The 2012 WWDC keynote is here and gone, and while the laptops got a lot of love, none of the desktops were mentioned. It’s pretty clear to me that Apple is going to slowly move their entire product line over to Retina displays, but it’s going to take some time. If you think about it: when they next revise the iPhone, all of Apple’s iPhones for sale will be retina. The flagship iPad and MacBook Pro are Retina. I suspect in 48 months time there won’t be a laptop in their lineup that isn’t Retina.

The harder question is about desktops, which traditionally have physically much larger screens than laptops. The questions about manufacturing yields and costs enters in here, and I think it would be cost prohibitive for Apple to try to ship a 5120×3200 pixel panel. However, if Apple moved from the WQHD (Wide Quad HD, aka 2560×1440) currently shipping in the 27″ iMac and instead put a QFHD (Quad Full HD, aka 3840×2160) panel in the machine, they could make the native resolution in Retina mode equal to a pixel-doubled 1080P screen. Then, looking at the new MacBook Pro as a guide, they could use the scaling options double the old panel to 5120×3200, and then scale it down to the 3840×2160 size. The reviewers with the current MacBook Pro with Retina seem to think the scaled screens look really good, so this is possible with the 27″ iMac.

Even better, there is already a manufacturer who is producing QFHD panels in volume for medical imaging use, and has been doing so since 2010. That is where I think we are going to see Apple go in terms of Retina on the desktop, and they could even conceivably hit it this Fall. I admit that I’m somewhat biased, as I’m going to buy a 27″ iMac this fall, and would really love a Retina screen. When yields improve, they would up the pixel count, but in the interim, this could work for them, and really send the message to developers that this is the future.

It also sends a message to competitors in the hardware space that Apple is playing it’s supply-chain mastery outside the mobile space.