Retina Display. Apple’s Ploy to Make Other Computers Unusable

Something I read very little about is how absolutely stunning an Apple product with retina display looks. Sure, sure, there’s tons of Windows machines, Android phones and tablets all sporting super high pixel densities, but somehow no matter how many pixels these other devices manage to cram into their displays, few (if any) manage to provide the eye-popping experience of an Apple product.

Maybe I’m getting a little ahead of myself. First, lets talk about what constitutes a “Retina” display. Since the term “Retina Display” was coined by Apple when it released the iPhone 4, it’s only cricket we use their definition. According to them, any display with pixels small and dense enough to be undiscernible by the user at normal viewing distance qualifies as a “Retina” display. Obviously, this very loosely-defined specification is quite subjective. Questions like, “What is normal viewing distance?”, “Viewing distance for what?” and “Who’s eyesight are we talking about?” immediately come to mind. Although Apple has never elaborated, it’s safe to assume viewing distance varies by device and normal vision is 20/20. Since phones and tablets are typically viewed at closer distances than desktop computers they require higher PPI (pixels per inch) to qualify their displays as “Retina”. Specifications of Apple devices bear this out. The iPhone 6 Plus PPI is 401, the iPad Air 2 is 264 and the new 27” iMac Retina sports 218 PPI.

You know what? Forget all that crap. Numbers games are what the loser companies play. Guys like Samsung and Dell waste a lot of ad money telling people how fast their processors are, how much RAM their devices have and how many more pixels their screen has than Apple’s. This is a failed strategy for two reasons: 1.) 98% of customers either don’t understand or care about that stuff and 2.) If a screen’s pixels are indiscernible at 400 PPI does it really make any difference if you make a screen with 500? Loser company #1, Samsung took this so far the performance of their phone took a big hit. The more pixels on a screen, the more processor power it takes to manipulate them. That costs speed and battery. In Texas we call that “a dollar chasing a dime” which is a not-so-subtle way of saying someone loses sight of the main goal because they become fixated on a minor one. I call them a loser partly in gest, but partly because their mobile division has lost money the last two years. Anyway, having more pixels doesn’t equate to a better user experience. This is something Apple understands better than any other company and they are in a unique position to execute their understanding. They design all their products from soup to nuts meaning the software and hardware it runs on. They’ve taken quite a bit of heat for this in years past. The Apple ecosystem is often described as a “walled garden” and many criticize them for insisting on such a closed system. Even I’ve been frustrated at times by how restricted iOS is for users, but with just a little introspection I realize how happy I am about iOS’s stability and security. I’m reminded of this whenever I spend a little time with my Nexus 7. I’ve installed apps from Google Play that are supposedly curated and had my Nexus 7 freeze, crash or eat a full battery in a couple of hours. And while the Nexus 7 screen is “Retina” quality, Android just doesn’t do it justice.

OS X, iOS and Apple-supplied apps are designed from the ground up to make the most of their Retina displays. GUI elements like buttons, sliders, check boxes and the like are all tailored for the higher pixel density and the system fonts Apple chooses look stunning. Couple all this with the very accurate color reproduction and saturation Apple specifies for its hardware and you get the best user experience possible. On a Mac, it’s very simple to demonstrate OS X’s superior Retina quality. Simply run Windows in BootCamp or virtually in VMWare Fusion or Parallels and Microsoft’s inferiority becomes apparent. First you’ll have to wrestle with font sizes and screen resolution just to make Windows useable (OS X does all this for you). Once you get all that settled, you’ll quickly realize it still looks like ugly old Windows even when running on the Mac’s superior hardware. Steve Jobs said it best, “Microsoft has no taste.”

So, we’ve established how bad Windows sucks, but what about non-Retina Macs? Well, I’m the perfect test subject. Of the three Macs I use regularly, only my newest (Late 2013) 15” MacBook Pro is a Retina model. My late 2009, 27” iMac and mid 2009 17” MacBook Pro are not. I used to think my iMac had the most beautiful display I’d ever seen with its 2560 X 1440 resolution, but now when I look at it after using my Retina MBP or iPad Air it feels like I lost my glasses. The effect isn’t quite as bad with my 17” MBP, but it’s still very, very noticeable. Its pixel density is 133 PPI vs. the iMac’s 109. I’m definitely looking to replace my iMac soon. Apple has definitely succeeded in sparking my techno-lust with the new 5K iMac Retina. It exactly doubles the standard 27” iMac’s pixel density. Normally, I wouldn’t consider replacing my iMac. It’s a 2.8 GHz Core i7 with 16 gigs of RAM, a 512 GB SSD and a 1 gig ATI video card. There’s virtually nothing it won’t do…

…except please my eyes.