We have already got accustomed to innovative technologies that gradually take control over their niche market. An advanced technology is introduced initially by a specific development company; pretty fast, it becomes a hip trend among small quantity of wealthy users, but shortly after, when prices are reduced, it becomes popular and eventually replaces the old methods. Retina display is probably a great example for a new line of computers and mobile devices that rapidly spreads through many manufactures, and which will soon force most websites to adopt its progressive demands.
What is a Retina Display?
Retina display is a registered Apple trademark introduced on Apple’s latest portable products. The new display technology produces an exceptional viewing experience when combined with retina compatible sites and applications. Retina display is quite similar to HD technologies for televisions. It creates an ultra resolution, utilizing twice the amount of pixels used in conventional screens. The extensive pixel density is translated into a sharp, bright and smooth display. The high end technology is based on the fact that the human eye cannot perceive pixelation when watching high enough screen resolution, and thus, all content whether text or rich media is crystal clear.
Nevertheless, there are two problems with turning your site to be retina compatible. First of all, each device has different dimensions, viewing capabilities and typical viewing distance, so websites must have a responsive design that is able to detect whether the device in use has a retina display or not and match the display to its specific features. In addition, high resolution images radically increase webpages loading time, which can cause a major problem for heavy traffic sites.
How to Upgrade Your WordPress Site to Become Retina-ready?
Install a retina plugin
If you already have a responsive WordPress website the best thing to do is add one of the few available retina display plugins.
WP Retina 2x
The plugin detects retina display devices and generates high resolution versions of your images according to the settings you have defined. It allows you to choose one of two methods to display retina images.
Simple WP Retina
The plugin automatically detects retina and high resolution displays and serves appropriate images. It does not work well with caching plugins and does not regenerate images automatically.
Demo & downloadRetinamatic
The Retinamatic adds double resolution versions of all your images including thumbnails, but it only works with images you upload yourself.
Use a retina-ready WP theme
Now, if you are just about to establish a new site, you should check out the available retina-ready themes that are retina display compatible. You can dig in for huge collection of retina based WordPress themes on Themeforest here.
Entity
The theme serves high resolution images, iconography, and typography for detected retina display devices. Entity is a fully responsive theme with responsive sliders feature; it has a great support, SEO optimization and numerous customization options.
Nimble
A responsive theme with high resolution icons and buttons served for retina devices. It displays high resolution images beautifully, but does not generate them automatically, which means you still need to install a plugin to do that for you. Nimble is a general theme that may suit various purposes. It is highly customizable, has 16 skins, multiple sliders, templates and layouts, lots of widgets andcustom shortcodes and many other great features.
Camp
Camp is an E-commerce fully responsive theme, optimized for high resolution displays with unlimited color schemes and numerous features and customization options. It has easy to manage shop, built-in E-commerce widgets, products rating and more.
For dozens of retina-ready WordPress themes click here
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