Detect Retina Display

Solution 1:

In order to detect the Retina display reliably on all iOS devices, you need to check if the device is running iOS4+ and if the [UIScreen mainScreen].scale property is equal to 2.0. You CANNOT assume a device is running iOS4+ if the scale property exists, as the iPad 3.2 also contains this property.

On an iPad running iOS3.2, scale will return 1.0 in 1x mode, and 2.0 in 2x mode -- even though we know that device does not contain a Retina display. Apple changed this behavior in iOS4.2 for the iPad: it returns 1.0 in both 1x and 2x modes. You can test this yourself in the simulator.

I test for the -displayLinkWithTarget:selector: method on the main screen which exists in iOS4.x but not iOS3.2, and then check the screen's scale:

if ([[UIScreen mainScreen] respondsToSelector:@selector(displayLinkWithTarget:selector:)] &&
    ([UIScreen mainScreen].scale == 2.0)) {
  // Retina display
} else {
  // non-Retina display
}

Solution 2:

@sickp's answer is correct. Just to make things easier, add this line into your Shared.pch file:

#define IS_RETINA ([[UIScreen mainScreen] respondsToSelector:@selector(displayLinkWithTarget:selector:)] && ([UIScreen mainScreen].scale >= 2.0))

Then in any file you can just do:

if(IS_RETINA)
{
   // etc..
}

Solution 3:

+(BOOL)iPhoneRetina{
    return ([[UIScreen mainScreen] respondsToSelector:@selector(displayLinkWithTarget:selector:)] && ([UIScreen mainScreen].scale == 2.0))?1:0;
}

Solution 4:

Here is a handy swift extension:

Update for Swift v5:

extension UIScreen {

    public var isRetina: Bool {
        guard let scale = screenScale else {
            return false
        }
        return scale >= 2.0
    }

    public var isRetinaHD: Bool {
        guard let scale = screenScale else {
            return false
        }
        return scale >= 3.0
    }

    private var screenScale: CGFloat? {
        guard UIScreen.main.responds(to: #selector(getter: scale)) else {
            return nil
        }
        return UIScreen.main.scale
    }
}

Usage:

if UIScreen.main.isRetina {
    // Your code
}

Original:

extension UIScreen { 
public func isRetina() -> Bool {
    return screenScale() >= 2.0
}

public func isRetinaHD() -> Bool {
    return screenScale() >= 3.0
}

private func screenScale() -> CGFloat? {
    if UIScreen.mainScreen().respondsToSelector(Selector("scale")) {
        return UIScreen.mainScreen().scale
    }
    return nil
    }
}