http://macdailynews.com/2011/04/25/appl ... -displays/

Though will it lead to retina displays on macs?

What is a current decent good LCD display density wise - 100DPI or something? The iPhone 4 retina display is 326 DPI. I can't see a desktop LCD monitor hitting that density any time soon. My suspicion is Apple are planning for SuperHD displays. there are TVs in the labs that have twice the res of a 1080p screen i.e. 4000 * 2000 ish but they're big displays (like 60"+) and they're not actually in production yet. Maybe Apple are assuming that by the time they get to be 'consumer' items, you won't have a desktop PC at all.

Possibly they're planning for a point where you might have a 'processor hub' - like a HTPC or Mac mini, but with more juice - hooked up to your 60" SuperHD TV. When you want it to be, it's a PVR or IPTV client. When you want it to be, it's a PC and you use an iPad or similar as a control interface for it - with a heavily gesture based GUI. When it's a PVR, the iPad is a smart remote control. It's only one theory of where we're going, but I think it's one Apple have been thinking about for a while. Everything they've done since the iPhone has been about taking 'computing' away from the desktop and Lion seems to be much more 'gesture friendly' than say Snow Leopard anyway.

On the other hand, it could just be that Apple want people to use icons that are as high res as possible because the higher the 'source image' the better it looks when scaled to a final smaller res, regardless of what that is.

Jon

It was 512 already. I don't know anyone who actually has icons "just" 512 square on their desktop, including my partially sighted office manager with her 24" screen - and hers are pretty darned big.

I also thought it was very premature. I would prefer retina display on an iPad. The cost on a 27" iMac would be horrendous. I think that it might be a while before we have such displays on desktops. I still think desktops will be around far more flexible than cloud setups. Though considering there is the option of Airplay enabled TV's which might make more sense if there are bigger icons for such screens. Though with bigger icons it could make the genie effect even more spectacular, though your reason is probably closer.

Retina display would be great on an iPad, but is unnecessary on a desktop as you sit further away.

Agreed about the iPad, but do you really need any resolution higher than 1080p? I think that TV resolutions are approaching their usable limit.

It depends, some of the Windows laptops with smaller, but high resolution displays are between 126 and 160dpi. The 27" display is also in the high 120s.

IBM released a 20" display back in the 90s with well over 200dpi, but it never took off...

I don't know how useful such a high density will be, more space is important to me, as opposed to more definition for individual fonts etc. I hate the current trend of castrating 24" monitors, so that they lose the last 180 lines, just so they can have the FullHD logo. I want a computer monitor, not a despecced television!


I think this is more likely, in the short term at least.