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“What they didn’t account for is that an overwhelming majority of legacy software had 96 DPI hardcoded into it, as well as the problem of mixed use of HiDPI and

“What they didn’t account for is that an overwhelming majority of legacy software had 96 DPI hardcoded into it, as well as the problem of mixed use of HiDPI and non-HiDPI displays where you need to somehow scale the entire UI back-and-forth when moved between displays. Since Windows never had the font rendering problems that Apple did, majority of the computer market share didn’t back the ultra-expensive 4K screens even to this day (2018). Software maintainers too didn’t buy into the idea of massive code rewrites and UI tinkering to support DPIs other than 96. As of today, 4K experience is still a mixed bag that solves one simple problem for Apple, but introduces multiple complex problems for everyone else.” Uhmmm.... [citation needed]? I don’t have a single Mac app that assumes anything about 96 dpi and pretty much the entire Internet is 2x now. Windows on the other hand... yes. That’s a clusterfk in HiDPI.

mikewhy 8y ago
Why was this downvoted? This paragraph was one of the worst in the article. > Since Windows never had the font rendering problems that Apple did Uhm I cannot reliably use windows with any sort of scaling. It's not as bad as linux, but it's still very bad. > Software maintainers too didn’t buy into the idea of massive code rewrites and UI tinkering to support DPIs other than 96 (on Windows)
- foobarbazetc 8y ago
  I presume the author downvoted me, which is fine. But that entire paragraph shows a misunderstanding of the Mac world — it’s just not accurate.
- izacus 8y ago
  > Uhm I cannot reliably use windows with any sort of scaling. It's not as bad as linux, but it's still very bad. That seems like a massive overexaggeration. While there are still rough edges, running Windows on my MacBooks retina screen has been just fine for majority of popular apps. Including mixed HiDPI/normal DPI use cases.
  - supernovae 8y ago
    I agree, if people are still complaining about windows fonts the last version of windows they probably ran was vista. Windows has come a long way and the entire surface product line depends on beautiful font rendering on high dpi screens.
  - mikewhy 8y ago
    Doesn't that just reiterate my point? "While there are still rough edges" == "I cannot reliably use windows with any sort of scaling" Take QGIS for example. It doesn't properly scale. On Windows you get an miniscule interface, on mac it's the same size as all other apps, just blurry. I'll take that any day.
- ktjfi 8y ago
  >Uhm I cannot reliably use windows with any sort of scaling. It's not as bad as linux, but it's still very bad. Why? Bad font rendering, or bad app scaling? I've found most if not all apps scale well. Some of them require you to go to compatibility settings and tell Windows that yes, the app can resize by itself. After you do that, they won't look blurry anymore. An example that comes to my mind is eMule. There are a few apps that won't scale well and widgets will look misaligned, but they are very, very rare.
chipotle_coyote 8y ago
I don’t have a single Mac app that assumes anything about 96 dpi... Yeah, this is the point where I was like: I'm sorry, but this seems so wrong that it casts the whole article into doubt for me. Anything written in the OS X era doesn't have any assumptions about DPI baked into it -- and if any application in the "classic" MacOS era baked in an assumption about DPI, it would have been 72, not 96, because Apple stuck with a "1 pixel = 1 point" mantra in the (very) early years. One of the entire points of OS X's Quartz rendering system, which was basically "Display PDF," was to be effectively device-independent. There were no enforced assumptions about resolution. There are arguments to be made that ClearType is a better technology for rendering text on displays than Quartz, but it's folly to pretend that there's not subjectivity to it. Personally, I've long preferred Quartz's rendering approach in nearly all cases; the text is arguably softer, but particularly on non-HiDPI displays, the letter spacing with ClearType often seems subtly off in ways that I find more distracting.
- slacka 8y ago
  > Personally, I've long preferred Quartz's rendering approach in nearly all cases. All cases? Have you ever compared them side by side on a low DPI monitor? I have a old but high-end 24" 1080p monitor that I bought for its color fidelity. When I'm in OS X, the fonts are atrocious compared to Win 10. Yet, I prefer OS X's font's when they are displayed on the 4K screen. Apple moved to HiDPI long before Windows PCs, so you need an a very old Mac or external monitor to see what he's talking about.

mikewhy 8y ago

Why was this downvoted? This paragraph was one of the worst in the article. > Since Windows never had the font rendering problems that Apple did Uhm I cannot reliably use windows with any sort of scaling. It's not as bad as linux, but it's still very bad. > Software maintainers too didn’t buy into the idea of massive code rewrites and UI tinkering to support DPIs other than 96 (on Windows)

foobarbazetc 8y ago
I presume the author downvoted me, which is fine. But that entire paragraph shows a misunderstanding of the Mac world — it’s just not accurate.
izacus 8y ago
> Uhm I cannot reliably use windows with any sort of scaling. It's not as bad as linux, but it's still very bad. That seems like a massive overexaggeration. While there are still rough edges, running Windows on my MacBooks retina screen has been just fine for majority of popular apps. Including mixed HiDPI/normal DPI use cases.
- supernovae 8y ago
  I agree, if people are still complaining about windows fonts the last version of windows they probably ran was vista. Windows has come a long way and the entire surface product line depends on beautiful font rendering on high dpi screens.
- mikewhy 8y ago
  Doesn't that just reiterate my point? "While there are still rough edges" == "I cannot reliably use windows with any sort of scaling" Take QGIS for example. It doesn't properly scale. On Windows you get an miniscule interface, on mac it's the same size as all other apps, just blurry. I'll take that any day.
ktjfi 8y ago
>Uhm I cannot reliably use windows with any sort of scaling. It's not as bad as linux, but it's still very bad. Why? Bad font rendering, or bad app scaling? I've found most if not all apps scale well. Some of them require you to go to compatibility settings and tell Windows that yes, the app can resize by itself. After you do that, they won't look blurry anymore. An example that comes to my mind is eMule. There are a few apps that won't scale well and widgets will look misaligned, but they are very, very rare.

chipotle_coyote 8y ago

I don’t have a single Mac app that assumes anything about 96 dpi... Yeah, this is the point where I was like: I'm sorry, but this seems so wrong that it casts the whole article into doubt for me. Anything written in the OS X era doesn't have any assumptions about DPI baked into it -- and if any application in the "classic" MacOS era baked in an assumption about DPI, it would have been 72, not 96, because Apple stuck with a "1 pixel = 1 point" mantra in the (very) early years. One of the entire points of OS X's Quartz rendering system, which was basically "Display PDF," was to be effectively device-independent. There were no enforced assumptions about resolution. There are arguments to be made that ClearType is a better technology for rendering text on displays than Quartz, but it's folly to pretend that there's not subjectivity to it. Personally, I've long preferred Quartz's rendering approach in nearly all cases; the text is arguably softer, but particularly on non-HiDPI displays, the letter spacing with ClearType often seems subtly off in ways that I find more distracting.

slacka 8y ago
> Personally, I've long preferred Quartz's rendering approach in nearly all cases. All cases? Have you ever compared them side by side on a low DPI monitor? I have a old but high-end 24" 1080p monitor that I bought for its color fidelity. When I'm in OS X, the fonts are atrocious compared to Win 10. Yet, I prefer OS X's font's when they are displayed on the 4K screen. Apple moved to HiDPI long before Windows PCs, so you need an a very old Mac or external monitor to see what he's talking about.