iMAC

@robjama Unlikely to be released anytime soon. The 2013 & 2014 retina 13" MacBook Pros, equipped with 'just' the HD5000 are already struggling lifting the rendering at their native resolution. Not to mention the even weaker MacBook Air or now the Mac minis that are all using that IGP would get hooked up to such a display. And with that I'm only talking about the current generation...the 2012 models, with even weaker HD4000 would just not be able to provide a satisfying experience. Only the 15" retina MBPs with a dedicated graphics card would be able to, but then the air gets thin to get some work (like video editing) done. Not to mention that the introduced 5k resolution (5120 x 2880) is exceeding the limits of Thunderbolt 2 (based on DisplayPort 1.2). Releasing a 5k Thunderbolt display would either required dual-link (with all it's downsides, like asynchronicity) or won't happen until the next Thunderbolt generation (including DisplayPort 1.3) gets introduced. Note: The expensive Mac Pro just has Thunderbolt 2 ports, so this display wouldn't be compatible with their recently introduced workstation. My guess: We'll either wait until fall of 2015 for that or there will be a compromising display, like a 24" 4K one, as 4K on 27" would seem like stagnation / regression compared to the iMac release.

@boettges @robjama 100%. The guys at Accidental Tech Podcast also came to the same conclusion in episode 83 atp.fm/episodes/83

@eric3000 Uhoh...you shouldn't have told me. Seems like yet another podcast to listen to! So I might need a longer commute ;) (Seems sophisticated, honest and well researched...how come I never stumpled upon that? Thanks!)

@boettges @robjama kudos! this is the conclusion I've been coming to. Finally just bought a regular TB display today (I told myself last year when i got my rMBP I would wait 1 year). Will probably get a Retina iMac when they refresh it.

@boettges @eric3000 useful insights, guys - thanks! Been wondering about retina TB display timing.

Likewise, but now this could just replace my TV.

@rrhoover Dammit, I just bought one :) Although I did need one...

@michael_mclean I don't feel this is a premium. The Dell xps 27 is $350 cheaper with an 4k display and substantially less gpu and less of a form factor and peripherals. Feels about right/reasonable.

@_jacksmith It's a marketing term coined to educated consumers, as bombarding them with a specific "dpi" value wouldn't do nothing more than cause confusion.

@boettges @_jacksmith yeah but I mean does the marketing term even have any definition any more. as it doesn't seem to represent a specific dpi like i thought initially

@_jacksmith @boettges @_jacksmith Well I originally took it to mean "a high enough dpi so that your eyes can't distinguish pixels at the average viewing distance for this device ". Therefore retina on an iPhone should have a higher dpi than retina on an iMac, since you view them from different distances.

@ghobs91 @_jacksmith exactly this. Basically for years "retina" in the Apple realm meant 'where once was 1 pixel, there is now a 2x2 square = 4 pixels'. That was done pretty consequently...coming from the iPhone/3G/3GS with 480x320 pixels to the iphone 4/4S with 960x640 pixels. Or the MacBook Pros going from 1440x900 to 2880x1800 (for 15") etc. It basically shows the same information at the same sizes. So UI elements and text won't be smaller by that, but just displayed with 4 times the pixels and hence appear crisper. Because of that all the resources got a suffix "_@2x" for the higher resolution. For example a "background.png" of an original iPhone will then be 4 times as large and be called "". Now with the iPhone 6+ Apple introduced "@3x", which is an even higher resolution, while maintaining the relative size. However...it gets complicated here, as the iPhone 6+'s screen's resolution is not high enough. But that's a whole different topic. Explaining this to the average customer would be impossible. The take-away for the marketing-term "retina" is higher dpi or just more pixels to display the same information and hence crisper.