Now we have the pad, could the next iPhone have a larger screen?

[TwoBytes]

It would not be a big deal to increase the screen resulition to closer to the 800ishx400ish mark and keep the 3.5" screen. The phone can easily scale the apps up to the larger screen size since it does no real damage to distortions because everything is in the exact same ratio. For designing not hard either because it keeps the same scale. Design for a scale and it should not cause a problem.

Good point. There seems to be a lot of stirrings for a higher resolution on this years iPhone. +1 and another +1 for your the cool name, Prime!

M-5 - Thanks!

 

[redman042]

It would not be a big deal to increase the screen resulition to closer to the 800ishx400ish mark and keep the 3.5" screen. The phone can easily scale the apps up to the larger screen size since it does no real damage to distortions because everything is in the exact same ratio. For designing not hard either because it keeps the same scale. Design for a scale and it should not cause a problem.

There's a few problems with that. First, Meatball provided this list for us:

Nexus One: 3.7" 800 x 480
HTC HD2: 4.3" 800x480
Nokia N900: 3.5" 800 x 480
iPhone: 3.5" 480 x 320

Now to exactly pixel-double an iPhone app, we'd have to multiply the current screen rez by two, which equals 960x640. I've never heard of an LCD being manufactured in that specific size. None of the other phones on the list above run at that rez, nor do any I've heard of. My understanding of LCD manufacturing is that they come in size and density "steps". I'm sure they can customize for big orders, but to what extent and at what cost I'm not sure.

If Apple tries to come up with an intermediate size screen, then they can't just pixel double old apps. They have to do interpolation, and it will look ugly and unbalanced.

All this seems too much of a pain for moderate benefit and many drawbacks. The benefit of course is sharper graphics and more complex screens, but the finger buttons can't be any smaller than a finger allows anyway.

Drawbacks include higher hardware cost, lower battery life, higher demands on the graphics processor, and another type of screen for app developers to optimize for.

I'm still having a hard time imagining it will happen this year.

 

[Rodimus Prime]

There's a few problems with that. First, Meatball provided this list for us:

Nexus One: 3.7" 800 x 480
HTC HD2: 4.3" 800x480
Nokia N900: 3.5" 800 x 480
iPhone: 3.5" 480 x 320

Now to exactly pixel-double an iPhone app, we'd have to multiply the current screen rez by two, which equals 960x640. I've never heard of an LCD being manufactured in that specific size. None of the other phones on the list above run at that rez, nor do any I've heard of. My understanding of LCD manufacturing is that they come in size and density "steps". I'm sure they can customize for big orders, but to what extent and at what cost I'm not sure.

If Apple tries to come up with an intermediate size screen, then they can't just pixel double old apps. They have to do interpolation, and it will look ugly and unbalanced.

All this seems too much of a pain for moderate benefit and many drawbacks. The benefit of course is sharper graphics and more complex screens, but the finger buttons can't be any smaller than a finger allows anyway.

Drawbacks include higher hardware cost, lower battery life, higher demands on the graphics processor, and another type of screen for app developers to optimize for.

I'm still having a hard time imagining it will happen this year.

In apple not increasing the resulution they fall either farther behind. the iPhone screen is already crap in how crisp it looks. Lets compare it to the BB 8900 and 9700 screen. Both those screens are SMALLER than the iPhone but run at the exact same resolution. While I know that it has to guess a little when it does not line up exactly you are not going to be able to really tell. People do it all the time with LCD monitors running at non native res for games. It still looks fairly good.

Factor in the small screen size and you will not be able to tell the faults that easily. It makes a huge improvement on surfing the web and once devs adjust to the higher res they will improve as well.