the support for 2X bitmaps are really two different things. Apple went with 2X bitmaps to simplify things for developers because as you note bitmaps don't always scale well. However that has nothing to do with vector operations and font drawing being resolution independent in Lion.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Socrates
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.
I suspect you are being charitable here.
Quote:
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.
No that is resolution independence. That is the system draws to gal world dimensions and not to pixels. Bitmaps have nothing to do with resolution independence because nobly in their right mind would depend upon scaling of bitmaps to give consistent results.
For developer with a lot of bitmaps in their products the jump to 2X makes life easier for them.
Quote:
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.
This I have to disagree with, it is a significant accomplishment and something that people have been waiting for for years.
Quote:
What's new in Lion is support for automatic loading and display of @2x bitmaps, allowing resolution independence for non-vector-based drawing
Well I have to disagree again. Support for 2X bitmaps is not resolution independence in any shape or form. Rather it is providing a way to directly map graphics onto higher resolution screens. In effect the 2X support allows for same size images on a higher resolution screen, the images are not however resolution independent. Rather they are images designed to support specific resolutions.
Quote:
(which is still what most apps use for user interface widgets, including Apple's apps) with minimal effort for developers.
This is a key point, 2X simplifies things for developers. Well as long as they can easily generate new bit maps as higher resolution versions of the original bit maps.
Quote:
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).
The whole point of 2x bitmaps is to get around the scaling artifacts that happen when scaling is done aggressively. The problem is that this has nothing to do with scaling of vector drawing in Mac OS.
I'm certain that Apples goals are to keep it as simple as possible for developers. However they very carefully point out in documentation that developers should not assume that 1X & 2X are the only scale factors they will ever see. In fact they go out of their way to make sure that developers know how to get the correct scale factor. The fact that they go to great lengths to tell developer not to assume any specific scale factor is a sign to me that they at least have considered other than integer multipliers. In the end this probably won't be a laptop issue but rather an issue with larger screens.
But will we have the Matte screen option? One wonders who it was that was insisting on only glossy. Perhaps Steve was, who knows. (he was pretty strong willed about certain things).
You think it was possible to produce the retina display?a display with a pixel density so high the eye can't distinguish between them?cheaply and on a mass scale in 2006? If Apple does one thing right, it's not jumping on new technology before its ready and able to produce a superior user experience.
Should have mentioned it was on a projector screen.
When it really comes right down to it customers have a chance to vote for matte screens by buying matte screenss. I doubt Apple moves enough of such screens to even notice it at the end of each month. Matte screens lead to terrible user experiences thus very low demand.
In the end I don't think Steve had anything to do with it. Matte screens are just very hard to justify based on demand. Worst with a retina display the matte surface would make that nice new high resolution panel look like crap. I suspect that the days of matte screens are numbered.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rkevwill
But will we have the Matte screen option? One wonders who it was that was insisting on only glossy. Perhaps Steve was, who knows. (he was pretty strong willed about certain things).
Anything surpassing 250 ppi on a screen the size of an iPad or larger is an impressive engineering feat. It remains to be seen how memory and battery usage will be affected.
But here's the thing I wonder about - I personally have not seen that many apps (any?) that really makes the Retina Display stand out on the iPhone, in a way that makes it a killer feature. Sure, images are crisper. But where is the app that would only work (or work well) with >250 ppi?
I'd ask the same question for iPad and MacBook scale displays. I see possibilities in scientific and medical applications, but those are rarely drivers for Apple design.
Anything surpassing 250 ppi on a screen the size of an iPad or larger is an impressive engineering feat. It remains to be seen how memory and battery usage will be affected.
But here's the thing I wonder about - I personally have not seen that many apps (any?) that really makes the Retina Display stand out on the iPhone, in a way that makes it a killer feature. Sure, images are crisper. But where is the app that would only work (or work well) with >250 ppi?
I'd ask the same question for iPad and MacBook scale displays. I see possibilities in scientific and medical applications, but those are rarely drivers for Apple design.
Seriously some people could get by with teletype machines for "displays", that doesn't mean they would gravitate to something better.
Quote:
Originally Posted by stelligent
Anything surpassing 250 ppi on a screen the size of an iPad or larger is an impressive engineering feat. It remains to be seen how memory and battery usage will be affected.
Actually this is a real concern but let's face it there is plenty of room in an iPad for a bigger battery. It isn't just memory but the bandwidth to that memory that is important. This is one reason why I'm expecting something drastically different in the architecture of the machine if it indeed gets a retina display. They might switch to graphics memory or put the fram buffer on the SoC silicon. Whatever they do it will be focused on addressing significant increase in bytes they will have to move.
Quote:
But here's the thing I wonder about - I personally have not seen that many apps (any?) that really makes the Retina Display stand out on the iPhone, in a way that makes it a killer feature. Sure, images are crisper. But where is the app that would only work (or work well) with >250 ppi?
isn't this a bit silly to be asking? One of the goals of resolution independence is to avoid this issue of screen specific apps. In any event some of the benefits.
Better looking fonts.
Sharper drawing of vector based graphics.
Better looking pictures.
Sharper detail or more information on screen.
Few apps absolutely need all of the above but any of the above could make an app more compelling on a high resolution screen.
Quote:
I'd ask the same question for iPad and MacBook scale displays. I see possibilities in scientific and medical applications, but those are rarely drivers for Apple design.
Not having seen one of these screens I can only guess but I suspect that the differences will be instantly noticeable. People will most definitely want such screens. The only possible exceptions would be gamers who will loose frame rates. Such screens would be far more pleasing to the average eye.
That's one that can be quite noticeable. Digital cameras can capture quite a lot of information even after you factor in the interpolated nature of the RGBG bayer array. So much of it is unfortunately wasted by low viewing resolution. I'm convinced that when we can view these things on screen close to 300 dpi consistently, people will adjust to that and the older stuff will just look pixellated by comparison.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jragosta
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Medical imaging.
Photo editing.
It would be awesome for photo editing. Still image files can get up to some truly insane sizes with digital cameras in the 30-60 megapixel range having been available for some time. Of course you'd still want screen real estate, but not being able to see pixellation could clean up the workflow in many ways there. For cad work it would also be amazing as you could view splines without the use of hardware level anti aliasing, which amounts to little more than a moderately dithered line for the purpose of visual continuity.
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.
A fair point. I had never tried to expand the menu text until you raised it, though. Now I feel deprived. Damn Apple!
Comments
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.
In the bad old days, you could hook up just about any old mongrel display to Apple's products.
But now, with just an exception or two, each and every Apple product is a one-piece unit. The screen is a known factor.
There is no need to accommodate the weirdo displays anymore. Apple knows exaclty which display is to be used, and that is good enough. The devs all appreciate it.
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.
You think it was possible to produce the retina display?a display with a pixel density so high the eye can't distinguish between them?cheaply and on a mass scale in 2006? If Apple does one thing right, it's not jumping on new technology before its ready and able to produce a superior user experience.
Not sure if anyone has pointed this out yet but 2880x1800 is exactly 4x as large as the current display, not x2.
4x the pixels, but 2x the resolution.
4x the pixels, but 2x the resolution.
Screen resolution is a measure of the number of pixels.
Getting some retina tech into the iPad 3 (a 1st buy for me...) and a Mac Book makes sense.
It builds on Apple's tablet momentum and delivers retina tech' to the Mac line to further that platform's momentum.
As a creative type, having a 'retina' display on a Mac excites me most.
However, a retina display on an iMac may be further out than the laptops perhaps?
I remember when Apple first delivered the cinema displays...and the impact they had at 22 inch and later the big whopper 30 inch displays.
Going retina really puts the hurt on the PC competition. Maybe they've partnered with a firm to deliver all that display tech' across their iPad, Mac and even the 'Apple TV' line (which I'm guessing won't be retina...
Yes. An iMac with retina display, 6 cores and a beefier gpu with 8 gigs of ram and a flash drive?
Surprise me, Apple.
Lemon Bon Bon.
Lemon Bon Bon.
Screen resolution is a measure of the number of pixels.
Note the x between the values is a multiplier. Each value is doubled, that means 2x, which gives a total pixel count that quadrupled, that means 4x, but the resolution is still stated as n1 x n2 hence resolution is doubled, not quadrupled.
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.
I should have read back a post or two. I think the forum is a bit overly optimistic on higher resolution displays. Development work for phones and laptops will eventually creep upward, but 27" panels are currently quite expensive. Using a fully custom panel rather than a variation on a generic LG solution would most likely be cost prohibitive (other manufacturers were unable to to really compete with LG on cost), but I'd expect to see a thunderbolt (or whatever they choose to call it) display before an imac. If we see some of the extreme resolutions in laptops next year, it could still be a couple years before the imacs catch on. Higher pixel densities have been available for years in desktop displays, but only in displays designed for medical use, and even then they're not at the level being discussed here. I looked up a couple to find 2048x1536 @ 21" (older format, not a wide screen) and 4096x2560 @ 30". Even at that level they're not what people on here would like to see. I'm less optimistic on timeline than some of the others. I get that you aren't as concerned with "retina" as I previously thought, but the exact formula here remains more of a marketing hype than anything.
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.
I suspect you are being charitable here.
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.
No that is resolution independence. That is the system draws to gal world dimensions and not to pixels. Bitmaps have nothing to do with resolution independence because nobly in their right mind would depend upon scaling of bitmaps to give consistent results.
For developer with a lot of bitmaps in their products the jump to 2X makes life easier for them.
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.
This I have to disagree with, it is a significant accomplishment and something that people have been waiting for for years.
What's new in Lion is support for automatic loading and display of @2x bitmaps, allowing resolution independence for non-vector-based drawing
Well I have to disagree again. Support for 2X bitmaps is not resolution independence in any shape or form. Rather it is providing a way to directly map graphics onto higher resolution screens. In effect the 2X support allows for same size images on a higher resolution screen, the images are not however resolution independent. Rather they are images designed to support specific resolutions.
(which is still what most apps use for user interface widgets, including Apple's apps) with minimal effort for developers.
This is a key point, 2X simplifies things for developers. Well as long as they can easily generate new bit maps as higher resolution versions of the original bit maps.
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).
The whole point of 2x bitmaps is to get around the scaling artifacts that happen when scaling is done aggressively. The problem is that this has nothing to do with scaling of vector drawing in Mac OS.
I'm certain that Apples goals are to keep it as simple as possible for developers. However they very carefully point out in documentation that developers should not assume that 1X & 2X are the only scale factors they will ever see. In fact they go out of their way to make sure that developers know how to get the correct scale factor. The fact that they go to great lengths to tell developer not to assume any specific scale factor is a sign to me that they at least have considered other than integer multipliers. In the end this probably won't be a laptop issue but rather an issue with larger screens.
You think it was possible to produce the retina display?a display with a pixel density so high the eye can't distinguish between them?cheaply and on a mass scale in 2006? If Apple does one thing right, it's not jumping on new technology before its ready and able to produce a superior user experience.
Should have mentioned it was on a projector screen.
In the end I don't think Steve had anything to do with it. Matte screens are just very hard to justify based on demand. Worst with a retina display the matte surface would make that nice new high resolution panel look like crap. I suspect that the days of matte screens are numbered.
But will we have the Matte screen option? One wonders who it was that was insisting on only glossy. Perhaps Steve was, who knows. (he was pretty strong willed about certain things).
Thus: 1x1 to 2x2 is like 1 to 4
Same going from 900x1440 to 1800x2880 is not doubling but quadrupling the resolution.
If you don't believe me or math, go count the pixels...
But here's the thing I wonder about - I personally have not seen that many apps (any?) that really makes the Retina Display stand out on the iPhone, in a way that makes it a killer feature. Sure, images are crisper. But where is the app that would only work (or work well) with >250 ppi?
I'd ask the same question for iPad and MacBook scale displays. I see possibilities in scientific and medical applications, but those are rarely drivers for Apple design.
...because resolution increases by the square.
Thus: 1x1 to 2x2 is like 1 to 4
Same going from 900x1440 to 1800x2880 is not doubling but quadrupling the resolution.
If you don't believe me or math, go count the pixels...
Resolution is measured in pixels per inch in a single direction.
Anything surpassing 250 ppi on a screen the size of an iPad or larger is an impressive engineering feat. It remains to be seen how memory and battery usage will be affected.
But here's the thing I wonder about - I personally have not seen that many apps (any?) that really makes the Retina Display stand out on the iPhone, in a way that makes it a killer feature. Sure, images are crisper. But where is the app that would only work (or work well) with >250 ppi?
I'd ask the same question for iPad and MacBook scale displays. I see possibilities in scientific and medical applications, but those are rarely drivers for Apple design.
AutoCad.
Medical imaging.
Photo editing.
Anything surpassing 250 ppi on a screen the size of an iPad or larger is an impressive engineering feat. It remains to be seen how memory and battery usage will be affected.
Actually this is a real concern but let's face it there is plenty of room in an iPad for a bigger battery. It isn't just memory but the bandwidth to that memory that is important. This is one reason why I'm expecting something drastically different in the architecture of the machine if it indeed gets a retina display. They might switch to graphics memory or put the fram buffer on the SoC silicon. Whatever they do it will be focused on addressing significant increase in bytes they will have to move.
But here's the thing I wonder about - I personally have not seen that many apps (any?) that really makes the Retina Display stand out on the iPhone, in a way that makes it a killer feature. Sure, images are crisper. But where is the app that would only work (or work well) with >250 ppi?
isn't this a bit silly to be asking? One of the goals of resolution independence is to avoid this issue of screen specific apps. In any event some of the benefits.
- Better looking fonts.
- Sharper drawing of vector based graphics.
- Better looking pictures.
- Sharper detail or more information on screen.
Few apps absolutely need all of the above but any of the above could make an app more compelling on a high resolution screen.I'd ask the same question for iPad and MacBook scale displays. I see possibilities in scientific and medical applications, but those are rarely drivers for Apple design.
Not having seen one of these screens I can only guess but I suspect that the differences will be instantly noticeable. People will most definitely want such screens. The only possible exceptions would be gamers who will loose frame rates. Such screens would be far more pleasing to the average eye.
[*]Better looking pictures.
That's one that can be quite noticeable. Digital cameras can capture quite a lot of information even after you factor in the interpolated nature of the RGBG bayer array. So much of it is unfortunately wasted by low viewing resolution. I'm convinced that when we can view these things on screen close to 300 dpi consistently, people will adjust to that and the older stuff will just look pixellated by comparison.
AutoCad.
Medical imaging.
Photo editing.
It would be awesome for photo editing. Still image files can get up to some truly insane sizes with digital cameras in the 30-60 megapixel range having been available for some time. Of course you'd still want screen real estate, but not being able to see pixellation could clean up the workflow in many ways there. For cad work it would also be amazing as you could view splines without the use of hardware level anti aliasing, which amounts to little more than a moderately dithered line for the purpose of visual continuity.
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.
A fair point. I had never tried to expand the menu text until you raised it, though. Now I feel deprived. Damn Apple!