Lion | Apple Daily Magazine

A second beta of the upcoming OS X v10.7.4 update, now at build 11E35, has been seeded to developers. The initial beta came alongside the second developer preview of OS X Mountain Lion about two weeks ago, although what exactly has changed in this beta is unclear. Apple provides no changelog, but does note there are no known issues in this beta. Apple also asks developers to focus their testing on the App Store, QuickTime, Mail, iCal, and graphics.

As always, this beta is only available to registered developers, as OS X v10.7.4 will eventually make its way to the public once testing is complete. Developers are urged to report any bugs or issues that they may encounter using Apple’s Bug Reporter.

Via [9to5 Mac]

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It has been pretty clear for awhile now that iOS devices aren’t the only Apple products that will benefit from Retina displays. The Mac OS has been teasing us for awhile with HiDPI Retina images, the most recent being the inclusion of 2X images in Messages in Mountain Lion.

But what does that mean for upcoming Macs? A lot… //

If you look at the tradeoffs that Apple has made with the new iPad to get it to Retina, it is pretty clear that HiDPI will have a big effect on Macs too.

Display: Obviously an upcoming round of Macs will have super high resolution displays. It doesn’t necessarily mean that the displays will be pixel doubled from their current sizes however. Macs aren’t set to certain aspect ratios (though Apple does seem to be trending towards 16:9) and the distance between a user and a computer display varies and is usually further than a tablet or phone, making “Retina” less dense than the 264DPI of the new iPad.

Apple’s current desktop displays, for example, have a lower PPI than MacBooks…

current Apple display matrix via

What we know now from the new iPad is that upping the amount of pixels does a few things to change a machine. Obviously, the first thing is that it costs more to build a “HiDPI display”. Apple was likely able to invoke some economics of scale to bring the cost of their wildly popular iOS devices down. But relative to iOS device sales, Macs sell relatively little. That means that these will cost Apple significantly more to make.

Additionally, as seen in the new iPad’s 70% bigger battery, HiDPI displays will take a lot more power to run. Not just battery power but also GPU power.

Luckily, Intel’s new Ivy Bridge chips are said to have enough GPU power to run 4K displays on their own. Apple’s desktops won’t need to worry about the electrical power needed to run these displays, but the MacBook line will need to ramp up battery requirements.

Battery: Will the MacBook Air need a 70% bigger battery to handle the new display? Probably not because the relatively power-hungry Intel processors take up a much bigger percentage of laptop batteries, meaning display has less effect on the total battery drain. Additionally, Intel’s Ivy Bridge and subsequent processors use less power than current processors which will likely offset some of the extra power needed for HiDPI.

Even with those stipulations above, the typical HiDPI MacBook will need a somewhat bigger battery to maintain the same amount of battery life as current models (which Apple clearly prioritizes as shown by the tradeoff made in the new iPad).

Weight: Apple has also shown it isn’t afraid to make things a little heavier and thicker in the new iPad to accomodate the extra battery and perhaps some additional LEDs and thicker pixels of a Retina screen. Apple could then theoretically make a little more room in the case for some more battery. With the MagSafe connector however, Apple isn’t as limited by the amount of power that goes through the line and could avoid the significant additional time it takes to charge the iPad by upping the wattage of the power supply.

The rumored merger between Pro and Air will give Apple some wiggle room in this regard. By cutting out the Optical, Apple could offset the additional battery on the MacBook Pros and then some

Heat: Will these new MacBooks run hotter? Again, since the display is a much smaller piece of the laptop puzzle the affect will be muted somewhat and offset by gains in the shrinking CPU. But overall, yes it will be.

RAM: The new iPad has double the RAM of the previous iPad but most of this is absorbed by the additional resources needed by Retina applications. With the Price of 8GB of RAM approaching $ 40 and less, it would be surprising and dissapointing to see Apple continue to offer 2 and 4GB configurations. I’d expect Apple to move to 8 and 16GB Macs.

Some other trends which could find their way into Macs:

Broadcom has a new Gig Wifi which could find its way into devices this year which will challenge the speed of Gig Ethernet.
Intel’s Ivy Bridge support USB 3 devices, meaning a much faster out of box connector for those who can’t afford the prices of Thunderbolt peripherals.
Apple is moving away from Optical across its line (latest – see: Mini) so it wouldn’t be surprising to see all but the high end Pros move to the Air platform without optical and Ethernet
Look for Apple to release a lower price Thunderbolt dock (A Thunderbolt Display without the display) that allows more people to use legacy ports and more importantly allows Apple to ship a MacBook Pro without an Ethernet Port, Firewire.

We haven’t learned enough about Apple’s upcoming Ivy Bridge MacBook refresh to know whether or not it will be coming this time around but when it does, expect some big changes. Related articles