New PowerMacs at NAB

Even if there were 150 dpi screens there wouldn't be any reason for you to tell the OS that. It would be able to tell from the screen automatically and rescale the UI elements to match it.
 
It's a load of crap. Companies are still flying back and forth between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray
 
My biggest complaint on the pbooks is the brightness. Much better than my lowly ibook, which is flat out dark in comparison, but still not as bright as it could be. Other than that, the 17" is a stellar machine. First laptop I've used where I can do serious work and could even consider replacing a desktop with (which I won't, cuz I"m grabbing a dual 3 GHZ G5 whenever they arrive).

For anyone who cares, after several weeks now of using the 17" along side my venerable dual 1GHZ box, I'd say the new 17" pbook is slightly faster overall, which is pretty impressive.
 
fryke said:
Captain Code: "would" is the important word here.
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Maybe but I don't know what you mean by that. As of now the OS gets the supported resolutions from the screen/monitor already so extending this function to include screen dpi would be easy.
 
No, as interface elements, right now, are still partly dependant on bitmapped graphics. Sad, but true. And you don't want to look at them scaled up. Eww...
 
is it possible to have dual native resolutions on an lcd? like 72dpi/150dpi? so the user could choose? if you have relatively good eyesight, a tighter packed screen offering more 'real-estate' would be btter - the icons [and other UI elements] don't get distorted, or change their form, the screen just displays them physically smaller, fitting more into the space - look at the difference between the 2003 alu-cinema displays (100dpi) and their predecessors (72dpi?) my 20" has the same res as my brothers 23" pre-2003 cD. the UI is no different, just higher quality.

it's the difference between a 42"plasma and a 30" LCD. the plasma only goes up as far as 864x600, and looks shoddy because the pixels are as big as your fist.
 
You can't have 'dual native resolution', unless we're talking effective pixel _doubling_, in which case 4 actual pixels form one virtual one, which would still look fine, I guess. That way, you could have, say, a 2560*1708 pixel monster in a 15" PowerBook, and you could use it in today's mode of 1280*854 without any 'bad' interpolation.

But what we'd _really_ want would be 'freedom', as in: You can scale the whole UI to your liking, or at least to accomodate the actual resolution of any particular screen you'd happen to have lying around, erh: Hooked up to your computer. The system would have to know the ppi/dpi, of course, but could then just define that the menubar - for example - has a thickness of 0.6cm instead of - what is it now - 25 pixels or so.

That'd be the goal, I'd say. But we're definitely not there yet.
 
Wouldn't the entire UI graphics system take up considerably more (digital, as in memory) space if it was tailored to fit custom DPI settings?
 
"No, as interface elements, right now, are still partly dependant on bitmapped graphics. Sad, but true. And you don't want to look at them scaled up. Eww..."


But there could be multiple images, say, apple could design the whole interface at a huge res, and then just have it scaled (using nice resamples) down many times. Like what they do with the dock, that way the bitmap gui could be scalable without any nasty aliasing and pixelation...
 
Elliotjnewman said:
But there could be multiple images, say, apple could design the whole interface at a huge res, and then just have it scaled (using nice resamples) down many times.
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They already do that, and have since OS 10.0 -- look in any application package file at the applications' icns file(s), and you'll see that many of them (especially the application icon itself) is simply a bitmapped image at 3 or 4 different resolutions.
 
I think this is an excellent idea. But how will web browser react when using very non standard resolution ? What will be scaled and what won't ?

I'm sure it'll come one day, but is it a priority ?
 
I'm not so sure it's an "excellent idea" to take very large bitmap graphics (VLBG?) and use them all around the interface, scaling them to the needs. Vector graphics are called for here in my opinion, since bitmaps are slowing down the interface. (You gotta load 'em, scale 'em etc., uses memory like crazy.)
 
isn't macos extremely powerful at scaling bitmaps though? i mean it scales bitmaps like we walk and breathe - without thinking about it. regardless of any processor intensive stuff happening (rendering complex vectors in illustrator cs for example), look how smooth and effortless expose snapshots and scales every window, regardless of size/complexity. it's the same with the dock - effortless bitmap scaling - macos is built upon (it seems, i'm no expert in this field) scaling imagery
 
SJ has recently been quoted (MacMinute) as saying

"Apple is firing on all cylinders and we have some incredible new products in the pipeline for the coming year, starting with Mac OS X Tiger later this month."

Bodes well for the introduction of new PowerMacs, etc..

Kap
 
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