The Unfortunate Truth: Third-Party Apps Look Horrible on the MacBook Pro with Retina Display...

This is a discussion thread for the "The Unfortunate Truth: Third-Party Apps Look Horrible on the MacBook Pro with Retina Display (For Now)" story posted on the front page.

I hope people start to update their apps. Developers have a duty of keeping their apps up-to-date with modern technology, so this should be their first priority - at least for developers on the Mac App Store.

High pixel density is a good move forwards, but I am not surprised that developers are not encompassing it yet. With just one high-end computer with a rather hefty price-tag and obviously low market share (right now), there really is no benefit for developers to spend extra time and resources to make their apps take full advantage of the retina display. I am glad that people are buying the new macbook. But honestly while it may be impressive at first (with the native apps using retina display), for people who use other third-party apps aswell they will probably need to wait the same amount of time it will take for more retina equipped computers to be released. Hence your new laptop will be old by the time it will take for it to be really beneficial. Also the same problem arises for people who use their laptops for mainly web surfing and don't use many third-party apps; website developers wont spend extra time and resources optimizing their webpage for the new display until significant market share emerges. Again this relies on new technologies to make the displays cheaper to produce which will allow a more appealing price tag for most consumers. We will have to wait quite some time.

So I don't get this. Do the non-retina apps look bad period? Like when just opened or fullscreen?

I have a Retina Macbook Pro, Yes the Native apps are amazing and very crisp like looking through a clear glass window or reading text of the page of a textbook. Older non retina apps dont look "bad" per say, but rather they look a little blurry or almost as though something is a little bit off. The reason people say they looked bad is that compared to these other updated retina apps they look rather bad. It's like the difference between 480p (standard television) and 1080p (HD TV). Once you see one image compared to the other the old image will simply look worse.

Hey, give the developers some time to make it Retina compatible. Impatient people...

Because all apps on the iPhone were sized up perfectly from 480x320 to 960x640. Here, they aren't sizing up in the same ratio making them look blurry and bad.

the first time i used iPhone 4, when not every app was retina optimized, old apps look terribly pixeleted than my own iPT2G. i haven't used new iPad, but non retina stuff on the iPhone 4/4S looks terrible IMO.

I agree. It's the same as when I got the iPod Touch 4th gen. Any non-retina apps looked grainy and blurry, I didn't use the non-retina apps for that reason. At least it is not blown up like a iPhone app on a iPad without RetinaPad.. now that's extremely horrid.