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dglow
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Join Date: May 2004
 
2020-08-16, 16:28

Greetings everyone. Please indulge me in some display speculation regarding this rumored 23" iMac.

I propose that, as part of the transition to Apple Silicon-based Macs, Apple will seek to unify its display makeup between macOS and iPadOS.


Today Apple's Retina screens exist in several versions: iPhones traditionally occupy 326 pixels-per-inch at 2x resolution, iPads are 264 ppi, and retina Macs operate between 218 ppi and 226 ppi. Additionally, 'Super Retina' (OLED) iPhones run at a 3x resolution of 458 ppi.

This arrangement presents some issues when running iPad apps on the Mac. Specifically, all iPad apps adapted to run via Apple's Mac Catalyst technology encounter an automatic downscaling to 77% of their native iPad size. If you've ever looked at the News app on a non-retina display and thought the text looked small and blurry, this 77% scaling is the reason why.

Interestingly, a few things change with Big Sur:

1. This automatic scaling of Catalyst apps is now optional. Developers can choose to run at the full 'native' iPad scale factor.
2. The UI design in Big Sur is notably more spacious. Many running the betas have noted the expanded layout of Finder windows, table views, and the menu bar.
3. And perhaps most significantly we know that Big Sur, running on Apple Silicon Macs, will be able to download and run iOS apps natively, without alteration or adaptation.

It is for these reasons that I believe Apple will adopt a native screen density comparable to the iPad with its Apple Silicon Macs. By doing so, iPad apps will display properly and with no scaling, and Apple will be able to advertise even greater screen resolutions for its brand new line of Macs.


In a way Apple have been flirting with this already. Take the first retina Mac, the 15" Retina MacBook Pro. Its display is 2880x1800, or 1440x900 at 2x resolution. When it first shipped in 2012 by default this Mac ran in its 1440x900 mode, even though it is capable of simulating two higher resolutions: 1680x1050 and 1920x1200, both at 2x.

However, in the latter years of its run, the 15" rMBP shipped with its 1680x1050 resolution active by default. This resolution requires the GPU to downsample the virtual resolution to the screen's native pixels. Some Apple pundits have complained about this and called for Apple to ship a display that was a true 'native' 2x of its shipping default resolution. In the case of the 15" MacBook Pro, that native resolution would have been 3360x2100. Of course, Apple chose not to do this.

Even the newer 16" MacBook Pro, like the 15" before it, runs in a virtual resolution out of the box. Its native resolution is 3072x1920, or 226 ppi. However, the 16" ships running at 3584x2240, which is 264 ppi. And if you've read this far, you'll note that 264 ppi happens to be the exact same density as an iPad.


Back to the main topic: what might this 23" iMac look like? The rumors call for vastly reduced bezels and an appearance which resembles the current iPad Pro. If you measure today's iMacs, their faces – including the metal chins – measure around 1.6:1, the golden ratio. Migrating to an iPad Pro-like appearance would mean removing the chin, which (barring other changes) would result in a 16:10 display aspect ratio, the long-preferred screen ratio for Apple's laptops.

So in conclusion: a 23" diagonal screen, running at 264 ppi, in a 16:10 aspect ratio... adds up to a 5120x3200 native resolution. This would be more pixels than the 5K iMac squeezed into a 23" form factor!


I for one welcome our new Apple Silicon overlords.
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