There's renewed buzz about support for "retina" displays on Apple's portable Macs thanks to higher-resolution cursor images showing up in Mac OS X 10.7.3. Noticed by a handful of Mac developers, there are new UI images for things like the Safari finger, the Mail gripping hand, and one of the screenshot camera cursors, among (undoubtedly) several others.

It's reasonable to assume that Apple might want to add these new UI elements into the OS for those using higher-resolution external displays. However, as noted by Daring Fireball, those who have Mac minis connected via HDMI to TV sets observed recently that their machines rebooted directly into HiDPI mode after upgrading to 10.7.3 last week without prompting, which could indicate plans to release future MacBooks with HiDPI displays.

Talk of a "retina" display MacBook Pro has been popping up more and more over the last six months or so. We acknowledged in December that we may end up seeing Apple release such a thing in 2012, and a thread in our forums indicates that users believe it will happen eventually—it's just a matter of when. As Chris Foresman wrote recently: "Apple is expected to have similar resolution displays ready for the iPad 3 in early spring, and the same technology would likely be used to make such a high-resolution display suitable for the MacBook Pro." Combined with the expected Ivy Bridge processors from Intel later this year, Apple could take the opportunity to upgrade the Pro line with new processors and higher-resolution displays in one fell swoop.