Seems like one of the iPhone 6 rumors is a new Retina level @3x… Which leads us to wonder if we’ll get @3x for the Mac? If so, it begs the question, do we need it?
If they do a Retina iMac we probably will.
Since there are now 5K monitor panels (http://www.extremetech.com/computing/189342-dell-unveils-5k-desktop-monitor-with-almost-2x-the-pixels-of-your-puny-4k-display) its plausible we’d see one at some date in the near future
Doubt that. At 2560x1440 the iMac already pushes quite a rew pixels (HD? HA!) and is nearly retina (when you can’t see individual pixels at a normal viewing distance), so doubling it would be more than enough (but offers little benefit ) while trippling it is pointless.
I doubt it any time soon. We still barely have the tech to do the 5120 x 2880 (or as Dell calls it 5K?) so getting to 7680 x 4320 seems quite a ways away.
Oh I doubt we’ll get to a @3 display for an iMac any time soon.
But @2 perhaps since there are starting to be panels capable of this that are decent quality (the dells are actually quite nice)
I’m not sure about the benefits of such.
Never forget an iPhone is increasingly becoming the main screen. It would make sense that such a small screen gets the highest resolution possible, and 1704 x 960 does not seem out of this world for a screen, would it be 5.5".
Incidentally, I don’t know how movies are shown on current Retina, but the 568 points width of it translates to 1136 pixels, so it is enough for 1080 pixels, but 3x would not be enough for Super HD 4K 2160 pixels. So the reason maybe elsewhere.
Using 3x for a larger screen seems to make less sense, but if the component exists, chances are it will happen. Then the issue could be the need for a special graphic processor. What is possible with 1,635,840 pixels could be a challenge with much larger screens.
Which is ironic considering that Windows has sorta support HIDPI, but not even Windows really supports it (I have a Sony Vaio with a HIDPI screen and everything is every too tiny or looks wrong).
Have you seen the new Samsung & LG phones with a 2K display and 500~ DPI?
According to Apple (yeah I know) the human eye can’t differentiate pixels at higher resolution than 300 dpi, I can get my macro lens out and then I can see the pixels, which brings me to ask, why? Is it purely marketing or is there really a valid reason for such high resolution screens (especially with modern flat and boring interfaces).
Beyond a certain pixel size at a certain distance from your eye you eye can’t perceive the detail.
So there certainly seems to be some credibility to Apples statements.
But its been a VERY long time since I studied any of this.
Do wish Scott Steinman was around & able to comment as he IS a
doctor of optometry or something like that.
He’d know better than I would.
So in our thinking, screens with such high density don’t add any real value, instead they add more drain on batteries and processors… Which seems to be what I hear about the latest Samsung & LG phones.