Updated apps for 6 Plus?

[Mad Mac Maniac]

So I'm one of the many struggling between teh 6 and 6+. But I was just thinking... some of the benefits of the 6+ are a) extra screen real estate and b) dual panel landscape mode for more productivity.

However, apps would need to be updated to take advantage for this. I'm remembering how long it took for apps to be updated for the 4" iPhone 5... and that is when there were ugly black bars at the top and bottom, and it was the only new iPhone model. I figure many developers will likely be lazy/slow with updates because the apps will already scale so well. (Heck, they might even think it's better to have a larger interface/text and never update). It might even take longer to encorporate the new landscape veiw, because that feature will only be available on the 6+, so even less incentive to update.

Maybe the 6 will be the better option (at least for the first year or two) because it will be more portable and there will be relatively little cutomized support for the 6+.

What are your thoughts? Will this affect your purchase? Do any devs know how easy/difficult it will be to update apps for the 6+? Do you plan on updating your apps any time soon?

 

[Tyler23]

So I'm one of the many struggling between teh 6 and 6+. But I was just thinking... some of the benefits of the 6+ are a) extra screen real estate and b) dual panel landscape mode for more productivity.

However, apps would need to be updated to take advantage for this. I'm remembering how long it took for apps to be updated for the 4" iPhone 5... and that is when there were ugly black bars at the top and bottom, and it was the only new iPhone model. I figure many developers will likely be lazy/slow with updates because the apps will already scale so well. (Heck, they might even think it's better to have a larger interface/text and never update). It might even take longer to encorporate the new landscape veiw, because that feature will only be available on the 6+, so even less incentive to update.

Maybe the 6 will be the better option (at least for the first year or two) because it will be more portable and there will be relatively little cutomized support for the 6+.

What are your thoughts? Will this affect your purchase? Do any devs know how easy/difficult it will be to update apps for the 6+? Do you plan on updating your apps any time soon?

This won't be an issue. With how XCode is now built, all apps currently built for the 5/5s will automatically take advantage of the new screen real estate of the 6 and 6+, taking up the whole screen and being perfectly up-sized.

The only thing devs will have to update is whether they want even more content/features added to their apps to take further advantage of the bigger screen sizes.

 

[Lloydbm41]

Wrong. Apps don't need to be updated. Phil Schiller discussed this very issue during the keynote.
Apple utilizes dynamic scaling. Doesn't matter what screen size you have, the app will look the same.
However, developers can rewrite their apps to take advantage of the new space, much like he demo'd with the CNN app. Watch the keynote.

 

[Mad Mac Maniac]

This won't be an issue. With how XCode is now built, all apps currently built for the 5/5s will automatically take advantage of the new screen real estate of the 6 and 6+, taking up the whole screen and being perfectly up-sized.

The only thing devs will have to update is whether they want even more content/features added to their apps to take further advantage of the bigger screen sizes.

Wrong. Apps don't need to be updated. Phil Schiller discussed this very issue during the keynote.
Apple utilizes dynamic scaling. Doesn't matter what screen size you have, the app will look the same.
However, developers can rewrite their apps to take advantage of the new space, much like he demo'd with the CNN app. Watch the keynote.

You guys missed my point. That's what I'm saying. Yes it will automatically increase in size which is precisely why I think devs won't bother to update for more content, because it works "ok". In this case I'm guessing there will be little-to-no advantage for the larger screen, because everything will simply be upscaled. So you will have iPhone 6 with bigger screen but not much more content and the 6+ with even bigger screen with the same amount of content....

Also, I'm assuming devs would still need to update for the new landscape dual screen mode. But how many actually will?

 

[jlake02]

I'm betting many developers will take advantage of the 6+ ability, but only time will tell.

 

[Tyler23]

You guys missed my point. That's what I'm saying. Yes it will automatically increase in size which is precisely why I think devs won't bother to update for more content, because it works "ok". In this case I'm guessing there will be little-to-no advantage for the larger screen, because everything will simply be upscaled. So you will have iPhone 6 with bigger screen but not much more content and the 6+ with even bigger screen with the same amount of content....

Also, I'm assuming devs would still need to update for the new landscape dual screen mode. But how many actually will?

I think you're underestimating developers. Lots of developers I'm sure are already working to better their apps to take advantage of the extra screen size. Apple showed off the CNN app, as CNN is already working on modifying the app for the larger screen size.

Lazy devs that haven't updated in a long time likely won't, but most popular apps with major developers will likely update.

 

[Mad Mac Maniac]

I think you're underestimating developers. Lots of developers I'm sure are already working to better their apps to take advantage of the extra screen size. Apple showed off the CNN app, as CNN is already working on modifying the app for the larger screen size.

Lazy devs that haven't updated in a long time likely won't, but most popular apps with major developers will likely update.

Well so part of my post is asking exactly how easy/difficult it is to update. Let's say compared to teh 3.5 to 4.0 transition and the iOS 6 to iOS 7 transition. Because both of those transitions were much slower than I expected taking place over the course of a year even for the better more "active" developers. And I would argue that both of those updates were more urgent than this one. the transition to 4.0 left ugly black bars at the top and bottom... the iOS 7 transition affected ALL iPhone owners and it had a completely different look/feel (especially on the keyboard). But since apple made existing apps so passable as-is, I'm thinking even fewer apps will take advantage of the xtra space. Reducing the productivity of the 6+ over the 6.

 

[drogba]

Apple isn't the first phone company to produce a phone with a large screensize. There's plenty of them out there and developers are more than aware of them. And as people above said, they've coded them so they scale up and become adjusted.

When it comes to utilizing this extra screen space, might take some time for apps to take advantage of it, but not enough to make owning a plus a waste of space.

 

[taedouni]

Well the apps will need to updated if they want to take advantage of the extra resolution. Scaling is nice and all but if I'm not mistaken scaling won't be as great as native images. All of the apps that you use have images, whether it be for their buttons (could be custom buttons), tabs, background, graphics for games, etc. have multiple versions (currently out), one for the pre 4 (if it supports less than iOS 7), iPhone 4/4S, and 5/5s.

Now with the 6/6+, they'll need two more images which totals to 1+1+2= 4 different image sizes for apps. This probably won't be a problem next year assuming that they cut support for the iPhone 4s with iOS 9 since it'll drop down to 3 images required.