14 DAY TRIAL // New evidence has emerged in OS X 10.7.4 pointing to Retina display Macs in the near future. This is not the first time such evidence emerges, but it’s certainly worth discussing, given the widespread rumors of a major display upgrade on full-fledged Macintosh computers.
Currently, the only devices using a Retina display today are Apple’s portables - the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Not all models have it either - just the newer ones.
After testing the waters, Apple has received enough feedback to know that Retina is the way to go in order to provide a near-perfect visual experience.
Which is why it is widely believed by analysts and pundits alike that Apple will soon introduce the standard to full-fledged computers, starting with the company’s Pro line of notebooks this year.
The only evidence we discovered so far was an increase in the resolution of icons in OS X. With the first developer preview of Mountain Lion in February, Softpedia was the first to discover that the Notes application had been upgraded from 512x512 pixels to 1024x1024 pixels. Sadly, our report got little attention at the time.
This wasn’t the first time Apple had included ultra high-resolution "HiDPI" graphics in its Mac OS, but it certainly showed the company’s ongoing efforts to expand the Retina standard to Macs.
Most recently, Apple released OS X Lion 10.7.4 to the public. Within a day of its existence, OS X 10.7.4 started to reveal new hidden clues pointing to Retina display support in future hardware.
More application icons have undergone the same changes as reported in February, namely TextEdit and Automator.
AppleInsider and MacRumors report that TextEdit in OS X 10.7.3 featured the standard four icon sizes: 16x16, 32x32, 128x128, and 512x512. In OS X 10.7.4, Apple included ten different sizes: 16x16, 32x32 HiDPI, 32x32, 64x64 HiDPI, 128x128, 256x256 HiDPI, 256x256, 512x512 HiDPI, 512x512, and 1024x1024 HiDPI.
Automator also has new HiDPI icons and the artwork is slightly different too, with darker colors and higher contrast.