14 DAY TRIAL // New findings in OS X Mountain Lion developer preview 2 indicate that Apple is pushing forward with plans to enhance the displays on its Macintosh computers. The MacBook lineup is believed to be the first to get the Retina treatment.
The discovery of a new double-sized icon (of the Messages application, named iChat in OS X Snow Leopard) has re-ignited speculation that Mountain Lion will ship with Retina display support this summer.
Softpedia broke news in February that the first developer preview of OS X Mountain Lion contained evidence that Apple was beefing up the graphics on some application icons - namely the new Notes app.
While there were several new applications (along with their respective new icons) present in OS X 10.8, only one (Notes) had been scaled at 1024x1024 resolution.
All other icons in Mountain Lion DP1 were at their standard 512x512 resolution at the time we reported our findings. It now appears that Apple is moving forward with these enhancements, adding more double-sized graphical materials as new betas of Mountain Lion are seeded.
The new finding, however, is a tad different.
The Messages app in the second developer preview of Mountain Lion erroneously displays 2x resolution art, according to a person sharing their findings with ars technica.
The image above clearly shows that the "audio chat" icon is a 2x version that doesn’t fit the intended perimeter.
"I would interpret it to mean that Retina [MacBook] is close; perhaps concurrent with the release of OS X 10.8," the source said.
It would make perfect sense for Apple to begin a transition to Retina display Macs by enhancing the MacBook Air this summer. Pre-installed with OS X Mountain lion, the already popular notebook would sell like hot cake.
And considering that it’s only a matter of time before Macs get the same treatment as the new iPad did, from a visual standpoint, Summer 2012 couldn’t be a better time to do it.