Retina display only the beginning for high-res displays

Apple's definition of a "Retina Display"—the point at which pixels become indistinguishable to a person with normal vision—began at the iPhone 4S's 326 pixels per inch. Though already an iffy claim, it drifted down to 264 ppi with the new iPad. Now, with the slimline MacBook Pro, it's 220ppi. While high compared to most competing displays, it's simply not that hard to spot the dots. John Brownlee at Cult of Mac expands:

Apple uses Retina as a marketing term, and it’s a great one. But it also implies that there’s nowhere else to go from here when it comes to resolution, which simply isn’t true. Ten years from now, we will all own Macs, iPhones and iPads with screens so crisp, looking at the iPhone 4S or new MacBook Pro will be like looking at a 1024 x 768 CRT from 2002. And that’s something to be excited about.

To understand why there’s so much more to be done with display resolution, you need to understand how Steve Jobs came up with his initial “magic number” for Retina: in short, he based it on a person having 20/20 vision. Seems reasonable, because colloquially, 20/20 vision is synonymous with having perfect eyesight. The only problem? 20/20 isn’t perfect eyesight at all.

It's a great article not because it's a takedown, but because it explains just how fantastic things are about to get very soon.

Why Retina Isn’t Enough [Cult of Mac]

• [Max]

  Why the hate for CRT? I think I was on 1600*1200 in 2002 and it took years before you could find an affordable LCD with similar res. by which time CRT were so cheap you could get a 2000xwhatever res CRT practically free. Retina is not new, we just took a backward step from CRT to LCD.

  • [Ladyfingers]

    My friend had a 2148 x 1536 (I think, I know it was over 2000px) 21″ SyncMaster around 2002 or so.

    Video cards were more problematic than displays in terms of resolution, bac in the CRT era. My 2000-era 19″ could do 1800×1200, but it was a little flickery and laggy via the Riva TNT2.

    What this retina thing seems to really be is a return, effectively, to dot pitch.  Make a display 16,000×9,000 and let it smoothly upscale whatever it’s fed. 1080p is a pretty damn good resolution for films, but I’m more worried about scaling artifacts and visible “chicken wire” with LCD than resolution or sharpness, to be honest. It could be a bit like the old “slightly blurring the projector to hide the pixel structure” trick.

  • [failquail]

     Both technologies have their strengths and weaknesses, but IMHO the LCD wins out by a country mile .

    The CRT may have pretty perfect resolution/pixel density scaling, but you needed to go to the expensive ones to get a CRT that could do a high resolution without descending into headache-inducing low refresh rates. (ie, anything less than 85hz for me)
    Faffing about trying to get games and so-on not to default the monitor down to an eye-burning 60hz is something i’ll never miss ;)

    On top of that, the small size/weight and much lower power draw are very big bonuses for LCDs

    I am glad Apple may be pushing higher density displays though, i’m rather annoyed that pretty much the entire industry decided 1080p on a 24″ monitor was good enough and stagnated.
    I’d love a higher resolution 24″ display for my PC at home :)

  • [toyg]

    I should  print out a t-shirt with “CRT RUINED MY EYES” on it. The technology is a eyesight-killer.

    Moving from CRT to LCD was the best improvement in my quality of life I’ve ever made.

  • [Alice K]

    Kind of but not really. Most CRT’s that ran at those resolutions didn’t actually HAVE that resolution, they were basically doing an analog form of downscaling. They would take in the signal but the actually resolution of the display was not really 1600×1200. Instead you were basically dumping tons of image data. It was great for getting more real estate but you were not actually getting a sharper image. It is one of the reasons CRT’s were so blurry at higher resolutions.

    They had great contrast and motion, but resolution was not their strong point at all.

• [William Jones]

  The biggest hate for CRTs is mostly just the weight is incredible compared to other monitors, and the size is a huge disadvantage too. Very few people will argue image quality though.

  • [EH]

    You’d think there could be some fancy-magnet polycarbonate CRT by now without the weight.

    • [Ladyfingers]

      SED was a flat-screen CRT technology that was abandoned. Every pixel was a essentially a self-contained tube.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface-conduction_electron-emitter_display

      A shame it never took off.

• [peterkvt80]

  I had an eye stroke from which I almost completely recovered. One side effect was for a few days I could see individual cone cells light up. It was amazing being able to see dots much smaller than I had ever seen before. It turns out that although the eye has an amazing pixel density you don’t normally get to see all of the detail.

• [Fris_B]

  These so-called ‘retina’ screens are a total waste of time.  There’s a reason why previously screens topped out at ‘low’ resolutions – because it gets too difficult to use all the pixels.

  Sure, you can use the extra pixels to make a nicer looking, ‘smoother’ screen instead of trying to get more ‘real estate’ but as you up the pixel count you are also upping the amount of computing resources you have to expend in order to manipulate those pixels.   It just doesn’t make sense unless you have computing power to burn.  Better to implement some sort of ‘dumb’ smoothing technology into the display itself than to have the main processors handling it.

  • [toyg]

    “It just doesn’t make sense unless you have computing power to burn”
    Which is exactly what we have now. A quad-core cpu at 2.6 Ghz with 16 GB of RAM is kinda wasted to just watch some low-res porn.

    • [Fris_B]

      If you’re running off of battery power (as smartphones, tablets and laptops are likely to be doing) then even if you have sufficient muscle to spare  it still doesn’t make sense to devote large amounts of processing power to get a slightly  prettier looking screen.

      IMO there are way too many downsides compared with the upside of a slightly nicer  looking display.  In fact, this is just another stupid bit of marketing hype that would fall by the wayside if it weren’t for the fact that Apple are pushing it.

      • [toyg]

        You’re looking at consumable resources (energy, computing power etc) as scarce; if history is a guide, we know that this is usually not the case when applied to computing. Battery effiency can only increase (even more so now that we’re running cars on them), as well as computing power (10 years ago we would have laughed at the idea of having a portable quad-core cpu).
        The only really-scarce thing is actual raw material (rare metals and plastic), but even there science is regularly giving us  awesome breakthroughs like graphene.

        I don’t own a mac (yet), but you to give Apple that they always look ahead and shoot for the stars, whereas their competitors are busy squeezing blood from rapeseed.

      • [Chris]

        If you look at desktops and their displays though, we now have video cards running 3 displays at once and I believe you can even run those in 3D mode for games.  Having a higher ppi will only make games look better and there is plenty of computer power to spare in the desktop market, especially for better smoother looking graphics.  

        If you’re strictly talking about mobile computing though you make a very good point about energy usage.

• [JaviPas]

  Retina display debuted with the iPhone 4, not with the iPhone 4S.

• [Scurra]

  You know, I can’t go back to anything recorded on an old VHS tape any more because the resolution is so terrible it is unwatchable. (/sarcasm)

  Can anyone explain to me why a higher resolution display (whatever it is applied to) would make Hamlet into a better play?

  • [penguinchris]

    You’re trolling, right?

• [Frode Helland]

  When we are talking about resolution, the key number is pixels per inch, not number of pixels in total. It is important to understand the difference. Another key aspect is the reading distance: looking at at TV from your couch, looking at a PC monitor from your chair or looking at a handheld device all have significant effect on resolution.

  Better to implement some sort of ‘dumb’ smoothing technology into the display itself than to have the main processors handling it.
  Speaking as a type designer, I know how much we struggle with this “dumb” technology, how it is implemented different in different OS’s and different levels of control over the output. One of the main reasons  reading on screen is troublesome is this use of grey or coloured pixels fooling your brain into thinking it sees black shapes. It is tiring, and together with backlit displays poses a serious challenge.

  Btw: 300 ppi is not very sharp. Most books are printed with triple or four times that resolution.

  • [Marco Mustapic]

    When printing book-quality pictures you use very small dots of a few colors (cyan, magenta, black, yellow). You can fool the eye into seeing almost any color if the dots are very small and arranged in a pattern.
    A pixel on an LCD screen on the other hand doesn’t need any pattern, it can have any arbitrary color or grayscale value. Thus, the ppi you need is less than in print.

    • [Frode Helland]

      A pixel on an LCD screen on the other hand doesn’t need any pattern, it can have any arbitrary color or grayscale value.

      Not sure if I understand what you mean.

      There are other factors on paper, but to simplify the matter: Text printed in 100% black at 1200 dpi is mainly just that: 1200 drops per inch.

      A pixel on a typical LCD screen consists of three subpixels in red, green and blue arranged in a regular pattern. A grey value has the same intensity in all three, ranging from 100% (white) to 0% (black). Colour uses different percentage of each subpixel.

      • [Marco Mustapic]

        But a gray value in printed text needs more than one dot. It needs a pattern of very small dots to achieve the same effect. 

      • [Ultan]

         He’s just pointing out that ppi on screens is not the same as dpi on printers. Converting between the two requires a lot of specifics about the actual printer, but in nearly all cases it takes  many more dpi to equal a ppi. Printers can provide much more than that difference, and have a higher effective spatial resolution.

        On the other hand the contrast ratio and color gamut on screens is far better than ink/paper and that can partially make up for the resolution difference.

• [Itsumishi]

  I’m sorry, but this article is absurd.
  All right, a lot of people may have better than 20-20 vision, but they continuously talk about what ‘the perfect retina’ is capable of seeing. What percentage of the population has that?Also there is this quote: “Imagine the day when you can pull out a magnifying glass to check out a picture on your iPad.” Yes, I just can’t wait for the day when I can carry around an ancient piece of technology in order to look more closely at pictures on an electronic device. It simply sounds so much more efficient than zooming.Also, if ‘true retina’ displays are so fucking wonderful; why is it impossible for the author to imagine another company building a device capable of displaying the higher resolutions? Oh wait… it’s a cult of mac article, that explains a lot.

  • [Randomoneh]

    I can imagine other companies building a display with angular resolution that high. No need to concentrate on that. Author had courage to write Apple’s tech is not as perfect as they suggest and you’re bashing him? For what?! For saying Apple will have even higher resolution displays in the future?

    I’m sorry to inform your assumptions are completely wrong.

    Even though average separable acuity of young, healthy population is 20/12 – 20/ 16 (0.6 – 0.8 arcminutes per line / pixel), that doesn’t mean we can’t perceive higher quality than that (than if pixel size is 0.6 – 0.8 arcmin or less).

    As NKH study shows, participants were able to perceive 2.6 x higher angular resolution than their Snellen chart (20/xx) would suggest. Above that, they couldn’t tell difference between real object and high-angular resolution image (looking through synopter, no 3D involved).

    So to conclude, displays with angular resolution up to at least 310 pixels per degrees at normal viewing distances are warmly welcome.
    And I’m sorry to see people like your message, since you’re wrong and everything.

• [Daemonworks]

  “Ten years from now, we will all own Macs, iPhones and iPads with screens so crisp…”
  Not much chance of me owning any apple products in 10 years unless they reverse direction on the walled garden crap, amongst a few other issues. 

  • [justaddh3o]

    Agreed. I like how this is a full admission of marketing fluff. I love how this will have no negative impact on sales or brand loyalty.

• [Dingos]

  I don’t care how good the display may or may not be.  After the total Dick move of soldering the memory on the motherboard… that kind of douchebaggery will not be rewarded by any purchases by me.   Looks like I’m going to have to readopt my old outlook on Apple.  Too bad too.  I really liked their gear.

• [Art]

  “….will be like looking at a 1024 x 768 CRT from 2002″

  Good Lord!  So embarrassingly archaic! 

  How did we EVER survive in those dark, primitive days of knuckle dragging CRT culture?  :)

• [jhex]

  dude,

  i stopped reading after  “Ten years from now, we will all own Macs, iPhones and iPads with screens so crisp”

  that is like saying what no 4k projection screens near you?

  only apple product i have ever owned twas a Newton, and even that i bought used.

• [kballweg]

  Cue the anti-Apple tribal mutterings. Personally I appreciate that Apple pushes the upper end, and the technologies filter down through the industry. You don’t have to buy Apple, just wait a few years for the Asian companies to start cloning the innovations. But don’t expect them to do it with fully accessible, user repairable configurations either.

  While I prefer the older bodies with upgradable drives, batteries and memory, there is nothing new in having things glued down. Replacing the battery on a early gen iPod mini required time with a hair dryer to soften the glue to get the top off. Going small and light (hi res LCD v. the 80 pound CRT equivalent gorilla) means sacrificing fastener surface area: a tiny screw doesn’t generate the friction of a one with a larger surface area. Eventually  you get to a point where welding/gluing is simply a better design choice to assure product life. 

  I think this blogger had some good insight into where the push for lighter, smaller, faster comes from and it’s not just Apple or Samsung marketing departments.

  http://rc3.org/2012/06/16/why-are-apple-laptops-becoming-harder-to-take-apart/

  • [Shane Simmons]

    Cue the rabid Apple fanboyism.

    • [penguinchris]

      Cue the anti-Apple people calling other people Apple fanboys simply for not having rabid anti-Apple sentiments?

• [Dave Nullstein]

  Reminds me of audiophiles.

  • [xian]

    Just wait until you check out my 1500 dpi extended wavelength UV-IR display. The spectral radiance will knock your socks off! Plus you’ll get a nice tan from it too =)

• [Uncle Geo]

  High Res screens are great for computers because you also get more screen real estate and when I have a zillion programs open that’s nice. 

  For TV, NHK and others have shown ultra high def now for a number of years and we’ve had 4K for theaters. But all the hardware res in the world doesn’t help if the signal is so compressed you lose all the detail. Cable operators vary the compression based on content -the Super Bowl looks great but most of the other stuff looks like a wider screen version of old TV. (Try an antenna to pick up local stations and see how much better the picture is.)

• [bcsizemo]

  I’m in my early 30′s and I don’t know anyone that has 20/20 vision without the aid of glasses or contacts….

  Besides am I the only person who cares less about what resolution the monitor is at compared to what kind of color accuracy it can give me?

  Upping the resolution is nice until a point…LCD’s don’t look swell unless running in their native res.  So with some ridiculously high pixel density you end up with a huge desktop, and the OS still having to scale everything to a readable size.

  • [Antinous / Moderator]

    I’m in my early 30′s and I don’t know anyone that has 20/20 vision without the aid of glasses or contacts….

    My vision was 20/11 until I was in my late 40s, and even that might have more to do with sleeping with my eyes open and living in a desert than with age-related degeneration.

    • [Randomoneh]

      I don’t know why this “20/20 is average” myth won’t die.

      20/20 acuity is nominal value, it’s a goal, not average acuity. People, please read about it.

• [gratefulvideo]

  Not sure why higher res screens are getting flack here.  I’m no Apple fan but I long for laptops with higher screen res.  I hope PC laptop makers will follow Apple’s lead.  

• [pjcamp]

  “Ten years from now, we will all own Macs, iPhones and iPads…”

  We all have to own a goddamn Mac?

  Rats!

  I’ll be in the garage.

• [Erik Veland]

  The anti-apple Fanboyism on this site is even worse than the Apple fanboyism. What is WRONG with you people?