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It's called resolution independence, and has been built into various toolkits and operating systems well before the first "Retina" device.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resolution_independence




This becomes about semantics, then. If somebody writes an article about "retina displays", I immediately assume it's about this particular way of implementing resolution independence in the browser and in the OS (by doubling/quadrupling the physical resolution while keeping the virtual resolution the same). So as such it serves me better than a generic term that requires additional explanation.


Uh... of course it's about semantics. What josteink was complaining about was the use of a proprietary marketing term to refer to something technical.

Your interpretation is a fine one, but it's not the one that everyone shares. Specifically, it's not the sense that Apple uses the term either. Take a look at Apple's marketing page for the retina display and see if you can find anything about "resolution independence" at all.


So I guess the title of the article should be "Resolution independent high-resolution graphics for your website" then. Retina still communicates the subject better to me, since we all know this is about providing high-res images for iOS devices with Retina displays. Maybe I'm just getting too old to be anal about terminology like this.




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