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Apple's perfect iPhone 6 resolution!

What screen resolution would the iPhone 6 have?

  • The same 1136 x 640 resolution as the iPhone 5s.

    Votes: 8 5.3%

  • The same length but different width 1136 x ???

    Votes: 10 6.6%

  • A doubled resolution at 2272 x 1280.

    Votes: 87 57.6%

  • A different unrelated resolution.

    Votes: 46 30.5%
  • Total voters
    151
To me, assuming a 4.7" phone, neither keeping the same resolution (leading to 277 ppi) or doubling it (555 ppi) make any sense. First would be pixely, second would be super expensive and pointless (200ish ppi more than necessary).

I bet they do whatever resolution that would give roughly the same ppi they have now (1080p?) and tell devs to deal with it, and they will. There would be black bars all around, but that won't last long ala the 4" change, and then Apple will be set for the long haul since there probably won't be any screen size change for a very long time, if ever again. Apple has made way bigger changes for devs before (OS X, Intel) and similar ones (iPhone 4S --> 5) before too, after all.
 
my perfect iphone 6 will be like this:


4-4.3" with higher resolution and ppi


!
 
What about tripling the original non-retina resolution to 1704x960? I think Apple should be able to write its own filters to downsize the original app's resolution by ½, then triple it. That would give a more reasonable 417 PPI on a 4.7" phone.
 
Why not make the next phones with a 10000 pixel resolution ? And all the insides should be made from solid gold (for better conductivity), and of course the price should be the same.
....
What nobody seems to take into account is that higher resolutions are taxing. I have friends who (like most people) all they want is more resolution more more. And when they get it they start to complain their computer is slower with his new monitor with higher resolution. DOH !!!!!!!
Before was fast but now, especially with graphic intensive apps it has all kinds of hiccups and slowdowns. Well, that's what higher resolutions do !

And of course a new iphone with a higher ppi would work ok, especially with the first ios iteration, but you can bet your ass that in time and with ios updates it will start to be slower and slower. Event that would not be happening had the iphone 6 wouldn't had a bazillion pixels.
 
I do understand that doubling the resolution would have drawbacks and be overkill. But this is Apple were talking about. They care deeply about developer. This is different then the iPhone 4s-5 screen change. The screen only grew taller. But now the iphone will keep the the same aspect ratio just increase overall. So there will be black borders all around the screen like the iPads way of handling unsupported apps.

So I think it is highly likely they will double the resolution. Also what if they don't double it and just slightly increasing the resolution like some of you suggested. Well what about 2-4 years from now when another resolution has to be made? Or if Apple makes 2 very different sized phones like 4.5 and 5.5 inch? You want Apps to be developed specifically for iPhone pro, iPhone 6, iPhone max etc? There will be App fragmentation every 2-4 years! Why not double it and use that resolution for decades and it will look awesome from 4"-8". I'm sure it's doable, aren't samsungs phones around 500 ppi? I think Apple would be able to do it.
 
iCore24 said:
I do understand that doubling the resolution would have drawbacks and be overkill. But this is Apple were talking about. They care deeply about developer. This is different then the iPhone 4s-5 screen change. The screen only grew taller. But now the iphone will keep the the same aspect ratio just increase overall. So there will be black borders all around the screen like the iPads way of handling unsupported apps.



So I think it is highly likely they will double the resolution. Also what if they don't double it and just slightly increasing the resolution like some of you suggested. Well what about 2-4 years from now when another resolution has to be made? Or if Apple makes 2 very different sized phones like 4.5 and 5.5 inch? You want Apps to be developed specifically for iPhone pro, iPhone 6, iPhone max etc? There will be App fragmentation every 2-4 years! Why not double it and use that resolution for decades and it will look awesome from 4"-8". I'm sure it's doable, aren't samsungs phones around 500 ppi? I think Apple would be able to do it.
Click to expand...


I believe Samsung devices are around ~400 dpi but the resolution is 1080p not the 2k+ resolution the iPhone will be nearing. Most SOC should be efficient at 1080p, just wouldn't like another iPhone 4 or iPad 3, where the GPU is just adequate. iOS is pretty "gamified" which is a bit worrying since computers today can have issues with running HDPI displays (the HD 4000 on the 13 retina were reported to have issues running).
 
Next generation GPUs should be able to handle the pixel-doubled resolution of 2272x1280 and that is the likely the choice Apple will make regardless of PPI. Plus, the Samsung S6 will likely have 2K (2560x1440) resolution so Apple will have to keep up.
 
This is Apple's chance to break free from the resolution lockdown. iOS 7 already showed signs of screen size and resolution independence. If Apple is serious about larger size iPhone, they should take this opportunity to push mobile apps to be responsive
 
Tiger8 said:
This is Apple's chance to break free from the resolution lockdown. iOS 7 already showed signs of screen size and resolution independence. If Apple is serious about larger size iPhone, they should take this opportunity to push mobile apps to be responsive
Click to expand...

Yes they did show some resolution independence with the dynamic wallpaper. And everyone hated it. It messed up everyone's pictures. We still don't even know exactly what resolution we need to work with parallax perfectly. Apple is famous for dependent resolution in apps. It makes all the apps that are optimized for iPad and iPhone pixel perfect. That's its biggest advantage against android. Android has horribly optimized apps especially for its tablets. They are defiantly going to double the resolution for a lot of reasons I listed. The iPhone 5s is far more able enough to support it, let alone the new iPhone 6 hardware.
 
Apple's perfect iPhone 6 resolution!

ionjohn said:
http://crucialtangent.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/iphone5s-gpu-chart.png



can't imagine how high it'll be with the next A8 processor lol
Click to expand...


From the GPU benchmarks the A6 is around 25.5 GFLOPS as shipped from Apple while the A7 is 76.8 GFLOPS (@ 300 MHz) and it's been reported higher before (I remember seeing a report of over 100 GFLOPS on the iPad Air). That's a huge jump in graphic performance and PowerVR already has newer GPUs that could perform about 2~3x better. I'll be interested in what developers will do with that power. Apple already is showing off with the live blurring effects and physics engine within iOS. Hopefully unreal engine 4 may finally work.

Data courtesy of Anandtech
 
My bet is on 3x retina - 1704x960

3x looks like a odd number to jump. I know jagged partial pixel was a issue for 1.5x but at 3x it will be 9 pixels per point instead of 4 pixels per point[1]. I think its possible to go this route with out many issues because after 2x any pixel imperfections should be too small to notice. Think of it like Retina MacBook where you can do scaled resolutions above base retina without seeing any imperfections, i think thats how existing apps will be scaled, they will look decent and not as bad as the 1x to 2x jump.

[1] http://thetechblock.com/iphone-math/

We also hear about multiple screen size iPhones, my hunch is that 4.7inch phone will be out this year and 5.5 sometime in future, possibly next year. Apple can use 1704x960 for both these sizes with 416 and 355 ppi respectively. This means developers don't have to update their apps again when 5.5 comes out but Apple can still call it a retina device. I think 3x is the most efficient way they can jump resolutions with out a huge performance hit and major redesign for app makers.
 
Last edited:
glassbots said:
3x looks like a odd number to jump to because it seems like there may be partial pixels. I know that was issue for 1.5x but at 3x it will be 9 pixels per point instead of 4 pixels per point[1]. I think its possible to go this route with out many issues because after 2x any pixel imperfections should be too small to notice. Think of it like Retina MacBook where you can do scaled resolutions above base retina without seeing any imperfections, i think thats how existing apps will be scaled, they will look decent and not as bad as the 1x to 2x jump.

[1] http://thetechblock.com/iphone-math/

We also hear about multiple screen size iPhones, my hunch is that 4.7inch phone will be out this year and 5.5 sometime in future, possibly next year. Apple can use 1704x960 for both these sizes with 416 and 355 ppi respectively. This means developers don't have to update their apps again when 5.5 comes out but Apple can still call it a retina device. I think 3x is the most efficient way they can jump resolutions with out a huge performance hit and major redesign for app makers.
Click to expand...


I'm confused, where did you get that weird resolution from? 3x what resolution?
 
iCore24 said:
I'm confused, where did you get that weird resolution from? 3x what resolution?
Click to expand...


In iPhone 4 Apple doubled the resolution but for App developers the effective resolution they could use was still 480x320. instead of being 1pixel to 1point from iPhone 4, iOS mapped 1point to 4pixels, so even though actual resolution is 960x640 apps were only showing us 480x320 worth of content at much higher detail. iPhone 5s still works on same principle but at 568x320.

So if Apple decides to change the resolution they can still keep the effective resolution at 568x320 but instead of it being 1 point to 4 pixels it will be 1point to 9 pixels. so we see same content in much higher detail. Also since iOS 7 apple has drastically reduced the use Pixel perfect graphics with a more text heavy approach, so they can scale text to lower sizes without loss of detail because of large number of pixels backing per point. Well thats my theory anyway.
 
glassbots said:
In iPhone 4 Apple doubled the resolution but for App developers the effective resolution they could use was still 480x320. instead of being 1pixel to 1point from iPhone 4, iOS mapped 1point to 4pixels, so even though actual resolution is 960x640 apps were only showing us 480x320 worth of content at much higher detail. iPhone 5s still works on same principle but at 568x320.

So if Apple decides to change the resolution they can still keep the effective resolution at 568x320 but instead of it being 1 point to 4 pixels it will be 1point to 9 pixels. so we see same content in much higher detail. Also since iOS 7 apple has drastically reduced the use Pixel perfect graphics with a more text heavy approach, so they can scale text to lower sizes without loss of detail because of large number of pixels backing per point. Well thats my theory anyway.
Click to expand...


Ohh I read that article and understand now, yea it can be possible to do that, but honestly I still see them just going double to just be more future proof.
 
My only concern about 4x is battery life. I think A8 can handle the resolution with out much hiccups. At nearly a similar res iPad Air needs 8800mAh battery and mini has 6000mAh, iPhone 5s has 1600mAh battery, let's say bigger screen allows you to put 2500mAh it's still a lot smaller. That's why I feel like 3x best bet for this gen.
 
I think Apple with the iPhone 6 will make the jump to a more standard resolution like 1080x1920 and get away from the odd resolution they currently use.

Having a more standard resolution would make things easier going forward with different size devices. Having 1 resolution would be great for developers with 2 different size iPhones.

Going to a 1080x1920 display would make it very easy to run all existing apps till the developer updates with no modification or black bars at the top and bottom.

Apple could just scale up the 3.5 in version of iPhone apps to fill the screen since they are 640x960 just doubling that gives 1080x1920 and fills the screen.
 
dlewis23 said:
I think Apple with the iPhone 6 will make the jump to a more standard resolution like 1080x1920 and get away from the odd resolution they currently use.

Having a more standard resolution would make things easier going forward with different size devices. Having 1 resolution would be great for developers with 2 different size iPhones.

Going to a 1080x1920 display would make it very easy to run all existing apps till the developer updates with no modification or black bars at the top and bottom.

Apple could just scale up the 3.5 in version of iPhone apps to fill the screen since they are 640x960 just doubling that gives 1080x1920 and fills the screen.
Click to expand...

Not quite. Doubling the 960x640 resolution of the iPhone 4/4S gives a resolution of 1920x1280. So just a bit above 1080p. But I like where you're going with this idea. Rather than guessing future resolutions based on the screen resolution of the 5/5S, we could also guess something based off the "old" retina resolution. Though the aspect ratio would be different between the two.
 
GoSh4rks said:
Desktop apps have been designed with different sizes in mind for decades now. Mobile apps haven't.
Click to expand...

i believe apple will add this to their SDK with iOS8.

1 app for all sizes.

if you can't develop like this, then you shouldn't be developing.
 
SmokyD said:
I agree, to avoid fragmentation, 2272x1280 is the only way to go.

At 4.7 inches, that would be a ridiculously high 555 ppi though.
At 5.5 inches, that would be a more feasible 479 ppi.

Both are possible, though I would be happiliy surprised to see them pull off 555 ppi in a 4.7 inch device.

At 2272x1280, whatever the size of the phone, they can continue to sell the 5S/5C and all apps will work across all devices. Then they could finally retire the iPhone 4S and its legacy resolution and 30 pin port.

2272x1280 is the only logical choice if they want clean scaling with no fragmentation across devices, which is something I would expect from Apple.
Click to expand...

I dont think the technology is ready for essentially a 2K+ display on a mobile phone.
It would put unnecessary drain on battery life and cripple graphics.

I personally dont think that resolution will happen. although Apple has surprised me in the past many times. putting the retina display on the ipad, six months earlier than i thought they would was one instance.
 
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