You’re right that it’s branding, but it also has meaning: a display resolution that (approximately) matches the resolution of the human retina, under typical viewing conditions. The fact that the term is easily understood by the lay public is what makes it a good name and smart branding. BTW the term ‘retinal display’ existed long before Apple used it, and refers to a display that projects directly onto the retina.
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. That it’s good is implied, but “good” is not the definition of the term. I know a lot of non-technical people who understand it without any trouble. Come to think of it, 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?
The branding term is slightly different from ‘retinal display’. The term in use may have been ‘virtual retinal display’. Dropping the ell off retinal and changing it from an adjective to a noun maybe helped their trademark application, perhaps, but since the term wasn’t in widespread use and the term is not exactly the same, that starts to contradict the idea they were ‘hijacking’ it.
The fact that any company advertised it implies that it’s supposed to be good. Doesn’t matter that it was Apple, nor that it was a premium brand, when a company advertises, no company is ever suggesting anything other than it’s a good thing.
> 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.
A screen that directly projects onto the retina sounds like a great reason to call it a retinal display. So then Apple hijacking the term to mean high DPI... how does that fit in?
There's not that many results about this before Apple's announcement in 2010, many of them reporting on science and not general public media: https://www.google.com/search?q=retinal+display&sca_esv=3689... Clearly not something anyone really used for an actual (not research grade) display, especially not in the meaning of high DPI
This isn't an especially easily understood term: that it means "good" would have been obvious no matter what this premium brand came up with. The fact that it's from Apple makes you assume it's good. (And the screens are good)