iPad Pro non Pro app sizes?

[sjleworthy]

i wonder how general apps will look on the larger ipad pro screen? if it's not specifically written or optimised for the Pro's larger screen, how will they work and look do you think? i can see they'd look fine when side by side in multi-task mode in landscape format, but full size portrait mode?

remember when iphone apps had a x2 button in the ipad?

 

[Krevnik]

Here's what I suspect:

It will work like the iPhone 6. If the app is using auto layout, like what you need to support split screen view, it is probably already iPad Pro compatible. For those apps that aren't, they get resized like apps did on the iPhone 6 when it launched.

 

[sjleworthy]

....For those apps that aren't, they get resized like apps did on the iPhone 6 when it launched.

and how was that, say compared to the ipad2 x2 button? (sorry, not familiar with iphone 6 in this respect)

 

[engineerben]

The original iPad would scale up iPhone apps, and it would look really ugly - extremely pixelated and a whole lot of no fun.

It didn't take long for most developers to come up with iPad versions of their apps, and now most apps have assets for all screen sizes. With app thinning, you'll only get the assets you actually need.

I don't think upscaling from the retina iPad screen to the size of the Pro will be that bad - certainly not like iPhone to first-gen iPad, nor as bad as non-retina iPhone to retina iPhone.

Now - having said that, I have an iPhone 6+, and it always annoys me when I see an iPhone app that hasn't been updated for the bigger plus screen. The status bar is suddenly bigger, touch targets are annoying large - all that. Bottom line is that you'll notice the difference, but the apps will be useable nonetheless.

 

[sjleworthy]

thank you.

well, i'm sure the ipp will be a pushed and marketed success for Apple (not a gimmick or tester that doesnt succeed), meaning that most devs will accommodate it for fear of falling behind in the market place.

compared to other ipad releases, i really cant see it taking long for apps to jump on board.

 

[joeblow7777]

I wonder if there will be further app fragmentation. Already there are iPhone and iPad only apps, so I wonder if there will be three classes including apps only for Pro.

 

[engineerben]

I think Apple is gently nudging developers to make apps universal, and to create assets for all devices. App thinning takes away one objection - that having to drag along assets for all possible configurations makes apps unwieldy and bloated. Instead, download an app for your iPhone, and you get only the assets for that device; download the same app for your iPad, and you get the assets for that device. The developer still has to create the assets...

 

[Smeaton1724]

App thinning and more iOS device resolutions and ratios is a sign of the platform maturing, as such customers expect apps to work consistently across devices. Developers know it and app updates come relatively quickly. Look at the iPhone 6/6 plus launch, within a month a lot of the mainstream popular app interfaces were updated to suit.

The major issues with iOS are developers not adding features to their apps to make them more feature rich a.k.a 'pro'. Look at the iPad Air 2, whatever people might say beyond being able to have 10 tabs open in safari what else really taxes the CPU and Ram? Apps by developers other than Apple themselves could do to catch up with specs and especially with the iPad Pro coming with an A9x and 4GB Ram.

 

[TheRealCBONE]

Apple should start optimizing for larger sized, more powerful devices with the home screen. It's so boring and static with so much wasted space. No live tiles, no widgets, no living app icons. Still annoys me every time I turn on an iPad.

I expect a section in the App store that will be pro only. I expect that these will be hardware limited (need stylus) or artificially limited for publicity.

For all the power that the iPad Pro will have, what will it have that will really show what it can do? Not something that is just resolution based, not stupid benchmarks, but actual apps that will have the Air 2 chugging and coming in a distant 2nd.

 

[Krevnik]

compared to other ipad releases, i really cant see it taking long for apps to jump on board.

It is also a pretty standard process by this point. Auto layout was introduced to help with the iPhone 6 transition, and it is behind making split screen view and slide over work. So it shouldn't be a ton of work at this point.