Comment by Aachen
3 days ago
> The trademark ‘retina display’ was defined to mean the display resolution approximately matches the human retina, which is why ‘retina display’ seems obvious and easy to understand.
Wait, because it's a trademark, it must be easy and obvious to understand? And you don't think people just assume it means something positive but that they can identify that it must specifically refer to display resolution without any prior exposure to Apple marketing material or people talking about that marketing material?
> I’ve never met anyone who doesn’t understand it or had trouble. Are you saying you had a hard time understanding what it means?
This thread is the first time where I hear of this specific definition as far as I remember, but tech media explain the marketing material as meaning "high resolution" so it's not like my mental dictionary didn't have an entry for "retina display -> see high resolution". Does that mean I had trouble understanding the definition? I guess it depends on if you're asking about the alleged underlying reason for this name or about the general meaning of the word
> Wait, because it's a trademark, it must be easy and obvious to understand?
That’s not what I said, where did you read that? The sentence you quoted doesn’t say that. I did suggest that the fact that it’s easy to understand makes it a good name, and I think that’s also what makes it a good trademark. The causal direction is opposite of what you’re assuming.
> retina display > see high resolution
The phrase ‘high resolution’ or ‘high DPI’ is relative, vague and non-specific. High compared to what? The phrase ‘Retina Display’ is making a specific statement about a resolution high enough to match the human retina.
You said the phrase wasn’t easily understood. I’m curious why not, since the non-technical lay public seems to have easily understood the term for 15 years, and nobody’s been complaining about it, by and large.
I suspect you might be arguing a straw man about whether the term is understood outside of Apple’s definition, and whether people will assume what it means without being told or having any context. It might be true that not everyone would make the same assumption about the phrase if they heard it without any context or knowledge, but that wasn’t the point of this discussion, nor a claim that anyone here challenged.