With the release of Lion, users can now see some of the groundwork that Apple has laid down in OS X for ultra high resolution displays. We covered Apple's support of these new "HiDPI" modes while OS X Lion was still in beta.
For those who have downloaded Apple's Xcode for Lion, you can enable "HiDPI" mode in the Quartz Debug application found in the Developer directory. Once enabled, OS X's Displays control panel offers additional 1/4 (and lower) resolution sizes as shown here on a 30" Cinema Display with a native resolution of 2560x1600:
Unfortunately, there's not much to see yet. The 1280x800 HiDPI resolution shown here represents exactly 1/4 of the area of the native resolution of the 30" Cinema Display and simply offers you a zoomed in view on present day monitors.
The reasoning is that when displays do reach ultra high resolutions and dots per inch (DPI), simply drawing the OS X interface as-is would result in very small interface elements. Apple's solution is to scale all on-screen elements automatically by a factor of two (in each direction).
So, in the future, we might be using 2560x1600 (HiDPI) mode on a theoretical 30" 5120x3200 pixel display. All user interface elements would stay the same size as today's 30" Cinema Display, but when available, higher resolution textures would be used to render the graphics. This is the same way that it worked when Apple transitioned from the original iPhone resolution to the iPhone 4's retina display.
Arstechnica offers a good example screenshot showing this in effect. Fonts already render in the higher resolution while bitmapped graphics demonstrate a blocky effect as they have not yet been replaced with high resolution ("Retina") graphics.
The groundwork is there now, so when technology catches up, we could see double-DPI Retina displays in our future.
iOS 19 will not be available on the iPhone XR, iPhone XS, or the iPhone XS Max, according a private account on social media site X that has accurately provided information on device compatibility in the past.
The iPhone XR, iPhone XS, and iPhone XS Max all have an A12 Bionic chip, so it looks like iOS 19 will discontinue support for that chip. All other iPhones that run iOS 18 are expected...
Apple today released watchOS 11.4, the fourth major update to the operating system that runs on the Apple Watch. watchOS 11.4 is compatible with the Apple Watch Series 6 and later, all Apple Watch Ultra models, and the Apple Watch SE 2.
watchOS 11.4 can be downloaded on a connected iPhone by opening up the Apple Watch app and going to General > Software Update. To install the new software,...
Apple today released new firmware updates for all AirPods 4 and AirPods Pro 2 models. The new firmware is version 7E93, up from the 7B21 firmware that was installed on the AirPods Pro 2 and the 7B20 firmware available on the AirPods 4 and AirPods 4 with ANC.
It is not immediately clear what new features or changes are included in the new firmware, but we'll update this article should we find ...
Apple today released iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4, the fourth major updates to the iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 operating system updates that came out last year. iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4 come two months after Apple released iOS 18.3 and iPadOS 18.3.
Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos.
The new software can be downloaded on eligible iPhones and iPads over-the-air by going to...
While the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are not expected to launch until September, there are already plenty of rumors about the devices.
Below, we recap key changes rumored for the iPhone 17 Pro models as of March 2025:
Aluminum frame: iPhone 17 Pro models are rumored to have an aluminum frame, whereas the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro models have a titanium frame, and the iPhone ...
Visa wants to pay Apple approximately $100 million to be the new payment network for the Apple Card, reports The Wall Street Journal. As of right now, the Apple Card is on the Mastercard payment network, but that is set to change because Apple is ending its partnership with Goldman Sachs.
Both American Express and Visa are vying to replace Mastercard as Apple's card services provider, while...
Wednesday April 2, 2025 10:11 am PDT by Juli Clover
Apple today seeded the first betas of upcoming iOS 18.5 and iPadOS 18.5 updates to developers for testing purposes, with the software coming just two days after Apple released iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4.
iOS 18.5 and iPadOS 18.5 can be downloaded from the Settings app on a compatible device by going to General > Software Update.
We don't yet know what Apple is introducing in the iOS 18.5...
So, maybe you'd care to enlighten us ? Maybe I'm just nostalgic for the 80s and 90s, back when vector graphics were a possibility. Now that we have much more powerful CPUs and GPUs, it seems that vector graphics have become way too hard to handle... :rolleyes:
Only stuff that's required to scale. IE : the UI.
And games have been using vector graphics since the 80s and 90s, at least, games made with a little known technology called Flash. Or the above Sierra game, Conquest of Camelot ;) In fact, isn't that screenshot from a game that uses vector graphics ? (Plants vs Zombies ?).
Obviously, not all UI elements are needed to scale. The desktop wallpaper can remain a bitmap image, but things like icons, buttons, fonts and all UI controls would need to be scaled.
Think man, think.
Sure, I'll help enlighten. ;) Here are just a few points (some of which Arn has already pointed out):
* Photorealistic graphics. As stated multiple times, you can't use vector for this.
* Pixel-perfect designs. When you see a gorgeous iPhone or iPad app, it's because of this. You can't just resize a vector icon and expect it to look great at any size. It simply doesn't work like that.
* Processing power. Load a complicated piece of vector artwork in Illustrator. It takes time to process all the math in a vector illustration.
* File size. Making the assumption that vector is always smaller is wildly incorrect. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't.
* Textures. Wood, cloth, stone, grunge. Those detailed, fantastic textures aren't vector -- they're raster. Can you use vector for them? Yes, the simple ones. But to get the same depth of detail (and you never will, because textures are often photorealistic), you get back to hurting processing power.
* Effects rendering. Rasterizing an effect is much simpler than combining it with vector art. It's simple for the designer, prevents a developer from having to code the effect (which is no small task), and saves processing power.
* Development time. Coding for vector in everything can increase development time due to the shortcomings of vector-based art. Often it's just faster to use rasterized artwork. Keep in mind this doesn't mean a designer doesn't use vector in his workflow, it just means that he saves it to raster at the end.
These are just a few things off the top of my head. I'm sure there are many more, but I don't have time to write a short story. ;)
That's funny, I could have sworn you originally said:
Man up and admit you were wrong for goodness sakes.
I was replying to a generalisation of the fact. Someone stated they are bigger. I said they are not, in response to their generalisation. I could of gone all boring and started stating static vector filesizes and variable bitmap sizes for scaled images of each format but I didn't.
What is your problem anyway? I asked a question 'why cant vectors be used?'. Someone, maybe you, responded and I then asked a further question regarding the response? Are we not allowed to ask questions on forums these days without people looking for a fight? Why do I have to 'man up' when I have already stated I dont fully understand the concept?
I'm asking questions because I don't understand something. I don't pretend to understand things either unlike some people around here.
