4 ms·

Also, the current Apple Studio Display and Apple XDR Pro Display are both 218 ppi.

watersb 3y ago
218 ppi matches the native displays on current Macs. The Dell 8k has 288 pixels per inch, which is 4x the detail of the original Mac. Macintosh 128k was released with a 72 ppi display, so every pixel was the size of a "point", a unit used in more traditional, paper-based graphic design.
- larusso 3y ago
  The history of the point [1] is equally interesting and messy. Back in school, my old teachers (mostly old printing machine operators, and typesetters) preferred Apple over anything else especially because of the native 72ppi vs windows normal 96ppi. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_(typography) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_(typography)
  - watersb 3y ago
    And these days, 96 ppi is the de facto standard, via the CSS specification: https://webplatform.github.io/docs/tutorials/understanding-css-units/ https://webplatform.github.io/docs/tutorials/understanding-c... It's as if the Windows spec were retconned into being the historical norm all along, but I need to dig around to find the origin story here... Why 96 dpi? My simple guess is that 96 is also divisible by 12, and thus easy to split up into 2, 3, 4, 6, 12, 18, 24 parts... you also have eight pieces in 72 for every nine pieces in 96. 72 = 8 x 9 = 2^3 * 3^2 96 = 32 x 3 = 2^5 * 3 Huh. Never really realized that...
    - larusso 3y ago
      The wiki has this paragraph: In 1996, it was adopted by W3C for Cascading Stylesheets (CSS) where it was later related at a fixed 3:4 ratio to the pixel due to a general (but wrong) assumption of 96 pixel-per-inch screens I actually never really questioned this.
- gardaani 3y ago
  Some Macbooks don't match 218 ppi. MacBook Pro 14" and 16" have 254 ppi. I don't know why Apple decided to have such a high ppi for them.
  - watersb 3y ago
    So close... The display with the smallest pixels in my collection has been the quirky Essential PH-1; its display is a silly 504 ppi. I loved that thing, but the device is no longer supported by official updates. It looks mighty nice, just 4 ppi short of exactly 2x pixels per linear inch of these new Macs. I have no idea why.

218 ppi matches the native displays on current Macs. The Dell 8k has 288 pixels per inch, which is 4x the detail of the original Mac. Macintosh 128k was released with a 72 ppi display, so every pixel was the size of a "point", a unit used in more traditional, paper-based graphic design.

larusso 3y ago
The history of the point [1] is equally interesting and messy. Back in school, my old teachers (mostly old printing machine operators, and typesetters) preferred Apple over anything else especially because of the native 72ppi vs windows normal 96ppi. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_(typography) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_(typography)
- watersb 3y ago
  And these days, 96 ppi is the de facto standard, via the CSS specification: https://webplatform.github.io/docs/tutorials/understanding-css-units/ https://webplatform.github.io/docs/tutorials/understanding-c... It's as if the Windows spec were retconned into being the historical norm all along, but I need to dig around to find the origin story here... Why 96 dpi? My simple guess is that 96 is also divisible by 12, and thus easy to split up into 2, 3, 4, 6, 12, 18, 24 parts... you also have eight pieces in 72 for every nine pieces in 96. 72 = 8 x 9 = 2^3 * 3^2 96 = 32 x 3 = 2^5 * 3 Huh. Never really realized that...
  - larusso 3y ago
    The wiki has this paragraph: In 1996, it was adopted by W3C for Cascading Stylesheets (CSS) where it was later related at a fixed 3:4 ratio to the pixel due to a general (but wrong) assumption of 96 pixel-per-inch screens I actually never really questioned this.
gardaani 3y ago
Some Macbooks don't match 218 ppi. MacBook Pro 14" and 16" have 254 ppi. I don't know why Apple decided to have such a high ppi for them.
- watersb 3y ago
  So close... The display with the smallest pixels in my collection has been the quirky Essential PH-1; its display is a silly 504 ppi. I loved that thing, but the device is no longer supported by official updates. It looks mighty nice, just 4 ppi short of exactly 2x pixels per linear inch of these new Macs. I have no idea why.