[Satchmo]

What do you think? Would Apple keep the Retina Display only for the iPad and iPhone lines?
A MBP or MBA might kill iPad sales.

[chucker]

I fail to understand that line of thinking. People don't buy iPads because laptops aren't sufficiently high-resolution, nor because "they're good enough for what they cost".

[worksafe]

The future will see a MacBook Pro with a iPad (whatever) attached to it as a screen and will be detachable so that you can use it only as a iPad.

[PB PM]

I think its more likely that you'll more people with an iPad and wireless keyboard for serious work, than having the iPad as an attachment to a MBP like device.

As for the MBP itself getting a higher resolution screen, hard to say. It would be nice to see a MBP with resolution higher than 1920x1080, but I don't know of many notebooks that do, and it might push the price up too much.

[chucker]

Originally Posted by worksafe The future will see a MacBook Pro with a iPad (whatever) attached to it as a screen and will be detachable so that you can use it only as a iPad.

Nah. That's awkward, involves way too many fragile mechanical parts, and keeps Apple from selling you two pieces of hardware.

They never did the convertible (laptop/tablet) thing; they're not gonna start now.

Originally Posted by PB PM I think its more likely that you'll more people with an iPad and wireless keyboard for serious work, than having the iPad as an attachment to a MBP like device.

Yep.

Originally Posted by worksafe As for the MBP itself getting a higher resolution screen, hard to say. It would be nice to see a MBP with resolution higher than 1920x1080, but I don't know of many notebooks that do, and it might push the price up too much.

OS X HiDPI is coming, apparently with 2880x1800 for the 15-inch MBP. Which would be a shame, since that's actually a step down from my real 1680x1050.

[Moogs]

Macbook Pro sales = completely unrelated to iPad sales
Macbook sales = likely only weak tie-in with iPad sales
Macbook Air sales = probably some significant overlap in potential buyers

In short, there would only be a risk if it were placed in a Macbook Air, but even then it's the reverse argument. It would be more like "If Apple puts a Retina in an iPad, X% of people would buy that instead of a Retina-equipped Macbook Air." I don't think the Macbook Air will cut into iPad sales at all. Not more than a fraction of a percent at most.

As for hybrid laptop-with-iPad-as-screen... I can't see that happening. Doesn't make any sense. Way too many design problems / limitations (top-heavy, hinge issues, glass screen, two sets of brains, etc) and it doesn't solve a real-world problem with either laptops or iPads IMO. Also it would require a unified OS and I don't believe that will happen for a long time. The mobile devices will have to get a lot more powerful and flash storage more reliable and cheaper so that your iPad is just as powerful as a MBP, which right now it's not close. When an iPad with A9 processor has 8 cores, 500GB of storage, massive bandwidth for connections, then you could start wondering about real OS and device convergence where maybe everyone just has an iPad with a docking station and keyboard, and connections to drive a big monitor, etc. Until then, not.

For laptop users, except in shop floor / catalog and sales type situations, what will detaching the iPad do for users that toting a very thin, lightweight, Retina-equipeed (and more powerful) laptop won't? What to do with the other component... every time you're away from home or office and want to use your iPad you have to take the other half of your laptop and stuff it in a bag and carry it around? Nah.

No offense but that's about the most un-Apple-like idea I've heard. Sounds more like something Acer or Dell would try to do, as a gimmick to unseat the iPad and Mac laptop sales.

[Eugene]

Originally Posted by chucker OS X HiDPI is coming, apparently with 2880x1800 for the 15-inch MBP. Which would be a shame, since that's actually a step down from my real 1680x1050.

Are you implying 1440x900 HiDPI will look awful because nobody will have updated their bitmapped images for HiDPI mode?

[Kraetos]

Retina MBAs and MBPs are inevitable. As are retina iMacs and Thunderbolt displays. There will come a day when Apple's entire product line sports a retina display. Frankly, this is an obvious prediction.

The current high-res 15" MBP debatably on the line of retina already.

Why is anyone concerned with iPads cutting into MacBook sales, or vice versa? I never hear anyone complaining that car sales cut in to truck sales. "Cannibalize" and "cut in to" are the the wrong ways to think about this. They are different devices with different use cases. It's that simple.

The detachable iPad is an awful, awful idea, but I hear it a lot. It's adding a lot of complexity to a device which is simple by design and is successful precisely because it is simple by design. iPads can connect to bluetooth keyboards for a reason.

[dmegatool]

Originally Posted by Kraetos The detachable iPad is an awful, awful idea, but I hear it a lot. It's adding a lot of complexity to a device which is simple by design and is successful precisely because it is simple by design. iPads can connect to bluetooth keyboards for a reason.

If we ever see such a thing, it'll just be an iPad which you can launch regular OSX on it, with a bluetooth mouse and keyboard. But with the convergence happening between the 2 OS... I don't think we'll see something like this. I guess in a distant future we could see a development solution on an "iOS" device.

[Eugene]

I thought the attachable keyboard+trackpad+battery was an awful idea at first, but then I tried the Transformer Prime... It works surprisingly well. Very usable for when you need it, and and all it requires is a dock connector on the side.

The standalone Transformer Prime looks pretty much just like an iPad...no other design changes should be necessary to accommodate such an accessory...

[screensaver400]

Originally Posted by Eugene Are you implying 1440x900 HiDPI will look awful because nobody will have updated their bitmapped images for HiDPI mode?

I think he's talking about the reduction in screen real estate. 2880x1800 will have everything sized like a 1440x900 display, only sharper.

I agree--I hope they wait until 3360x2100 is feasible.

[chucker]

Originally Posted by Eugene Are you implying 1440x900 HiDPI will look awful because nobody will have updated their bitmapped images for HiDPI mode?

I don't follow.

[Eugene]

Originally Posted by screensaver400 I think he's talking about the reduction in screen real estate. 2880x1800 will have everything sized like a 1440x900 display, only sharper. I agree--I hope they wait until 3360x2100 is feasible.

Is HiDPI actually physical resolution dependent though? Will a 2880x1400 display be limited to a HiDPI scale of 1440x900 or will you be able to interpolate 1680x1050 or even 1920x1200 HiDPI?

Otherwise I don't see how they could cleanly market HiDPI when a 27" 5120x2880 display is not going to be in the cards for a couple of years.

EDIT: I guess the best solution would just be to offer a separate UI scale slider.

[chucker]

HiDPI is fixed to a 2x ratio, just like on iOS, unlike the earlier 10.4 approach of having an arbitrary scale factor.

[Dave]

Originally Posted by chucker HiDPI is fixed to a 2x ratio, just like on iOS, unlike the earlier 10.4 approach of having an arbitrary scale factor.

Does it have to be 2x? Wouldn't any integer multiple work?

Incidentally, every so often I turn on interface scaling — the "10.4 approach" — and it generally works pretty well. If I could figure out how to make it stick (you have to turn it on both "per app" and "per launch"), I might leave it on.

[chucker]

Originally Posted by Dave Does it have to be 2x? Wouldn't any integer multiple work?

Like what? 3x? That's 4320x2700, then… even less likely.

If you mean non-integer multiple: no, not any more.

Originally Posted by Dave Incidentally, every so often I turn on interface scaling — the "10.4 approach" — and it generally works pretty well. If I could figure out how to make it stick (you have to turn it on both "per app" and "per launch"), I might leave it on.

There's tons of visual glitches, and there have been for well over half a decade now, so they've clearly abandoned the approach in favor of the much more pragmatic iOS one.

[Eugene]

If visual glitches are a problem they could key the interface elements to a few fixed magnification levels.

[Bonn89]

Originally Posted by Dave Does it have to be 2x? Wouldn't any integer multiple work?

No, because scaling 1 pixel up to, say, 1.5 pixels, will look like shit, or be impossible.

[wtd]

The ivory tower (it's not that ivory tower, really) solution I'd to have vector-based UI elements, rather than bitmaps. It's possible this just doesn't play well with the rest of Apple's display software, though.

[chucker]

Originally Posted by wtd The ivory tower (it's not that ivory tower, really) solution I'd to have vector-based UI elements, rather than bitmaps. It's possible this just doesn't play well with the rest of Apple's display software, though.

Some elements are vector-based — /System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras/Battery.menu/Contents/Resources contains most of the battery menu extra's icons in PDF form, for example.

However, vector-based UI artwork isn't just a lot of effort to create; it's also inherently flawed without hinting (which is even more effort). An icon that is pixel-perfectly rendered to particular dimensions will always win out.

[Dave]

Originally Posted by Bonn89 No, because scaling 1 pixel up to, say, 1.5 pixels, will look like shit, or be impossible.

1.5 isn't an integer.

[Bonn89]

Originally Posted by Dave 1.5 isn't an integer.

Derp, you're right.

[thegeriatric]

Originally Posted by dmegatool If we ever see such a thing, it'll just be an iPad which you can launch regular OSX on it, with a bluetooth mouse and keyboard. But with the convergence happening between the 2 OS... I don't think we'll see something like this. I guess in a distant future we could see a development solution on an "iOS" device.

Surely the way iOS and OSX are going they will eventually merge into 1 OS?

[Dave]

Originally Posted by chucker Some elements are vector-based — /System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras/Battery.menu/Contents/Resources contains most of the battery menu extra's icons in PDF form, for example. However, vector-based UI artwork isn't just a lot of effort to create; it's also inherently flawed without hinting (which is even more effort). An icon that is pixel-perfectly rendered to particular dimensions will always win out.

What's wrong with storing the elements as vector art, then rendering (and caching) the correctly-sized bitmaps at run-time? Seems like it'd be somewhat straight forward for at least the system icons, and I'll bet that NSImage (or whatever) could be extended to include a vector-based representation that'd auto-update the bitmap whenever the system resolution and/or "scale" changes. We're talking about stuff like the cursor here, not 500MB Illustrator files.

[chucker]

Originally Posted by Dave What's wrong with storing the elements as vector art, then rendering (and caching) the correctly-sized bitmaps at run-time?

The OS can't guess how the artist intended them to look at a particular size.

We're talking about stuff like the cursor here, not 500MB Illustrator files.

This isn't about performance at all.

[Eugene]

For HiDPI resolutions, an additional slider with UI scale keyed to 100-125-150-175-200% is the only way I could see this working at all. Yes it forces everyone to include additional bitmapped image files, but meh...

That means a 2880x1400 display is capable of UI scales equivalent to 1440x900, 1800x1125, 2160x1350 and 2520x1575 if needed.

[Dave]

Originally Posted by chucker The OS can't guess how the artist intended them to look at a particular size.

The same as they do at other sizes, except with a different resolution? I suppose at some point the actual on-screen size would matter, but it seems like that'd be relatively straight-forward to handle by changing which image is used when the image size crosses some threshold.

[chucker]

You don't want icons to scale down entirely linearly. As less detail becomes available, certain features are focused on while others get discarded entirely. In some cases, you even want to change the perspective slightly to make it simpler.

As a very noticeable example, take the Screen Sharing icon, in /System/Library/CoreServices. At 16x16, it changes perspective to no longer be at a slight angle, so as to be much crisper, yet less authentic.

[chucker]

As luck would have it, Tim Bray just tweeted a link to an article that explains this in more detail. For the tl;dr folks among us, it provides plenty of visual examples. In a nut, the author agrees with my point: as icons scale down, you don't want to scale each of their respective elements down linearly, but rather increasingly focus on the most important ones. Lines become alined with the grid (and therefore less blurry with anti-aliasing applied), perspective gets simplified, and some elements get discarded altogether.

[Robo]

Originally Posted by chucker As luck would have it, Tim Bray just tweeted a link to an article that explains this in more detail. For the tl;dr folks among us, it provides plenty of visual examples. In a nut, the author agrees with my point: as icons scale down, you don't want to scale each of their respective elements down linearly, but rather increasingly focus on the most important ones. Lines become alined with the grid (and therefore less blurry with anti-aliasing applied), perspective gets simplified, and some elements get discarded altogether.

Yup. A really clear example of this is the logo for Simple, one of Portland's most promising startups. Here it is at different sizes:



If they just scaled down their larger logo, all the intricacy would be lost and it'd just look like a blurry ring. So instead, they reduce the number of loops while still staying true to the same recognizable concept.