Business
Is it time for developers, designers target the Retina display?
Yes, maybe there aren't so many millions of high-DPI screens on the market right now for looking at apps and the Internet. But some developers advise that this is the very place to target work. And soon.
In a recent blog post, Daniel Jalkut, founder of Red Sweater Software, says that high-DPI (hiDPI) displays such as those found on the iPad 3 and the MacBook Pro with Retina Display, may be a "fringe group," or a very small slice of the user base right now, but it will shortly be both a fast-growing segment and an influential one, he said.
Because HiDPI customers may be a fringe group, but they are a forward-facing fringe. They represent the users of the future, and the more we cater to them now, the more deeply embedded our products and designs will be in their culture. The future culture. The same arguments apply to aggressively embracing newer web browsers standards, and the latest technologies in platform operating systems such as iOS and Mac OS X.
It's hard to know how many iPad 3 models are being sold, since Apple is still selling the iPad 2. And the company isn't breaking out the figures.
Still, if hiDPI is your thing, a good place place to start is a better understanding of the Retina Display technology and its Apple APIs. Firstly, I suggest the Apple patent filing for the Retina Display at Patently Apple.
Embodiments also include techniques for mitigating edge discoloration in objects displayed on the LCD. In some embodiments, software may be used to detect edges of objects within the display area. Once object edges are detected, the last sub-pixel of the background and/or the first sub-pixel of the object are driven to reduce edge discoloration perceptibility. In some embodiments, each sub-pixel may be configured with a coupling extrusion on the pixel electrode to control a coupling effect between the neighboring sub-pixels to reduce edge discoloration perceptibility.
On the software and interface side, there's the plenty of good stuff in the OS X Developer Library including the High Resolution Guidelines for OS X. Very interesting reading.
More about that later.