Comment by NamTaf | Hacker News Reader

Comment by NamTaf | Hacker News Reader

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I'm curious in particular as to how they plan to deal with the UX side of things. I'd go so far as to say that such issues could make or break the entire concept.

There's been no small amount of problems with Windows' inability to adapt to the new wave of high-dpi displays. My partner got a Yoga 2 Pro with the 3200*1800 screen and for example the youtube player controls are almost impossible to interact with in some view modes (even with a mouse pointer). I can see this being similar, in that if the app determines at runtime how to display its controls then there seems to me like there will be issues, for example with reflowing text or image positions to accommodate button size changes.

I mean, the alternative is to have Mattel's My First Computer and have all UX elements touch-size by default but then why even have a high-resolution screen with more precise KBM inputs? I know that I don't really want huge icons on a 4K monitor because i want significant screen real estate.

I think that it's going to be interesting to see how they strike this balance.

> "example the youtube player controls are almost impossible to interact with in some view modes (even with a mouse pointer). "

I have a Yoga 2 Pro too and that sounds like you were trying to use Chrome. For some reason, Chrome for Windows is just horrible in high-dpi. Firefox and IE do a nice job though, I don't the problem you are reporting in youtube with either of those browsers.

Nope, it's either FF or IE, and I'm not sure if she uses it in tablet/tent mode or standard laptop mode. One of them gave ridiculously small icons in fullscreen.

When she's back I'll see if I can figure out what combination it was. But it basically rendered them @1x size and then shoved them right at the bottom of the fullscreen display.

I am only familiar with Ubuntu and Windows, how does OSX handle the issue? Is it just bigger controls on the site or are you saying the actual resolution of the "hit-box" for these buttons isn't specific enough?

If I understand everything correctly, this issue is handled by Apple's "retina" technology. They basically combine every 4 pixel square into one sharp composite pixel. That way you get a crisp view that's readable while getting only a quarter of the workspace. You can scale your picture up to full resolution if you don't mind the small text/icons.

I assume it's an updated version of WinRT which is resolution independent.

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