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Apple's Messages Beta for Mac Includes Retina Sized Artwork

Friday February 17, 2012 2:14 am PST by Arnold Kim
There has been plenty of evidence that Apple is planning for ultra high resolution Mac displays. In July 2011, we first detailed the existence of a new "HiDPI" mode in OS X Lion. This HiDPI mode was put in place in anticipation of the day that Macs would have double-resolution (4x the number of pixels) "Retina" Displays.

As on the iPhone, Apple's plan was to make it easier on developers to jump to exactly 2x the linear resolution. For example, a 1440x900 pixel screen would go straight to 2880x1800 pixels. This would allow applications to automatically scale up by a factor of two without necessarily having to include high resolution artwork. Apple already made such a transition when going from the iPhone 3GS's screen (320x480) to the iPhone 4's Retina Display (640x960).

In iOS, Developers can include high resolution versions of their artwork designated by the "@2x" suffix. From the developer documentation:
The inclusion of the @2x modifier for the high-resolution image is new and lets the system know that the image is the high-resolution variant of the standard image.

A look at some of the resources from Apple's new Messages app shows several graphics that come in multi-part TIFFs that include regular and double resolution versions. In fact, if you look at the information embedded within the images, you can see the resources were at one point named in the same "@2x" convention. So, it seems Apple's Messages App is already building in support for Retina displays on the Mac.

Rumors have even suggested that we might see our first Retina Display Macs in 2012. One early report claimed Apple was working on a 2880x1800 MacBook Pro for the middle of this year.
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DESNOS
83 months ago
This is enough proof for me. Retina macs for 2012.
Rating: 15 Votes
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gkpm
83 months ago
2012 Year of the Retina :)
Rating: 7 Votes
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0815
83 months ago
Love it - hopefully in a month I will hold an retina display iPad in my hands and maybe by end of the year a retina display MacBook. Only thing missing than to my happiness is a version of iBooks on my Mac (yes, I think there is a use for at least some books on the computer).
Rating: 7 Votes
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superfamic0m
83 months ago
'Retina' resolution would be great! For too long 720p (or there about) has been the norm for laptops.
Rating: 6 Votes
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0815
83 months ago

I just removed the app. It crashed and even my whole Mac froze!


You are aware that the beta label means 'likely to crash or have problems' ... If you are not comfortable with that, don't even bother installing. I hope you filed a bug report with crash log so that Apple can fix the problem (which is the point of beta releases)

that said, I installed it on three of my macs without any problems (Just wish I also could add my phone number to the list, not only my emails - messages send to my phone number don't show up).
Rating: 6 Votes
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MacUser5
83 months ago
I will give $_______ for a 15" Retina display MacBook Air.

Apple, please fill in whatever number you want.
Rating: 6 Votes
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0815
83 months ago

If the iPad 3's screen is thought to be amazing. Just imagine a retina-15-inch MacBook Pro. But can you even imagine a 27 inch retina-display? Everything'd look too damn small right?


No, nothing will look smaller. That is the whole point of the retina display. Everything will show in greater detail (if supported by the app by suppling higher resolution images/icons) - same size, but more detail.
Rating: 5 Votes
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gkpm
83 months ago

I wonder if Apple makes these little "mistakes" on purpose. Do they want us to discover it? Or is it a genuine mistake to already include the high resolution images?

They must know by now that some people on this planet will try and unveil every secret they are trying to keep... :rolleyes:


Probably not on purpose. It's just that it would be a LOT of work to clean up every possible trace - you're talking serious CSI here, people find the tiniest of things - so they probably just accept that some things may leak through.

They probably have a list of things that must not get out in ANY WAY and just care about those.
Rating: 4 Votes
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djrod
83 months ago

I don't know if it's time now to make this kind of move.. Will the developers be able to deal with this obstacle? What if you have an older Mac without retina display?. Are they going to get kicked to the curb? :confused:


No, developers don't have to make two versions of the same app, only two sets of the app's images. One at normal resolution and another at doyle, hence the @2x for the retina images
Rating: 3 Votes
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djrod
83 months ago

I do understand. I guess I was thinking more about how incredibly small some pictures that now seem fine would look. Your suspicion does tell me how difficult a time you had with understanding the difference between pixel density and screen resolution. Some offense.


I didn't men to offense you, but every time is a new thread about retina Macs or retina iPads there is a lot of people with the same question : " wouldn't my Mac/iPad look sooo small? ", when in the same article explains it would be 2 images what makes it very logical to think it would be just like in the iPhone
Rating: 3 Votes

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