I'm not a visual designer, but I do see the difference in crispness between the two stadium images, and I think the improvement in the sharper one is non-trivial.
However, I'm frustrated with designers who associate thoroughness with being "pixel-perfect". Pixels should not be the focus. We live in a multi-res world; different people have differing visual acuity and varying ppi screens that they hold at varying distances. Being user-centered means accounting for all that variation, not optimizing individual pixels for your super-designer-vision. Just use vector art instead.
I hoped that the retina iStuff would finally break designers of their pixel-focus, but it seems that it's just become a way to obsess even more about pixels.
That's because pixels are important. The non-trivial blurring you see is the result of the edge of the image not being aligned with the edge of the pixel. the screen has to anti-alias it onto the subpixel, and it looks shitty. High PPI screens mitigate this somewhat, and i'm sure every designer would love to get away from using pixels but the results just aren't good when you do.
Vector art produces bad results. So, no thanks. The problem is the ridiculous number of varying Android resolutions. There, we have to be flexible. But still not going to use vectors.
However, I'm frustrated with designers who associate thoroughness with being "pixel-perfect". Pixels should not be the focus. We live in a multi-res world; different people have differing visual acuity and varying ppi screens that they hold at varying distances. Being user-centered means accounting for all that variation, not optimizing individual pixels for your super-designer-vision. Just use vector art instead.
I hoped that the retina iStuff would finally break designers of their pixel-focus, but it seems that it's just become a way to obsess even more about pixels.