iPad 3 Developers May Be Required to Own Retina Macs Soon

There’s a pretty good chance Apple will introduce an all-Retina Mac lineup this year, one programmer theorizes. If anything, at least development machines will sport double the pixel count, he suggests.

iOS developer David Smith has created a chart to demonstrate that coders who use Macs to craft the apps for Apple’s tablet computers may require Retina-grade graphics, should the Cupertino giant indeed release a Retina-display iPad 3.

“It is now widely accepted that Apple will be releasing a new iPad early in March. It is expected this will include a Retina display like the iPhone,” Smith writes. “This would have a resolution of 2048x1536 (double its current resolution of 1024x768).”

“I find numbers like that often hard to visualize so I did a quick graph comparing that to current Apple displays. A screen that size would be 96 pixels taller than a 27” iMac or Thunderbolt Display in landscape and 608 pixels taller in portrait,” he explains.

Therefore Smith believes “this will present problems for developers and designers of iPad apps unless Apple also releases a new display with either a higher resolution or a HiDPI mode.”

He stresses that, should Apple not release Retina-capable Macs for development, programmers “will no longer be able to view 1:1 mockups or run the simulator at full size without clipping part of the view.” His chart is pictured above (click to enlarge).

A plausible solution would be a 3840×2160 pixel display, Smith says. This would “over double the pixels, have plenty of room for a 2048×1526 app mockup image and be easier to pack into a MacBook sized screen.”

Smith believes that all signs are pointing to the fact that “Apple might begin offering Retina display equipped Macs soon […] in order to offer developers the ability to craft pixel-perfect apps for the iPad 3.”

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