If Apple increases the screen size, they'll bump the resolution after making such a fuss about the "Retina Display."
Isn't the whole "magic number around 300ppi" only applicable at the distance one usually holds a phone from their eyes. With a larger screen one does not need to hold the phone as close, meaning the required ppi would decrease
Well, we can bet that whatever Apple comes out with next will be sprinkled with magic unicorn dust and everyone will love and praise it instantly. It's funny to hear rants on "we can't possibly go below 300ppi!" but as soon as Mr. Jobs puts his spin on it, it will be golden.I really hope you're kidding. The iPad, when held at a normal distance from the eyes, BARELY shows the individual pixels. Its ppi? A mere 132. I don't think you understand that these pixels are microscopic. The difference between 300 and 285 is almost negligible.
Nah, I'm not an idiot so it doesn't take me long to do 6th grade math.
I wonder how many more decades it'll be until cool guys on the Internet stop playing the "u have no life" card.
Simple, really. As an example (using the known 3.5 @ 326ppi):LOL that's 6th grade math? WOW I suck at math, I would've never figured that out. Math ws laways my worst!
I really hope you're kidding. The iPad, when held at a normal distance from the eyes, BARELY shows the individual pixels. Its ppi? A mere 132. I don't think you understand that these pixels are microscopic. The difference between 300 and 285 is almost negligible.
Math ws laways my worst!
If your aim was to misunderstand me completely then well done. I was actually agreeing with you. Read what I actually wrote.
My point, and I believe many people's, is that it would be problematic or just a nuisance to have iPhones with different size screens. Apps would be a problem. Notice Blackberries app world that not all apps work for each phone and the same with android.
I actually made a mock up of a similar idea. Implementing a 4" display with the same width as the current display, but with added height. This would comfortably fit on a device of the same size as the current iPhone and provide seamless compatibility with legacy apps. The downside is that this would add less actual surface area compared to a fixed ratio scaling.Well, one solution for a 4" screen with the same ppi as iP4 would be to only use the centre pixels for legacy apps with a lower resolution.
Regardless of what Apple does, I hope that developers don't simply ignore the size difference.
Even a linear scaling like OP is suggesting requires a developer to customize the app UI for each screen size. If they don't, you run into the following scenarios:
1. Dev makes the UI for 3.5" screen - UI elements are unnecessarily large when viewed on a 4.0" screen.
2. Dev makes the UI for 4.0" screen - UI elements are uncomfortably small when viewed on a 3.5" screen.
3. Dev attempts to create a compromised UI for either screen - A compromise is by definition sub-optimal on both devices.
That would be right, except one thing. The buttons wouldn't be unusually larger or smaller because everything else onscreen is scaled at exactly the same ratio. It's not bigger buttons with small backdrops or small buttons with unusually large background graphics.
In a good UI design, the target size of a button should be based upon the input requirement, not arbitrarily scaled with the screen. If you simply scale the entire screen, the extra size does not returned any improvement to the UI. It's simply a bigger screen.
I perfectly understand the logic behind that. But it's time to rid of these baby-sized screens. All the Android phones have such big screens.
In a good UI design, the target size of a button should be based upon the input requirement, not arbitrarily scaled with the screen. If you simply scale the entire screen, the extra size does not returned any improvement to the UI. It's simply a bigger screen.
Take Safari as an example. A proper 4" version would have a menu bar that is shorter then the 3.5" version. While it would appear on the screen to be the same physical height, it should be fewer pixels tall due to the lower DPI. Ignoring this would result in wasted space.