Google Chrome browser updated for Apple's Retina display MacBook Pro

Posted:
in Mac Software edited January 2014
Google Chrome users with Apple's next-generation 15-inch MacBook Pro can now take advantage of the high-resolution Retina display with their browser.

Google announced on its Chrome blog on Tuesday that the latest "Stable" release of its browser adds support for high-resolution Mac Retina displays. The software is now available for download from Google's website.

The search giant first announced in June that it was working on adding high-resolution support to its browser for Retina display Macs. Chrome stood out as one popular software choice that looked particularly poor on the Retina display MacBook Pro.

Released at the Worldwide Developers Conference in June, the 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display has a screen resolution of 2,880 by 1,800 pixels. Optimized versions of Apple's own software for OS X, including its Safari Web browser, became quickly available, while some third-party applications took more time.

Chrome


Chrome and Valve's Steam were singled out by AppleInsider in its own review of the MacBook Pro with Retina display. While Chrome has now been updated for the Retina display, Steam and other popular applications, like Adobe Photoshop, have yet to be updated.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 19
    tallest skiltallest skil Posts: 43,388member


    Of course that's worthy of an entirely new version number. 


     


    In five years, they'll be releasing Chrome 113, which is different from Chrome 112 in that they fixed a bug where one single HTML6 tag showed up incorrectly.

  • Reply 2 of 19

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Tallest Skil View Post


    Of course that's worthy of an entirely new version number. 


     


    In five years, they'll be releasing Chrome 113, which is different from Chrome 112 in that they fixed a bug where one single HTML6 tag showed up incorrectly.



     


    There are definitely too many versions in a hurry but It was NOT the ONLY part of the release. 

  • Reply 3 of 19
    solipsismxsolipsismx Posts: 19,566member
    Of course that's worthy of an entirely new version number. 

    In five years, they'll be releasing Chrome 113, which is different from Chrome 112 in that they fixed a bug where one single HTML6 tag showed up incorrectly.

    I have no problem with them doing versions in that way. There really is no good way to choose when a primary, secondary , tertiary, etc. version should be changed. Do you measure the amount of effort? The time? The cost? UI changes
    The number of lines changed?

    In the end what it comes down to is if the browser is good and if it's better than the previous version it's replacing. On top of that, when it comes to something users spend so much time using any way to make them aware that they should have the best version for their chosen the better, but with Chrome that's a moot point as the updates are seamless.
  • Reply 4 of 19
    sensisensi Posts: 346member
    Just to be clear the 15-inch MacBook Pro display resolution is of 1440 x 900 by default, and can be upped at 1920 x 1200.
    Of course that's worthy of an entirely new version number. 

    In five years, they'll be releasing Chrome 113, which is different from Chrome 112 in that they fixed a bug where one single HTML6 tag showed up incorrectly.
    Hmm, excepting that they don't advertise any version number, unlike firefox or others, so your rant is pointless.
  • Reply 5 of 19
    socratessocrates Posts: 261member
    What do you mean there's no good way to choose? Everybody else manages to use the convention well enough. Look at Apple's own apps for example - they're mostly in single digit major releases because they follow the industry standard of

    Major update . Minor update . Maintenance update (Bug fix or very minor feature)

    You can quibble about exactly what goes in each division, but it's generally pretty obvious when an update is major or minor. Even OSX itself follows this pattern pretty consistently, (with occasional exceptions like adding the Mac App Store as a maintenance release).

    There's a difference between installing a security patch and upgrading to a new browser engine. I'd want to know which I was doing in advance because sites or plugins I'm relying on might be broken for a while after a major update.

    Chrome and Firefox's sudden switch to ludicrous versioning is nothing but a cynical ploy to make themselves seem more mature than IE and Safari (even though they're much younger) because they have bigger version numbers. It's pathetic.
  • Reply 6 of 19
    tallest skiltallest skil Posts: 43,388member


    Originally Posted by Sensi View Post

    Hmm, excepting that they don't advertise any version number, unlike firefox, so your rant is pointless.


     


    Which certainly explains why every article about this topic except the AI one says "Chrome 21 released" or a variant thereof.

  • Reply 7 of 19
    solipsismxsolipsismx Posts: 19,566member
    socrates wrote: »
    What do you mean there's no good way to choose? Everybody else manages to use the convention well enough. Look at Apple's own apps for example - they're mostly in single digit major releases because they follow the industry standard of
    Major update . Minor update . Maintenance update (Bug fix or very minor feature)

    Yes, there is no good way to define what features or changes fall into the categories you mention. I think Mac OS X updates have been a major undertaking but by your measure they are just getting minor updates (e.g,: 10.5, 10.6, 10.7, 10.8). There are others who think they are no more than "service packs" that deserve a tertiary increment.
  • Reply 8 of 19
    sensisensi Posts: 346member
    Which certainly explains why every article about this topic except the AI one says "Chrome 21 released" or a variant thereof.
    Which certainly demonstrates that most tech so-called editors/journalists are lazy, continually quoting among themselves, or here simply because their source is the developer blog and that they found this meaningless number relevant, yet Google doesn't advertise the Chrome version number.
  • Reply 9 of 19
    cvaldes1831cvaldes1831 Posts: 1,832member
    solipsismx wrote: »
    Yes, there is no good way to define what features or changes fall into the categories you mention. I think Mac OS X updates have been a major undertaking but by your measure they are just getting minor updates (e.g,: 10.5, 10.6, 10.7, 10.8). There are others who think they are no more than "service packs" that deserve a tertiary increment.
    The numbering of Apple's OS X operating system is really a marketing ploy/gimmick.

    If you use the major.minor.maintenance numbering model, there really are three major versions of OS X.

    10.0 - Cheetah (2001), the original release
    10.4 - Tiger (2005), the first version that eventually supported x86-based architecture (starting with version 10.4.4)
    10.6 - Snow Leopard (2009), the last version that supported PPC-based architecture, and what Apple called a total "under the hood rewrite"

    So theoretically, Tiger should have been OS 11.0 (or XI) and Snow Leopard should have been OS 12.0 (or XII). Thus Lion would have been 12.1 and Mountain Lion would be 12.2.

    Curiously, the three versions are four years apart. There was only 10.5 Leopard that released between Tiger (2005) and Snow Leopard (2009), but we know now that the iPhone operating system (now known as iOS) development sapped a lot of engineering resources away from the Mac OS X group.
  • Reply 10 of 19
    solipsismxsolipsismx Posts: 19,566member
    The numbering of Apple's OS X operating system is really a marketing ploy/gimmick.
    If you use the major.minor.maintenance numbering model, there really are three major versions of OS X.
    10.0 - Cheetah (2001), the original release
    10.4 - Tiger (2005), the first version that eventually supported x86-based architecture (starting with version 10.4.4)
    10.6 - Snow Leopard (2009), the last version that supported PPC-based architecture, and what Apple called a total "under the hood rewrite"
    So theoretically, Tiger should have been OS 11.0 (or XI) and Snow Leopard should have been OS 12.0 (or XII). Thus Lion would have been 12.1 and Mountain Lion would be 12.2.

    I would argue that there are different defining moments of the Mac OS X even though I like the numbering of 11 and 12, but that's the point, it's all philosophical with no real definition. This sort of stuff is also debated in anthropology (note: used as an umbrella term for all its subfields which include archeology and linguistics) as to when one thing stops and another begins.
  • Reply 11 of 19
    orlandoorlando Posts: 601member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by thataveragejoe View Post


     


    There are definitely too many versions in a hurry but It was NOT the ONLY part of the release. 



     


    So would you rather they have fewer but bigger releases, maybe one a year, in which case we wouldn't get retina support till 2013.

  • Reply 12 of 19
    just_mejust_me Posts: 590member
    sensi wrote: »
    Just to be clear the 15-inch MacBook Pro display resolution is of 1440 x 900 by default, and can be upped at 1920 x 1200.
    Hmm, excepting that they don't advertise any version number, unlike firefox or others, so your rant is pointless.

    They usually are. Ignore and move on
  • Reply 13 of 19
    paxmanpaxman Posts: 4,729member
    The numbering of Apple's OS X operating system is really a marketing ploy/gimmick.
    If you use the major.minor.maintenance numbering model, there really are three major versions of OS X.
    10.0 - Cheetah (2001), the original release
    10.4 - Tiger (2005), the first version that eventually supported x86-based architecture (starting with version 10.4.4)
    10.6 - Snow Leopard (2009), the last version that supported PPC-based architecture, and what Apple called a total "under the hood rewrite"
    So theoretically, Tiger should have been OS 11.0 (or XI) and Snow Leopard should have been OS 12.0 (or XII). Thus Lion would have been 12.1 and Mountain Lion would be 12.2.
    Curiously, the three versions are four years apart. There was only 10.5 Leopard that released between Tiger (2005) and Snow Leopard (2009), but we know now that the iPhone operating system (now known as iOS) development sapped a lot of engineering resources away from the Mac OS X group.
    It's marketing, not a gimmick. 99% of Safari users use Safari - period. Ditto OSX. In truth we are on Os2 (no no, not that one!) Mac OS, and now OSX. If one day IOS becomes so closely aligned with OSX they really are the same, then we're on OS3.

    But each iteration needs an identifier. A number system will do. For marketing purposes Apple has done well will cats. They are impressive looking, and easy to grasp. The cats are also interesting withouth being frivolous and dull, like Windows. MS kinda screwed it all up with Vista which in terms of naming was a good follow up to Windows. But because the software sucked they dropped the whole naming thing and went back to plain numbers.
  • Reply 14 of 19
    doh123doh123 Posts: 323member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Sensi View Post



    Just to be clear the 15-inch MacBook Pro display resolution is of 1440 x 900 by default, and can be upped at 1920 x 1200.

    Hmm, excepting that they don't advertise any version number, unlike firefox or others, so your rant is pointless.


     


    Just to be clear... the Macbook Pro with Retina Display does indeed have a 2880x1800 display... While by default its scaled so things appear to be like they are running on a 1440x900 display, and you can scale that up to 1920x1200 or to some other settings... the display is still 2880x1800, and all of Apples default settings really do run at 2880x1800 and do some scaling.  Thats why when you change the scaling it says things like "Looks like 1920x1200" and not "is 1920x1200"

  • Reply 15 of 19
    ssquirrelssquirrel Posts: 1,196member


    Here's to hoping that Chrome 21 isn't a crash happy POS under Mountain Lion like Chrome 20 is.

  • Reply 16 of 19
    auxioauxio Posts: 2,717member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by SolipsismX View Post





    Yes, there is no good way to define what features or changes fall into the categories you mention. I think Mac OS X updates have been a major undertaking but by your measure they are just getting minor updates (e.g,: 10.5, 10.6, 10.7, 10.8). There are others who think they are no more than "service packs" that deserve a tertiary increment.


     


    When compared to the change from Mac OS 9 to Mac OS X (10), the updates Apple has been making in 10.1 - 10.8 are minor updates.  So yeah, in my mind a major update is just that: a major overhaul of your codebase that usually results in a very different piece of software.


     


    Now, I can't speak for the major updates to Mac OS between versions 1-9 since I only really started paying attention to Mac OS with the release of OS X (I had an interest in operating system technology and felt Mac OS was positively archaic in the last 5 years or so leading up to OS X, but that's another story).  However, given that it was roughly 15 years for nine major version changes, I'm assuming there were some pretty big changes in those releases too.


     


    As for the difference between the tertiary and minor increments, I think the division of bug/security patches and small feature changes/additions makes sense.


     


    With regard to the original discussion about Chrome versions (and Firefox), I agree that the versioning scheme they're now using is nonsensical.  As Socrates stated: it feels a lot like they're trying to run up the version numbers quickly to make their software seem more mature.

  • Reply 17 of 19
    ssquirrelssquirrel Posts: 1,196member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by auxio View Post


     


    When compared to the change from Mac OS 9 to Mac OS X (10), the updates Apple has been making in 10.1 - 10.8 are minor updates.  So yeah, in my mind a major update is just that: a major overhaul of your codebase that usually results in a very different piece of software.



     


    cvaldes1831 hit this very well in his above post: http://forums.appleinsider.com/t/151658/google-chrome-browser-updated-for-apples-retina-display-macbook-pro#post_2158990


     


    There have been plenty of major changes to OS X in its 12 years of life.  Remember originally they were dual supporting MacOS and OSX internally w/the Classic environment.  They ditched that in 10.5 and 10.6 was the last to support PowerPC code.  Pushing strongly for all software to switch from Carbon to Cocoa.  Snow Leopard was a complete re-write of everything underneath, etc.  There have been plenty of massivechanges to the OS along the way.

  • Reply 18 of 19
    philboogiephilboogie Posts: 7,675member
    Sure glad no one mentions iTunes. Those version numbers have been quite ridiculous. So off that the changes in 5.0 and 6.0 aren't even mentioned on Wikipedia, while I believe it was 4.6 that got such a boatload of features it was strangely a secondary version number.

    I think Apple did a wise thing with their latest iPad and do hope they won't use 6 on a new iPhone. Personally, I hope it doesn't even read iPhone on the back and they'll put all the FCC stuff on the rim. It might become the most iconic device our generation has seen.
  • Reply 19 of 19


    I would wait for later version I've been using chrome since its release and it has significantly dropped my MBPr battery life by 2-3hrs. Ive gone back to safari for now. its a shame because i've always been a long time chrome user.

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