Resolution Independence - The Solution to the Future of iOS Devices

[Dwalls90]

Wasn't this to be implemented in OS X? If so, why not iOS? Think about it ... with resolutions changing every year or so, this would make apps, interfaces, ect. a LOT easier to maintain and use versus rewriting/redrawing apps based on the device they are used.

I can understand iPad versus iPhone/iTouch apps due to differences in screen sizes, but now we'll have iPhone vs Retina iPhone vs. Retina 2 iPhone (unclear if Apple will enhance pixel count for the next iPhone) vs iPad vs Retina iPad.

It would be AMAZING if we would no longer have to be concerned if everything was "Retina, Retina 2, or just regular".

Thoughts? Possibilities?

 

[jpetticrew]

Well, if you kept the ppi of the first three iPhone models intact, and boosted the resolution to that of the iPhone 4, it would be a pretty massive screen size difference. Resolution independence would be nice, but it is a lot harder to implement than it seems.

 

[Small White Car]

You're missing one big thing. Your solution would address the visual sharpness, but not usability.

Remember when people first got the iPad and they mostly ran iPhone apps on it? There were 2 main complaints:

1) They're fuzzy

2) They're not designed well...buttons are too big and elements are stacked vertically when there's now room to put them side by side.

Developers had to re-design their apps to address both of these problems. Your idea takes care of problem 1 but it does nothing for problem 2.

Now, of course, it does make step 1 easier, so yeah, I think you're right that this will happen eventually. But it will never mean we have single apps that run and look the same everywhere. Developers will still have to build different interfaces for different devices. There's no way around that.

Side note...they can bundle the different apps together into universal apps so that the user doesn't know there are multiple versions...the device could just run the proper code when it sees what device it's on. So that makes the store simpler, but the developer still has to make all those different versions. No way around it unless you have a very, very simple app.

For a very basic example, compare the iPhone's 'Mail' program to the iPad's 'Mail.' They're not the same and they never will be. 3rd party developers face the same challenge.

 

[Dwalls90]

You're missing one big thing. Your solution would address the visual sharpness, but not usability.

Remember when people first got the iPad and they mostly ran iPhone apps on it? There were 2 main complaints:

1) They're fuzzy

2) They're not designed well...buttons are too big and elements are stacked vertically when there's now room to put them side by side.

Developers had to re-design their apps to address both of these problems. Your idea takes care of problem 1 but it does nothing for problem 2.

Now, of course, it does make step 1 easier, so yeah, I think you're right that this will happen eventually. But it will never mean we have single apps that run and look the same everywhere. Developers will still have to build different interfaces for different devices. There's no way around that.

Side note...they can bundle the different apps together into universal apps so that the user doesn't know there are multiple versions...the device could just run the proper code when it sees what device it's on. So that makes the store simpler, but the developer still has to make all those different versions. No way around it unless you have a very, very simple app.

For a very basic example, compare the iPhone's 'Mail' program to the iPad's 'Mail.' They're not the same and they never will be. 3rd party developers face the same challenge.

I understand where you're coming from regarding iPad apps vs. iPhone apps ... there will always be a division there. But there is NO way that the iOS can simply accommodate for differences in resolution to make it uniform across devices? Such as, the "standard" app resolution is that of the highest res, and then if running on a lower res iDevice, it simply downscales it?

Come on, if a simple jailbreak feature (iRetinapad) can do this for iPad, SURELY a bunch of Apple engineers can reverse engineer this to use it backwards and make it work across all iDevices?

 

[Small White Car]

I understand where you're coming from regarding iPad apps vs. iPhone apps ... there will always be a division there. But there is NO way that the iOS can simply accommodate for differences in resolution to make it uniform across devices? Such as, the "standard" app resolution is that of the highest res, and then if running on a lower res iDevice, it simply downscales it?

The vector idea is certainly possible but downscaling is not really a great idea. It can lend itself to all sorts of artifacts and unintened distortions if you're doing anything other than 1/2 size or 1/4 size.

But yeah, I agree that vector graphics will always have a big place in these apps, but it can't be used for absolutely everything. Some things will have to be done in other ways so there will always be different versions, I think.

 

[gnasher729]

I understand where you're coming from regarding iPad apps vs. iPhone apps ... there will always be a division there. But there is NO way that the iOS can simply accommodate for differences in resolution to make it uniform across devices? Such as, the "standard" app resolution is that of the highest res, and then if running on a lower res iDevice, it simply downscales it?

It isn't the OS, it is the developers. It is very easy if the new device has twice the resolution in every direction, which happened with the iPhone, but twice the resolution of the iPad is very, very tough to achieve.

Now lets say the resolution is 50% more in each direction. And a programmer wrote code that would draw ten horizontal lines, alternating between red and green. How would you _automatically_ adjust this to 50% more pixels, since you can't draw a line that is 1.5 pixels thick?

 

[Dwalls90]

I'm not really sure I guess I was asking because originally Apple was planning this for the desktop OS, so I was hoping maybe given the circumstances revolving the possibility of having 4/5 different "platforms" of resolution in the coming months, they would find an easier user-friendly method of keeping all of these things simple.

If it's simple technically impossible, I understand - I just don't have the know-how to understand why