[awcopus]

Great wrap up to an article on flat panel LCD technology in today's NYTimes:

"While flat-panel monitors are brighter, bigger (Apple offers a 30-inch model for $3,000), their images are not necessarily sharper. The problem, Mr. Maldonado said, is not L.C.D. technology. His company, for example, already makes high-resolution screens for viewing medical images. Instead, the monitor industry is waiting for Windows to catch up.

The physical grid of L.C.D.'s means that they can display images at only a single resolution, unlike conventional monitors. But Windows XP usually defines the dimensions of objects on screen in terms of the number of pixels (say 10 pixels by 15 pixels), rather than in linear terms. That means that if an L.C.D. maker improves resolution by shrinking the pixels, it will have the effect of miniaturizing everything that appears on the screen. While Windows allows users to increase the size of objects, the result is frequently distorted typefaces and disrupted formatting of documents.

Mr. Maldonado said that NEC Mitsubishi and other flat-panel makers were working with Microsoft to correct the problems in the next version of Windows. But for people who do not want to wait, Apple's OS X operating system solved them several years ago.

When Windows does catch up, it is not likely that a resolution war will erupt. At 100 pixels per inch, Apple's current L.C.D.'s are just slightly higher resolution than the 96 pixels per inch offered by most Windows-compatible screens. Scott Brodrick, Apple's product manager for displays, said 100 dots per inch would be the limit for the foreseeable future. Anything higher would require computers to add extra pixels to display digital snapshots at a reasonable screen size, he said, a practice that might introduce distortions to the photos.

But unlike C.R.T.'s, which are subject to distortion as their screens grow larger, Mr. Brodrick sees little to limit the size of liquid-crystal displays. And for people who are not satisfied with a 30-inch screen, Mr. Brodrick said PowerMacs can already run two of the large monitors simultaneously.

"That's five linear feet of display," he said."

[misnomer]

What a strange article... he seems to be saying Panther is Resolution Independant ...

[hayesk]

Yeah, he's wrong, but not 100% wrong - probably around 80%. Apple just has very good scaling algorithms when you change the size of the icons.

MacOS X is not resoultion independent. You will notice, that the menu bar and icon text get smaller on higher resolution screen. It's just the icons can be resized and still look good - unlike Windows icons.

[awcopus]

It doesn't even sound like it would be a very difficult thing for Microsoft to adjust XP, or like it was a huge problem that Apple somehow overcame.

This is just another one of those little things that we take for granted on our platform of choice.

[misnomer]

Originally posted by hayesk:
Yeah, he's wrong, but not 100% wrong - probably around 80%. Apple just has very good scaling algorithms when you change the size of the icons.

MacOS X is not resoultion independent. You will notice, that the menu bar and icon text get smaller on higher resolution screen. It's just the icons can be resized and still look good - unlike Windows icons.

That isn't because of any architectural advantage or limitation though, it's because MS and most Windows developers only bother to included 3 or four icon sizes, usually 16x16, 24x24, 32x32 and 48x48; while Apple and OS X apps usually have a dozen or more included usually up to 128x128. There are lots of free Windows icon replacement sets available that include higher res icon versions, some even offering up to 256x256 pixel icons.

This article just doesn't make much sense... scratch that... any sense.