Recently the Tweetbot for Mac public alpha download was pulled from the Tapbots website, leading to questions and concerns about its status and its future, given Twitter new, 3rd party client-hostile API changes. To address all of this, and further explain what Twitter API 1.1 means for Tweetbot for Mac, developer Paul Haddad took to the Tapbots blog:

Twitter's latest API Changes means now we have a large but finite limit on the number of user tokens we can get for Tweetbot for Mac. We've been working with Twitter over the last few days to try to work around this limit for the duration of the beta but have been unable to come up with a solution that was acceptable to them. Because of this we've decided its best for us to pull the alpha.

Haddad enumerates many of the new limitations and realties facing Twitter developers when it comes to tokens, all centered around the August 16, 2012 cutoff points, when developers became restricted to 100,000, or if they already exceeded that, 2x the number they had, and that's all they'll get.

I asked Haddad if Twitter integration in iOS 5 and iOS 6 for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad, and Twitter integration for OS X Mountain Lion for Mac, would take any of the pressure off the token cap by letting Apple handle some of the authentications. Haddad thought it unlikely:

As part of every Twitter request generated by the iOS Twitter integration the app's unique id is sent. I'm sure Twitter could easily use this to prevent anyone from going over the current caps.

The best thing to do, if you're already using the Tweetbot for Mac Alpha, is to buy the release version when it hits the Mac App Store. That way, the token you already have becomes paid for, and Tapbots can at least earn as much as possible for their efforts, before the hard limit kills their ability to add more users.

If you don't intend to buy Tweetbot for Mac when it's released, or don't intend to use any other Twitter client you've bought in the past, Hadded does have one other way for you to help developers out:

If you go on the Twitter website and navigate to Settings -> Apps and hit the "Revoke access" button you are returning one of those tokens back to the app's pool.

Tapbots' only concern right now should be developing a fantastic Twitter experience for Mac. Instead, given how unstable, undependable, and unreliable the Twitter platform has become, they're having to stress over and worry about the future of Tweetbot itself. That's bad for developers, for users, and for Twitter. Sadly, the first group is powerless to effect change, the second group is largely unaware change needs effecting, and the third group, despite its awareness and power, lacks the insight and acumen, to listen to their better angels and make it so.

Read the read of Paul Haddad's post via the link below.

Source: Tapbots blog

Apple has just announced that Craig Federighi is being promoted, fully taking the long-departed Betrand Serlet's post as senior vice-president of Mac software engineering, and his place on the Executive Committee. Also, as expected, Dan Riccio has been promoted to SVP of hardware engineering, and will also be joining the Executive Committee. However, Apple also announced that the man Riccio was to replace, Bob Mansfield, will no longer be retiring, but will be staying with Apple to work on "future projects". All three will report to Apple CEO, Tim Cook, and all three now appear on Apple's Leadership page.

Interestingly, both Mansfield and Riccio are listed as SVPs of hardware engineering, while Federighi joins Scott Forstall as an SVP of software engineering, though Forstall is listed as iOS and Federighi as OS X. Apple considers software important enough to have SVPs for both iOS and OS X, but not to have designated SVPs for iOS as opposed to OS X hardware. Likewise, Jony Ive remains listed as SVP of industrial design across all platforms.

Amazing to see how much Apple's leadership has both changed, and remained the same over the course of the last two years.

Complete press release below.

CUPERTINO, California—August 27, 2012—Apple® today announced that Craig Federighi, Apple's vice president of Mac Software Engineering, and Dan Riccio, Apple's vice president of Hardware Engineering, have been promoted to senior vice presidents. Federighi and Riccio will report to Apple CEO Tim Cook and serve on Apple's executive management team.

Apple also announced that Bob Mansfield, who announced his retirement in June, will remain at Apple. Mansfield will work on future products, reporting to Tim Cook.

As senior vice president of Mac Software Engineering, Federighi will continue to be responsible for the development of Mac OS® X and Apple's common operating system engineering teams. Federighi worked at NeXT, followed by Apple, and then spent a decade at Ariba where he held several roles including vice president of Internet Services and chief technology officer. He returned to Apple in 2009 to lead Mac OS X engineering. Federighi holds a Master of Science degree in Computer Science and a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley.

Riccio, as senior vice president of Hardware Engineering, will lead the Mac®, iPhone®, iPad® and iPod® engineering teams. He has been instrumental in all of Apple's iPad products since the first generation iPad. Riccio joined Apple in 1998 as vice president of Product Design and has been a key contributor to most of Apple's hardware over his career. Dan earned a bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1986.

Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices with iPad.

Looks like Apple isn't wasting any time listing the Samsung Android phones they'd like to have banned in the U.S. following their $1 billion win last week. And that's a good thing, because a lot of these phones look so old they're probably not being sold much if at all anymore, so the faster they're not sold, the better... right? Both The Verge and FOSS Patents snagged the list:

• Galaxy S 4G
• Galaxy S2 (AT&T)
• Galaxy S2 (Skyrocket)
• Galaxy S2 (T-Mobile)
• Galaxy S2 Epic 4G
• Galaxy S Showcase
• Droid Charge
• Galaxy Prevail

While it's possible a regional carrier might have been planning to announce some of those as part of their 2012 lineup, given that the Galaxy S3 is the new hotness, I'm not sure how many, if any, actual consumers will suffer from a ban on the old broken.

However, this is just the beginning and Apple will no doubt try to have the ban set up in such a way that it catches any additional, past, present, and future devices that look to be infringing on the same patents. For example, Apple has also asked to have the ban extended on the Galaxy Tab 10.1 cellular variant.

Apple vs Samsung continues...

Source: The Verge, FOSS Patents

Dash, a relatively new jailbreak tweak, switches up multitasking on your iPhone by replacing the current multitasking switcher with an elegant card like interface that you can swipe through.

If you're familiar with the way Safari already handles multiple web pages like cards you'll be right at home with Dash as the concept is very simliar. Once you've installed Dash there isn't too much to customize. Just pop into Settings and choose what gesture you'd like to use to activate Dash. If you'd like it to override the default multitasking switcher just choose double tapping the Home button to activate Dash.

Once Dash is activated you can tab from left to right through all your open apps. To close one just flick upwards and the app will close out completely. Under Settings you can customize the animations that Dash uses while in multitasking view. You can choose between animations such as Scroll, CoverFlow, Time Machine, Rotary, and Cylinder. The only other thing you can customize is what gesture will invoke Dash. In my experience the Scroll animations are the smoothest and makes closing out apps extremely fast. The other fancier animations are nice to look at but seem to slow down the entire UI of Dash quite a bit.

For those of you that have ever used webOS in the past, Dash uses the same card layout and gestures that you would have seen on phones such as the Palm Pre. If you prefer that kind of multitasking over default iOS, Dash is definitely for you.

$1.99 - Cydia Search Link

Facebook integration for iOS has been rumored for a couple years now, buy iOS 4 shipped with nary a Like in sight, and iOS 5 with only Twitter and tweets to show for itself. With iOS 6 Facebook hits the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad in full force. We're talking built-in status sharing, content sharing, calendar and contacts integration, and a whole lot of stuff you can Like, built-in.

Here's how Apple describes Facebook integration in iOS 6:

Now it's easier than ever to interact with the world's largest social network. And there's no need to leave your app to do it. Share a photo to Facebook right from Camera or Photos. Post your location right from Maps. Brag about a high score right from Game Center. If you have your hands full, just ask Siri to post for you. You need to sign in to Facebook only once, and you'll be off and sharing. Never miss another birthday or get-together, since Facebook events are integrated into Calendar. And your Facebook friends' profile information is integrated into Contacts, so when they update an email address or phone number you automatically stay up to date. Now that's something to post about.

And here's what they've shown off of it so far:

• Single sign-in means, like Twitter in iOS 5, you can log into your Facebook account in the Settings app, and other apps -- including the Facebook app itself -- can simply use that login to give you access. No more signing into each app individually.

• Post to Facebook from any built-in that includes a Share Sheet. Just tap the action button, tap Facebook, and your photos, location, links, and other content get shared.

• App Store apps with Share Sheets also get Facebook integration via iOS 6.

• You can quickly get to Facebook right from Notification Center -- just pull down and post. And you can even use Siri to post to Facebook for you.

• You can share music and media, apps, and Game Center scores.

• And you can even Like music, media, apps and games right from the newly redesigned iTunes Store and App Store apps.

• What's more, both Calendar and Contacts are now integrated with your Facebook events, birthdays, and friends.

Unlike the iOS and iCloud, the local and cloud server parts of the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad experience, Apple seems content to outsource social to Twitter, and now Facebook. Apple has tried social before, with the Ping music network, and not done very well. On the other hand, no single social network has lasted as long as an operating system either, with Compuserve, AOL, Friendster, MySpace, Orkut, Buzz, and many others rising and falling before Twitter and Facebook came to current dominance. Apple might simply recognize that a) they're not great at social, and b) social is migratory, and so simply be content to partner with whomever is currently hot, and provide those services to iOS users.

iOS 6 is scheduled for release this fall, perhaps as soon as September 19. For more on iOS 6 and Siri, check out:

• Complete Facebook coverage
• Everything you need to know about iOS 6
• iOS 6 discussion forum

Even more next generation iPhone part leaks are copping up that appear to show a revised Home button enclosure that could possibly solve some of the hardware issues iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S owners already encounter. Even more intriguing is the appearance of a new component that could turn out to be an NFC chip.

While the front of the digitizer and LCD assembly is almost identical to the current iPhone 4/4S except for the taller display, the back may show some new clues as to what we can expect this Fall. First we can see that the LCD is enclosed in a shield which is different than the current unshielded iPhone 4/4S LCD assembly. It seems to go back to the same LCD shield design Apple used in both the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS. Running above the LCD assembly next to the digitizer and LCD cables is a new component. The folks over at Macotakara believe this could be an NFC chipset. While this could be the case it's hard to know for sure considering it appears to be covered with a shield much like the new LCD.

This would make sense considering many Android phones and tables are already using NFC technology. It could also be another form of integration for the new Passbook feature that is set to debut in iOS 6. Instead of just scanning QR codes, NFC could make it easier to check in at airports or other locations.

The second noticeable change is the addition of a metal bracket around the Home button. This is very simliar to the way Apple has already design the Home button in the iPad 2 and new iPad. The GSM and CDMA variants of the iPhone 4 have both been prone to Home button issues due to the flimsy flex cable that sits behind the Home button. Apple seemed to try to alleviate this issue in the iPhone 4S by adding a rubber flange around the actual Home button and re-designing the Home button contact on the mid-frame. While there aren't as many issues with the iPhone 4S, they are still present. No generation of iPad has experienced these issues thus far so going with that design may be in Apple's best interest at this point.

As we near closer to an announcement it appears that the next generation iPhone will have not only new components such as the micro dock connector but re-designed ones that should make it a more solid build hardware wise than what we've seen in previous iterations of the iPhone. If our sources are correct, we don't have much longer to wait before we find out.

Source: Apple.pro via

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iMore previously reported that Apple would be introducing the iPhone 5 at an event on Wednesday, September 12, and releasing it on Friday, September 21. Now, TechCrunch's Jordan Cook reports that AT&T staff has been given a vacation blackout from September 21 to September 30, which exactly matches the Verizon blackouts reported previously.

We've received yet another bit of evidence confirming the next iPhone's September 21 launch. According to an AT&T sales rep, AT&T staff have been given a vacation blackout from September 21 to September 30, just like Verizon employees. Our source also mentioned that blue carrier employees are undergoing training for an "iconic release."

This information essentially seals the deal save for an official word from Apple. So along with International Peace Day, World Gratitude Day, and Mini Golf Day, mark down September 21 in your calendar. It'll be a big day.

As of yet, Apple hasn't issued any invitations so it is still unconfirmed. There is nothing unusual about this as, last year, Apple issued invitations for its iPhone 4S event just seven days before the announcement. If Apple sticks to the same format, expect to hear official news of the event around the September 5; Apple doesn't believe in giving the press too much notice for events like this.

Update: Not so, says 9to5Mac's Seth Weintraub. Or at least, not certain, not widespread, and maybe not at all.

Source: TechCrunch

Have you ever wondered what that HDR toggle in your iPhone's camera options is for? And why you want to use it? HDR stands for High Dynamic Range and refers to a scene that includes both bright and dark elements -- the sun, reflecting off water, with deep shadows in the tree lines, or even a regularly lit person standing against the glare of an open window. When we talk about HDR photography, we are referring to taking photographs of such scenes. Unfortunately, unlike the human eye, camera sensors need a little extra help to get that done. So, in this week's iPhoneography column, we're going to discuss more details about HDR and how best use your iPhone's camera to get the most dynamically awesome photos ever.

What is HDR?

As mentioned above, HDR stands for High Dynamic Range and is not exclusive to photography. When you step outside on a sunny day and view a scene that has both really bright area and very dark, shaded areas, you are living in a setting with a great dynamic range -- a huge range of light intensity levels. On a foggy day, the dynamic range is very low (and usually ideal for photography).

By definition, photography is the art of recording light. This act must be done with the camera sensor -- which is only capable of capturing a certain range of light intensity at any given time. Even the most expensive and most professional cameras on the market are not equipped with sensors that can capture all ranges of light in one photograph. That's where "HDR photography" comes in.

HDR photography is traditionally done by taking multiple photos with the exact same composition but with different exposure settings, then merging them all together as one photo. For example, a photographer will set up his camera on a tripod, take one photo that is exposed for the darkest area of the scene, a second photo exposed for the mid-range section, and a third photo exposed for the brightest area of the scene. The photographer will then edit these photos in sophisticated software, such as Photoshop, and blend them together so that all the properly exposed areas of the three photos are merged together as a single photograph. A quick search for "HDR" on Flickr will provide a lot of great examples of the types of photographs that are created with this technique.

The iPhone uses a similar, though less sophisticated, method of creating HDR images. When you enable HDR, the iPhone will take three photographs at the same time, with different exposures, and layer the best parts of each one to create one photo -- all in a matter of seconds. There are definitely noticeable improvements when using this feature, but it turns out that you can do more than just enable HDR to produce a better image.

How to enable HDR on your iPhone's camera

Enabling HDR on your iPhone's camera is very easy. With the Camera app open, you should see a button at the top of the screen that says Options. Tap this button to see the Grid and HDR toggles. To turn on HDR, switch to toggle to ON by tapping it. Tap Options again to get the menu to disappear. HDR will stay on until you repeat the process to turn it off.

Since the iPhone will take three photos every time you trigger the shutter, Apple has included an option in the Settings app that lets you keep the normal photos -- meaning the photos you would've taken if HDR was turned off. To turn this on, go to Settings > Photos & Camera > Keep Normal Photo > ON.

Tap to expose for darkest part of scene

Following the above instructions will have HDR up and running without any effort on your part. However, I've learned through much experimentation a little trick that will improve results -- exposing for the darkest part of the scene.

Everyone is familiar with the tap-to-focus feature of the iPhone's camera, but what many people don't realize is that not only is the camera focusing on your subject, but it's also exposing for this area of the photo as well. I don't have an explanation as to why, but exposing for the darkest part of the photo seems to produce better results than to let the iPhone choose an exposure automatically. The algorithm that the software uses appears to do a better job at recovering bright areas of a photo vs dark areas.

The sequence of photos shown above demonstrates this. The first photo was taken without HDR. The second photo was taken with HDR enabled and the exposure that the Camera chose automatically. For the third photo, I tapped on the left part of the screen where the grass is darkly shaded before taking the photo. It could be a matter of taste, but I prefer the last photo out of the three.

HDR apps

The built-in HDR feature of the iPhone's camera is a great, but there's no denying its limitations. That's where the App Store comes in. The App Store has a plethora of various apps dedicated to HDR iPhoneography that provides features like creating HDR effects on non-HDR photos from your Camera Roll, more sophisticated algorithms for merging photos, filters, and more. Here's just a few:

• Simply HDR - $0.99 for iPhone - Download Now
• Pro HDR - $1.99 - Download Now
• HDR FX Pro - Free - Download Now

Do you have any favorite HDR app?

Now go out and shoot!

Now that you know all about HDR photography, go test your new knowledge on the streets! Or other beautiful scenic areas. As always, please share your best photos with us in the iMore Photography Forum. Most importantly -- have fun!

In the matter of Apple's $1 billion verdict over Samsung, we've already had two separate, yet equally important PR statements. Since then, a Samsung executive has said it's their worst case scenario, and Google, not surprisingly, has tried to keep Android well away from the fallout.

The unnamed Samsung executive was quoted by the Korea Times' Kim Yoo-chul:

``It's absolutely the worst scenario for us,'' a senior Samsung executive said as he rushed into the company's compound in southern Seoul. Inside the building, Choi Gee-sung, former Samsung Electronics CEO and now the head of Samsung Group's corporate strategy division, was holding an emergency meeting attended by Shin Jong-kyun, the company's mobile devices chief, and Lee Dong-joo, lead marketing official.

Google's comments come by way of The Verge's Bryan Bishop:

The court of appeals will review both infringement and the validity of the patent claims. Most of these don't relate to the core Android operating system, and several are being re-examined by the US Patent Office. The mobile industry is moving fast and all players — including newcomers — are building upon ideas that have been around for decades. We work with our partners to give consumers innovative and affordable products, and we don't want anything to limit that.

Normally I say the "it's not over, but if it is, it wasn't us it was them, but it it's not over" vibe feels remarkably close to Samsung's trial strategy of "we didn't copy, but if we did copy, Apple copied first, and who cares about copying anyway?" which gained zero traction, or dollars, from the jury. But what else can Google say at this point? Even if they indemnified Android, TouchWiz and the hardware are all Samsung's.

Google's relationship with Apple is probably still sub-optimal at the moment, but before the verdict sticks, doing everything they can to help lubricate a settlement wouldn't be a terrible idea.

Update: Samsung has made their own internal memo available via Samsung Today

We initially proposed to negotiate with Apple instead of going to court, as they had been one of our most important customers. However, Apple pressed on with a lawsuit, and we have had little choice but to counter-sue, so that we can protect our company.

Certainly, we are very disappointed by the verdict at the US District Court for the Northern District of California (NDCA), and it is regrettable that the verdict has caused concern amongst our employees, as well as our loyal customers.

However, the judge's final ruling remains, along with a number of other procedures. We will continue to do our utmost until our arguments have been accepted.

The NDCA verdict starkly contrasts decisions made by courts in a number of other countries, such as the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany, and Korea, which have previously ruled that we did not copy Apple's designs. These courts also recognized our arguments concerning our standards patents.

History has shown there has yet to be a company that has won the hearts and minds of consumers and achieved continuous growth, when its primary means to competition has been the outright abuse of patent law, not the pursuit of innovation.

We trust that the consumers and the market will side with those who prioritize innovation over litigation, and we will prove this beyond doubt.

Source: Korea Times, The Verge, Samsung Today

This week was a blur punctuated by something neither tragic nor triumphant. Part gut check, part gut punch. So let's spin up the FTL drives and jump right to it...

iMore Forums app

Earlier this week we launched the iMore Forums app for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Thousands of you have downloaded it already, but in case you somehow managed to miss it, it's FREE, it's fabulous, and it's available via the App Store:

• Download iMore Forums app

(If you have any trouble logging in, just see here.)

Friendless; or: whose followers are they anyway?

While I was busy ranting about Twitter restricting third-party clients, I completely forgot to address the parallel dickosity of Twitter turning off API access to Instagram and Tumblr. Both services were using Twitter's service to help you find your friends -- they'd show you the people you follow on Twitter so you could follow those same people on Instagram or Tumblr. Now you can no longer do that. Twitter's happy with Instagram and Tumblr pumping gazillions of tweets into their service, but apparently not with Instagram or Tumblr pulling any social value back out.

To our dismay, Twitter has restricted our users' ability to "Find Twitter Friends" on Tumblr. Given our history of embracing their platform, this is especially upsetting. Our syndication feature is responsible for hundreds of millions of tweets, and we eagerly enabled Twitter Cards across 70 million blogs and 30 billion posts as one of Twitter's first partners. While we're delighted by the response to our integrations with Facebook and Gmail, we are truly disappointed by Twitter's decision.

So that demands the question: Who owns my follow list anyway? Is it the property of Twitter, the service that enables it, or my property, the user who builds it?

Obviously, Twitter thinks it's them. But the way they're going about it makes me want to strongly disagree. And throw things. Is that really the best strategy?

The verdict

I've written and said far too much already about the Apple vs. Samsung U.S. court verdict, but two things have stuck with me over the course of the weekend:

First, it was almost uncomfortable watching Apple paint the board aluminum (or whatever color represents Apple in these things). A good fight is a spectacle, but there's no spectacle to be had in a beating like that. Sadly, there was also no Big John McCarthy to pull the jury off, no one gracious enough at Apple to stop the pounding, and no one smart enough at Samsung to throw in the towel. Let's hope now that the bell has rung, this gets settled and settled well before the appeals, bans, and further infringement cases are brought. I don't know who was being more stubborn in the talks to date, Apple or Samsung, but the time for stubborn is over. There's way too much blood on the mats already.

Second, the reaction by extreme Apple and Android supporters on both sides was difficult for me to comprehend. Make no mistake, this was a loss for Samsung, but it was no cause for strutting by Apple. To argue either way is silly. These companies should be fighting over us, not us over them. If you hate a company, or worse, if you hate the people who work for or even just use the products of a company, you need to stop. Now. It's not okay. The bits of plastic in your pockets, and the bits of plastic in other people's pockets are just that -- bits of plastic.

There's much more important stuff for all of us to expend energy on.

Posts is an iPhone and iPad app for the Blogger and WordPress bloggers out there. It features a gorgeous interface that supports multiple blogs on Blogger and both worpdress.com and self-hosted blogs with wordpress.org. The built-in post editor is very powerful, browsing through posts is a visually appealing experience, and comment management is a breeze.

After adding all your blogs (or creating one with Posts), you can view your posts in a visual timeline view. In landscape, there will be a left sidebar that gives quick access to all your blogs and their posts, comments drafts, submissions, and pages. The main part of the screen will display you selection. When viewing posts, they are displayed in a horizontal timeline that shows all the posts under each day. Each thumbnail shows the main image, the title, and a small excerpt. One of my favorite features is that you can view all the posts of all your blogs in this view if you choose.

If you tap on a post, a preview will popup that displays the content of the post. It doesn't visually look the same as it does on your blog, but is more like what you'd see on a read-later apps like Pocket or Apple's built-in Reader feature in Safari. From this preview, you can edit, view comments, delete, or share.

When adding a post, Posts supports a rich text environment as well as HTML input. The rich text screen allows you to choose a style (body, heading, blockquote, etc), font size, bold, italic, strikethrough, justification, hyperlink, and more. If you insert a photo, you can hold your finger down on it to edit the size and wrap type as well as src, alt, and tooltip information.

One thing I don't like about Posts is adding tags and categories. Both are shown as a list, which is great for categories, but terrible for tags. I have hundreds of tags and the last thing I want to do is scroll through a giant list to select the ones I want. It'd be faster to just type a comma-separated list. For categories, the lists are in alphabetical order and do not account for subcategories. So if you have a hierarchy similar to Pets > Photos and another one that's Kids > Photos, you will see two Photos categories listed without any way of distinguishing them. Terrible.

One of the other great features of Posts is comment moderation. For each comment, you can reply, mark it as approved, unapproved, spam, or delete, and quickly view the article that the comment is associated with.

The good

• Supports Blogger and both wordpress.com and self-hosted wordpress.org blogs
• Support for multiple blogs
• Browse through posts on all bogs at once
• Powerful built-in post editor
• Manage comments
• Work offline

The bad

• Category list isn't nested
• Can't add tags via a typed lists separated by commas

The conclusion

Posts is an excellent app for managing Blogger and WordPress blogs. I'm not a Blogger user, but I can confidently claim that Posts is a much better iPad app for WordPress than WordPress' native iPad app. It's not cheap, but if efficient blogging with your iPad is something you value, Posts is worth every penny.

$9.99 - Download Now

Following the introduction of the 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro at WWDC 2012, it should come as no surprise that more of Apple's Mac line will be making the @2x transition. The question is when. And the answer, at least for the 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro, could be as early as this fall according to what NPD DisplaySearch analyst Richard Shim told CNET:

Production has begun of a 2,560-by-1,600 pixel density display that will land on a 13.3-inch MacBook Pro, NPD DisplaySearch analyst Richard Shim told CNET.

"The supply chain indications are that it's for a MacBook Pro 13.3 -- not a MacBook Air," said Shim. Displays are being made by Samsung, LGD, and Sharp, he said.

Larger desktop displays like the iMac and 27-inch Thunderbolt are challenged by cost and yield rate. Smaller laptop displays are challenged by battery life and GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) power. 2560x1600 is less than the current 15.4"-inch Retina MacBook Pro's 2880x1800 but not by much, and would clearly look spectacular at 13.3-inches. However, the current Retina MacBook Pro drives its GPU flat out to run that display. And unlike the 15-inch MacBooks, however, the 13-inch line currently only has the built in Intel HD Graphics 4000, and not the additional, discreet NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M with 1GB of GDDR5 memory. In addition to battery enough to support a 2560x1600, would Apple need to add a discreet GPU as well? How would those twin concerns, along with the thinner, optical drive-free design resolve themselves at 13-inches?

Whether this specific report is accurate or not is hard to say. It is highly detailed, and Apple is absolutely working on more Retina Macs, so it'll be interesting to see how the timeline plays out. The iPhone went Retina at 640x960 in 2010, and the iPod touch only a few months later. It took the iPad until 2012 to go Retina at 1356x2048, and the first Mac a few months more at 2560x1600.

We're still on the first generation, bleeding edge of Retina Macs, though. The 15-inch MacBook Pro is so outstanding, however, that growing pains, if any, are well worth it.

Anyone been waiting on a smaller, likely cheaper point of entry for a Retina MacBook Pro? If -- and it's still an if -- Apple does have a 13-inch MacBook Pro ready to ship this fall, will you be ready to pull the trigger?

Source: CNET