Apple's Messages Beta for Mac Includes Retina Sized Artwork

By +Frank B.
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Grand Master

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Apple's Messages Beta for Mac Includes Retina Sized Artwork

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.

messagesx22.jpg

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.

Source: Mac Rumors

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Grand Master

Boz

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A lot of this is so far fetched. It is more likely that Messages app will be built for iPhone, iPad and OSX and the @2x indicator is similarly structured on iPhone / iPhone retina and might be just left over from that. Or, it might also just mean that it's a bigger icon asset.

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Grand Master

.Neo

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A lot of this is so far fetched. It is more likely that Messages app will be built for iPhone, iPad and OSX and the @2x indicator is similarly structured on iPhone / iPhone retina and might be just left over from that. Or, it might also just mean that it's a bigger icon asset.

Messages is basically just a modified iChat. It shares no interface elements with the iOS version. Safari 5.2 has these "x2" resources too.

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Grand Master

PyX

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There is nothing surprising with this news. In fact, what would be surprising is the opposite.

OS X Lion already has a bunch of Retina Sized artwork, as well as vectorized cursors, and supports HiDPI resolutions with the debugging tools in Xcode. Apple including retina sized artwork in everything from now on is just a natural transition.

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Grand Master

Rudy

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There is nothing surprising with this news. In fact, what would be surprising is the opposite.

OS X Lion already has a bunch of Retina Sized artwork, as well as vectorized cursors, and supports HiDPI resolutions with the debugging tools in Xcode. Apple including retina sized artwork in everything from now on is just a natural transition.

Pretty much

Retina displays are coming, is it going to be this year? Maybe, maybe not but they're coming soon

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Grand Master

AJerman

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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 doesn't exactly work like that on a computer. That only worked like that on the iPhone because it is a fixed resolution device. On a computer we already have resolutions that high and higher (my monitor can support 3840x2400). More likely is that this will be used in conjunction with DPI scaling on high resolution displays. A good example again being my display. Being that not one OS has DPI scaling worth a damn, I run my screen at 1920x1200 so it's readable (22"). Any higher and it's just ridiculously tiny. We have largely stuck to single DPIs on most OSes so far, and changing them doesn't typically turn out too well. Some parts of the UI expand naturally, some just zoom and look terrible, some fonts work, others don't, etc. Apple, in my mind, is the most likely to fix this issue and truly gain DPI independence without the sacrifice of a consistent looking UI. More than likely these higher resolution images would be used after the DPI goes over a certain point, say 125 or so, and not be based on the resolution itself. But then that raises a better question as to why they don't just use higher DPI images rather than larger images resolution wise.

Edit: I haven't heard of the HiDPI mode stuff, I'll have to look that up. To me it sounds like a cop out way of true DPI independence. I'm guessing making everything look good regardless of DPI proved too difficult unless the entire OS is vector based. They'll just go from a standard DPI that we use now to a high DPI and just pack bigger images. Kind of a crappy way to do it, but I think it would be very difficult to do it the right way.

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.Neo

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Downscaling of PNG images tend to make things blurry. Especially when it comes to smaller interface elements so it isn't really suitable for that at all. It's the reason why basically all ICNS files contain dedicated sizes for 16x16, 32x32, 128x128 and 512x512 pixels.

My guess is that OS X will just support the current DPI and one twice as high. People using a non-Apple branded screen will just have to pick one of the two in the hopes it will look good enough. It's a much easier and practical to develop than a true resolution independent UI because you would have to redesign everything vectorized instead of rasterized.

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Grand Master

AJerman

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You have a 22 inch monitor with a naive res of 3840x2400...

Paint me skeptical and point me to the product name of that baby.

IBM T220. It's pretty awesome and pointless at the same time, haha.

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Stetson

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A lot of this is so far fetched. It is more likely that Messages app will be built for iPhone, iPad and OSX and the @2x indicator is similarly structured on iPhone / iPhone retina and might be just left over from that. Or, it might also just mean that it's a bigger icon asset.

I might agree, except that Lion specifically includes testing support for "HiDPI" display modes, which doubles the resolution of all UI elements (using such @2x image resources) for use on high DPI displays:

hidpex.jpg

textedit-hidpi.jpg

Super high DPI displays may or may not be coming to Macs anytime soon, but Apple is most definitely building support for them into OS X.

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BumbleBritches57

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So nothing changes?

Well, not NOTHING, some pics were in tiff. and it appears that they've been bumped in res and saved as PNG instead of tiff.

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Grand Master

.Neo

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Well, not NOTHING, some pics were in tiff. and it appears that they've been bumped in res and saved as PNG instead of tiff.

That's been going on for years and years now? I don't see it as a particularly exiting thing either. When it comes to actual interface design there's nothing that can't be achieved through TIFF that can through PNG.

Super high DPI displays may or may not be coming to Macs anytime soon, but Apple is most definitely building support for them into OS X.

They have been actively since OS X Tiger. :laugh:

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BumbleBritches57

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That's been going on for years and years now? I don't see it as a particularly exiting thing either. When it comes to actual interface design there's nothing that can't be achieved through TIFF that can through PNG.

They have been actively since OS X Tiger. :laugh:

It's not really exciting at all, excpet that tiff sucks lol, but yeah, the whole @2x makes me think it'll be soon, why would they build in support for only 1 high res display, and not use it?

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Grand Master

.Neo

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It's not really exciting at all, excpet that tiff sucks lol, but yeah, the whole @2x makes me think it'll be soon, why would they build in support for only 1 high res display, and not use it?

My guess is (some) MacBooks may get a HiDPI screen. Personally I can't really imagine the 27-inch iMac getting the same treatment anytime soon.

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Elliott

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My guess is (some) MacBooks may get a HiDPI screen. Personally I can't really imagine the 27-inch iMac getting the same treatment anytime soon.

Yea, this is my feeling too. The MacBook Airs seem like the perfect candidates for retina displays.

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Grand Master

.Neo

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Yea, this is my feeling too. The MacBook Airs seem like the perfect candidates for retina displays.

Yeah exactly. Prices for a retina 27-inch iMac will most likely be unacceptable to the vast majority of consumers.

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Grand Master

PyX

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It also makes sense to prioritize devices that are closer to the eyes when it comes to adding a Retina display to them. In order, we get :

iPhones and iPods > iPads > MacBook Airs > MacBook Pros > iMacs and Cinema Displays > Future Apple TV

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