iPhone Devs - Is it really that hard to make apps iPhone 5 resolution?

Well, Google has updated several of their apps for iPhone 5 (Chrome, Google Search, Gmail, Google Voice, Google +), so I would imagine that YouTube is on its way. I'm sure Google's development team decided the order in which their apps would be updated and allocated the resources for it accordingly.

Any good developer will use similar practices to 'responsive design' for web. Meaning, they'll know that no matter what the screen resolution, size or orientation, things will be scaled and laid accordingly.

Its not hard developing for the new resolution, it just involves some tweaking if no measures were taken to take care of this before.

I remember the good old days of Games giving the ability to render at higher resolutions internally and scaling down to display on screen. In the case of handheld games that seems somewhat wasteful.

I waited a couple of months for the sole reason that the apps will need time to catch up and you know what? They haven't budged.

I really hope Apple retain the 4" format here on out, because it makes it a viable option for me.

wikus said:

Any good developer will use similar practices to 'responsive design' for web. Meaning, they'll know that no matter what the screen resolution, size or orientation, things will be scaled and laid accordingly

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No they wouldn't.

Such an approach would be a waste of resources on a mobile device.

Risco said:

Apple said it is very easy to update apps, so from a devs point of view why the delay?

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Who said it's just the devs? Apple has to check each of the apps before they go through and, with 3/4 of a million apps available, I'm sure that's no easy task either.

From the devs perspective, while the key players knew about the new resolution early, the vast majority of them didn't learn about it until we did - at the iPhone 5 keynote. While it may be a quick and easy fix for some apps, for others it clearly isn't.

A multiplayer, full screen game, for instance, can't simply extend the screen as it could give an unfair advantage and stretching things would make it look distorted. For those apps, they may need to rework much, much more than just the resolution.

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wikus said:

Any good developer will use similar practices to 'responsive design' for web. Meaning, they'll know that no matter what the screen resolution, size or orientation, things will be scaled and laid accordingly.

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Since the screen ratio has changed, there is no way to scale something to fit without distorting it.

cyks said:

Who said it's just the devs? Apple has to check each of the apps before they go through and, with 3/4 of a million apps available, I'm sure that's no easy task either.

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Oh wow, completly forgot about that... I feel bad for the people checking the apps

Risco said:

The reason I ask, is there seems to be a large number of major apps ( like Youtube ) and games ( like Shadowgun ) which have not had their resolution updated.

Apple said it is very easy to update apps, so from a devs point of view why the delay?

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This needs to be updated soon, I hate using the web browser to get full screen video and the app won't allow it.

cyks said:

Since the screen ratio has changed, there is no way to scale something to fit without distorting it.

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With that logic, normal OS X and Windows applications would only work one one type of monitor.

Ditched the Youtube app for lacking of update for the iphone5 and use Jasmine now. SO MUCH better. Get it !

Risco said:

Apple said it is very easy to update apps, so from a devs point of view why the delay?

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Because what Apple says isn't what is.

wikus said:

With that logic, normal OS X and Windows applications would only work one one type of monitor.

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Except computer apps are often been built with different resolutions and ratios in mind while those for iDevices have, for many years, been the same (universal apps being the exception).

cyks said:

Except computer apps are often been built with different resolutions and ratios in mind while those for iDevices have, for many years, been the same (universal apps being the exception).

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Exactly.

It was absolutely not possible to have an App ready for the iPhone 5 (or iPad, Retina etc.) screen until Apple released the Developer Tools to enable support for those.

Operating Systems like Windows and Mac OS don't usually rely on fixed display resolutions and aspect ratios. You design your App content to fit in a Window - not a specific resolution.