Get a really big monitor and sit further back. Nothing increases resolution like distance.

Get a really big monitor and sit further back. Nothing increases resolution like distance.
Would you say that to someone who reads books? "Newsprint is no problem, just get the large print edition and lean back a bit."

Meanwhile at CES, Sony introduced the 5" Xperia Z phone with a 1920 x 1080/440 ppi display. (Possibly the same hardware as HTC Droid DNA)
http://gizmodo.com/5973920/sony-xperia-z-and-zl-hands-on-two-phones-wort...

To my original question; this seems like a business situation and not one of technological limitations.

Well, unlike a hand-held device a monitor has no arm-length issues, so what John suggests isn't ludicrous (you just need a deeper desk/room).

hhp

To my original question; this seems like a business situation and not one of technological limitations.

As has been discussed here and elsewhere many times before, there are good reasons why we're seeing increases in screen resolution in smaller devices and not in larger monitors. The more device pixels in a screen, the higher the likelihood that one of them will fail; the attrition rate for high resolution monitors has been too high to entice manufacturers. IBM was making 200 ppi screens for a while, but the pricing was high, and they were mostly marketed for medical imaging uses. Apple is just now pushing the size of high resolution screens with their 13" MacBook Pro retina laptops and, just announced, 15" refurbished models. These are the largest screens of anything like that resolution that I am aware of, and I'll be surprised if even Apple can push it much further. There comes a point when the cost of all the failed screens that have to be trashed makes it economically unviable. Unless someone develops manufacturing processes that very significantly reduce the attrition rate, high resolution screens are going to mostly exist in the smaller devices.

By the way, I was quite serious about getting a larger monitor and sitting further back. I have a 30" Dell screen.

CEO Tim Cook has said that Apple will update the Mac Pro (their tower model aimed at pros) in 2013. My guess is that they'll offer a standalone retina display as an option (the display is sold separately).

The Mac Pro is their most expensive model and they don't sell huge numbers of them, so the low yield and higher cost of the retina display wouldn't be such a problem.

But for their consumer desktop, the iMac, I don't think they're in any hurry to give it a retina display. Like you said, it would be expensive and the rejection rate is too high at this point.