So drawing something at a length of 72 points should yield roughly a 1 inch stretch on screen, no matter what resolution your screen is at.
That hasn't been true in ages for the screen, though it is true for printing, unless you've it set up to scale, of course.
MacOS X currently assumes a screen resolution of 72dpi, but most screens you buy today are actually more like 80 or 90dpi. So, in general stuff displays too small on screen.
That's why resolution independence has been introduced: To allow you to use the 72dpi units and the user can choose whether they want to see more content or get higher resolution. Right now you always get more resolution, in the future you can scale up and thus get 1:1 again, but with the same smoothness for text and graphics.
by Uli Kusterer — Sep 22
That hasn't been true in ages for the screen, though it is true for printing, unless you've it set up to scale, of course.
MacOS X currently assumes a screen resolution of 72dpi, but most screens you buy today are actually more like 80 or 90dpi. So, in general stuff displays too small on screen.
That's why resolution independence has been introduced: To allow you to use the 72dpi units and the user can choose whether they want to see more content or get higher resolution. Right now you always get more resolution, in the future you can scale up and thus get 1:1 again, but with the same smoothness for text and graphics.
At least that's the theory.