Apple Adds High-DPI Versions of Pointers in OS X 10.7.3

DaringFireball notes several changes in some of the icons found in OS X 10.7.3. Several of our readers had also noticed the small changes in pointer icons in the latest version. It seems the changes run a bit deeper than on first glance. The new icons apparently come in high DPI versions that allow them to scale at high resolutions.

Have you noticed that Safari’s hovering-over-a-link pointing-finger cursor looks a little different in Mac OS X 10.7.3? It’s not just that the finger is at a slightly different angle — it’s a new UI resource that scales gracefully to larger sizes. That’s not the only new high-DPI image resource in 10.7.3: the grabby hand in Mail, the camera cursor for selecting an individual window to take a screenshot of, and a few other UI elements got the high-DPI treatment in 10.7.3.

Matt Gemmell shows an enlarged version of the icon when zoomed in Universal Access:

As Daring Fireball notes, this could simply be meant for use in Universal Access, but given the active work on high-resolution support in OS X, we too think ultra-high resolution Macs are coming soon. One recent rumor had pegged a "Retina" MacBook Pro as arriving as early as Q2 2012.