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Home / News / Apple’s new wallpaper suggests Retina display iMacs coming soon

Apple’s new wallpaper suggests Retina display iMacs coming soon

OS X Mavericks’ blue and green wave image is exactly four times the resolution of the current 27in iMac screen – why?

If you followed yesterday’s OS X Mavericks announcement, you’ll no doubt have noticed that Apple showed off a brand new default wallpaper: a blue and green ocean wave, clearly inspired by Mavericks’ surfer bay naming roots.

No big deal, you might think – but it turns out that this wallpaper, which can be downloaded from the Apple website now, has a resolution of 5120 x 2880. That’s exactly twice the width and height of the resolution of the current screens used in the 27in iMac and 27in Thunderbolt Display.

On Twitter, designer Marvin Scharle noted that this resolution, on a 27in screen, could be classed as a Retina display. The suggestion is that, at some point in the next few months, we’ll be seeing iMacs and Thunderbolt Displays with Retina-quality screens.

Apple has some previous in this regard: when it released the developer preview of OS X Lion back in 2011, there was a hi-res (3200 x 2000) wallpaper that wouldn’t be fully utilised until the first Retina display MacBook Pro arrived in 2012. 

[Via Apple Insider]

Profile image of Sam Kieldsen Sam Kieldsen Contributor

About

Tech journalism's answer to The Littlest Hobo, I've written for a host of titles and lived in three different countries in my 15 years-plus as a freelancer. But I've always come back home to Stuff eventually, where I specialise in writing about cameras, streaming services and being tragically addicted to Destiny.

Areas of expertise

Cameras, drones, video games, film and TV