






I. Laptops

i. MacBook Airs (11-/13-inch)








ii. MacBook Pros (13-/15-inch)

Next up is the MacBook Pro refresh.  








MacBook Pro's flagship model indeed received a Retina display. 








II. OS X 10.8 "Mountain Lion"



Mountain Lion
[Image Source: HD Wallpapers]

i. Yay Cloud

Craig Federighi previewed the new OS.




iCloud backup
Airplay mirroring [Image Source: The Verge]

ii. New Apps


Mountain Lion new apps




iii. Availability


Sources: Apple, The Verge

Comments     Threshold


By Flunk on 6/12/2012 9:03:01 AM , Rating: 2
You do have to consider that there are other people and that everyone's eyesight is different. I'm quite nearsighted and because of that I actually see things that are close to me much better than someone with "average" sight. There are also people with above average vision. So what may be good for you may not necessarily be right for everyone.

I do see your point that the resolution seems excessive, I just have a bone to pick with your reasoning because there is a wide range of human sight to account for.

Also, you won't need a microscope for the new MacBook. Apple will just blow up the size of all the text and images so all the onscreen objects will be the same size, just more detailed. But you're right, that probably doesn't matter and even if it does it doesn't matter much.

By CubicleDilbert on 6/12/2012 9:49:58 AM , Rating: 2
I heard that the ultra high resolution is because it is just 4x Macbook (1440x900) resolution and old programs can just be scaled up. Just like with the step from regular iPhone to iPhone 4.

The human eye has only a limited amount of light receptors on its retina, much lower than e.g. eagles. And the lens is suboptimal too. The very best human eyes (beyond 20/20 vision) can distinguish about 20-30 arcsec. Regular humans (like me) have maybe 45-60 arcsec resolution.

Now building a notebook LCD that satisfies a 5-10 arcsec human eye is nonsense, because no such human exists. But it increases production costs dramatically.

I guess Apple marketing just wanted this high resolution for boasting and Apple engineers wanted the simple 2x scaling horizontally and vertically. And who cares, there are enough Apple fanatics who have more than enough money to spent on a USD 2300-2800 notebook. I don't mind.

By aliasfox on 6/12/2012 2:38:12 PM , Rating: 2
Ah, but building a display with 5 arcsec resolution would allow you to pick any resolution between 5 and 45 arcsec and still have perfectly legible (ie non-fuzzy) screens.

If (for example) 1440 x 900 equates to 60 arcsec, then 2880 x 1800 equates to 30 arcsec. Even if you pick a resolution in the middle such as 1920 x 1200, you'll *still* have a display around 45 arcsec, or 1680 x 1050 would give you around 52 arcsec - still perfectly crisp to the normal eye. If you were to start with a 1920 x 1200 resolution, scaling and aliasing artifacts would be much easier for your eye to see.

In other words, if you start with 1920 x 1200, only 1920 x 1200 and 960 x 600 would look like 'native' resolutions on an LCD. If you were to start with 2880 x 1800, the pixels are small enough that pretty much every resolution down to 1440 x 900 would look 'native,' including 1680, 1920, 2560, etc.

I could see resolutions maxing out one more step above 2880 x 1800 (5760 x 3600) in a few years - with resolution independence and dynamic scaling (along with appropriately fast hardware), the screen would be able to scale from 1440 x 900 up to 4k resolutions and you'd never actually be able to tell - everything will simply always be crisply rendered at ~300dpi - a point where your computer screen will look just as sharp as a National Geographic (printed at 300 dpi, I believe).

By TakinYourPoints on 6/13/2012 5:06:52 AM , Rating: 2
Text that requires no anti-aliasing and is sharper than physical print by itself should be enough to sell anyone on the benefits of high resolution displays. I can't believe this argument is still happening when both the iPhone and iPad have made the advantages so clear.

I can't wait to hear the argument again when 27" monitors go to 5120x2880.

"But you don't need all those pixels, herp derp"


