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I think I'm more disappointed about lack of resolution updates

R

Razeus

macrumors 603
Original poster
Jul 11, 2008
5,364
2,074
I'm not sure what's going on in the dev community, but the lack of 1080p updates for my iPhone 6 Plus.

Evernote was ready to go on day one. Granted they are a big developer with lots of resources, but there are others out there with even deeper pockets, dragging their feet.

It's not like they don't have 1080p assets, especially if they are developing for Android as well.

Facebook, Instagram, Dropbox, anything by Google, etc.

Anyone want to shed some light?
 
I think its going to take time, and many developers may be waiting to see how the 6 plus is selling before committing resources.

As for google, they have not updated their products for retina on the Mac so I'd not hold out on them being very proactive for iOS. Facebook seems to do their own thing as well, so again that may not be a good example.
 
My hope is that developers like Facebook are taking this time to change their apps to suit the bigger screens and improve them in ways more than just adapting to the new resolutions.

Facebook updated their Messenger app pretty quickly but the main app still looks terrible. I hope that this is indeed the reason and they aren't just being lazy.

That said apps like Spotify, YouTube and Deezer should be def. be done by now.
 
Google has updated several of its apps like Gmail & Chrome. It will happen in time. Sometimes the larger the company he slower the move based on the internal validation and approval processes they have to follow prior to submission to Apple. Not an excuse, just a reality.
 
Razeus said:
I'm not sure what's going on in the dev community, but the lack of 1080p updates for my iPhone 6 Plus.

Evernote was ready to go on day one. Granted they are a big developer with lots of resources, but there are others out there with even deeper pockets, dragging their feet.

It's not like they don't have 1080p assets, especially if they are developing for Android as well.

Facebook, Instagram, Dropbox, anything by Google, etc.

Anyone want to shed some light?
Click to expand...

When the iPhone 5 came out in Sept 2012, I remember some apps weren't updated til December 2012/January 2013...It is what it is.
 
FSMBP said:
When the iPhone 5 came out in Sept 2012, I remember some apps weren't updated til December 2012/January 2013...It is what it is.
Click to expand...
Plenty of apps weren't even updated until even much later, some even weren't for a long while.
 
Some Google Apps were updated for iPhone 6/6 Plus - like the News and Weather App. :3
 
I'm frustrated by this as well. Haven't the majority of these companies already developed and deployed Android versions of their apps to run on 5"+ screens? It shouldn't be this hard to at least push out a version of an app for a 5.5" screen so it at least doesn't look terrible on these bigger screens. Then, if they want, take the time they need to redesign around the new screen size. I'd even be willing to pay for a new version of the app specifically for the 6+ if it was a complete redesign. At least in the mean time their app doesn't look terrible on these bigger screens...
 
GBR said:
I'm frustrated by this as well. Haven't the majority of these companies already developed and deployed Android versions of their apps to run on 5"+ screens? It shouldn't be this hard to at least push out a version of an app for a 5.5" screen so it at least doesn't look terrible on these bigger screens. Then, if they want, take the time they need to redesign around the new screen size. I'd even be willing to pay for a new version of the app specifically for the 6+ if it was a complete redesign. At least in the mean time their app doesn't look terrible on these bigger screens...
Click to expand...


The problem is that they don't have native apps for specific resolutions. Pretty sure that they just rely on Facebook. When I was using Facebook on an htc one M8 for about a month it looked horrible compared to the iOS version.
 
GBR said:
I'm frustrated by this as well. Haven't the majority of these companies already developed and deployed Android versions of their apps to run on 5"+ screens? It shouldn't be this hard to at least push out a version of an app for a 5.5" screen so it at least doesn't look terrible on these bigger screens. Then, if they want, take the time they need to redesign around the new screen size. I'd even be willing to pay for a new version of the app specifically for the 6+ if it was a complete redesign. At least in the mean time their app doesn't look terrible on these bigger screens...
Click to expand...

They do things differently on Android. What it ends up doing is adding lots of empty space the bigger the screen gets which doesn't achieve anything other than making things look like a big mess. You can look at some extreme examples of how their scaling works if you look up how phone apps would display on a tablet for Android.
 
RickInHouston said:
Why do the apps work on android?
Click to expand...

Android apps use a dynamic layout that scales to whatever dimensions the device uses. Until now, iOS apps have used fixed dimensions - you built your layout exactly as you wanted it to appear on a particular device. Apple now wants developers to use dynamic layouts that scale to whatever device they're being used on. This is a new framework and depending on the app can require a substantial amount of work to implement and debug. It's going to take time. I remember when I got my iPhone 5, it took over a year before all the apps I use had adapted to the new screen size.

Android dynamic layouts can result in apps that look pretty terrible on some screens. This is because the sheer number of screen sizes means that no developer can test for all of them. At least on iOS it will still be trivial for developers to make sure their dynamic layouts look good on all the devices they are intended for.
 
GBR said:
I'm frustrated by this as well. Haven't the majority of these companies already developed and deployed Android versions of their apps to run on 5"+ screens? It shouldn't be this hard to at least push out a version of an app for a 5.5" screen so it at least doesn't look terrible on these bigger screens. Then, if they want, take the time they need to redesign around the new screen size. I'd even be willing to pay for a new version of the app specifically for the 6+ if it was a complete redesign. At least in the mean time their app doesn't look terrible on these bigger screens...
Click to expand...

Thing is, it isnt hard to update apps, its just that Apple's review process for apps is almost up to 9 days wait time, that is a long time, things are being updated slowly, but surely
 
It's worth remembering that the developers who were ready to go on "day 1" felt comfortable doing a release specifically designed for a device and screen size they had never actually used. They would have had to do 100% of their testing and development using the iOS simulator, and just pray that it worked properly on the real thing. I suspect many if not most developers were not comfortable with this - wanting to wait until they could test on real hardware before shipping. Especially in the case of the iPhone 6+ with its huge supply constraints, a lot of developers may have only actually gotten their hands on the hardware they're developing for in the last week or so. Combine that with the 9 day+ review backlog for the App Store, and it's not the least bit surprising that so many apps are not yet updated. In fact, it's a bit surprising how many apps have already managed to update despite these barriers.
 
jhuynh said:
They do things differently on Android. What it ends up doing is adding lots of empty space the bigger the screen gets which doesn't achieve anything other than making things look like a big mess. You can look at some extreme examples of how their scaling works if you look up how phone apps would display on a tablet for Android.
Click to expand...

Fair enough, I currently also have a Galaxy S4 for certain situations and apps look just fine on it. Granted, it's a 5" rather than a 5.5" screen. I just feel that some developers are choosing to completely revamp their apps for the 6+, which don't get be wrong is great, but as a consumer I'd almost rather have a patch update to make the existing app fit the larger screen without pixelation. Then once thats out focus on a new revamped app and even charge for that new app. Then people have the option to stay on the older version, which still looks fine and is useable, or update to the new 6+ specific app.

Lol, the funny thing is I'm just starting out learning Swift and iOS programming as I'd love to develop my own apps, so I'll probably be eating these words later on down the road... haha
 
gordon1234 said:
It's worth remembering that the developers who were ready to go on "day 1" felt comfortable doing a release specifically designed for a device and screen size they had never actually used. They would have had to do 100% of their testing and development using the iOS simulator, and just pray that it worked properly on the real thing. I suspect many if not most developers were not comfortable with this - wanting to wait until they could test on real hardware before shipping. Especially in the case of the iPhone 6+ with its huge supply constraints, a lot of developers may have only actually gotten their hands on the hardware they're developing for in the last week or so. Combine that with the 9 day+ review backlog for the App Store, and it's not the least bit surprising that so many apps are not yet updated. In fact, it's a bit surprising how many apps have already managed to update despite these barriers.
Click to expand...

How do u know the backlog is 9 days?
 
Razeus said:
I'm not sure what's going on in the dev community, but the lack of 1080p updates for my iPhone 6 Plus.

Evernote was ready to go on day one. Granted they are a big developer with lots of resources, but there are others out there with even deeper pockets, dragging their feet.

It's not like they don't have 1080p assets, especially if they are developing for Android as well.

Facebook, Instagram, Dropbox, anything by Google, etc.

Anyone want to shed some light?
Click to expand...

Calm down, it hasn't even been a month since iOS 8 came out and you want all your apps updated??

The same thing happened for the iPhone 5, some apps didn't get updated until 5-6 months later.
 
Another reason why I'm happy I still have my 5s. But the time the next phones come out, most of not all of the apps will support the new displays by then.
 
I'm starting to see more and more resolution updates, making the device look MUCH better on the Plus. If Facebook and Youtube and Zite can make it happen, my most used apps will be complete.

edit: Facebook and Youtube just updated.
 
Facebook and Youtube were just updated for the new resolutions. Go and get 'em!:)
 
The problem is they took their sweet @$$ time taking the initiative to update the resolution on their apps. People were saying it took a while for iPhone 5 res, I'm not sure what apps they were using, but I recall a ton of apps were available for update early on. It was nice. Now people are just humbug about it.
 
Ambush083 said:
The problem is they took their sweet @$$ time taking the initiative to update the resolution on their apps. People were saying it took a while for iPhone 5 res, I'm not sure what apps they were using, but I recall a ton of apps were available for update early on. It was nice. Now people are just humbug about it.
Click to expand...

I think the major problem is that these teams are also doing their apps for Android, which gets a UI update in Android 5 as well.
 
Ambush083 said:
The problem is they took their sweet @$$ time taking the initiative to update the resolution on their apps.
Click to expand...

How do you know? We have seen reports of backlogs of 10-14 days for Apple to approve updates. Given that, and the fact that many developers will not even start development until they have hardware in hand, I think many of the devs have been pretty quick. People assume that all they have to do is change one line of code and update the assets in the project and they are done. But it couldn't be farther from the truth.
 
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