This is actually very interesting. I think the 3:2 form factor looks a lot nice but indeed the 16:9 displays more information.
Wrong. And his larger 3:2 screen mockup appears to use the same resolution as actual iPhones.
Read my post on page 1.
yeah, because adding half and inch to the width of the iphone is suddenly going to make it not fit in your pocket.
actually, a 4" 3:2 screen would be only 1/4 of an inch wider (and for example, the 3GS is about 1/4 of an inch wider than the 4/4S)
They aren't making it wider because they'll lose 'retina'.
Not necessarily. It's only true if they keep the same resolution 960x640 on larger screen, 4" for example.
I showed on page 1 another solution.
The way I see it is that they're going to make a new resolution anyways, which developers will have to cater to. You might as well go with anything you want and just display apps like on the iPad. They didn't care about adding a new resolution when they introduced the iPad (and the new one) and with the iPhone and iOS as a whole being such a gold mine, they'll have developers racing to build apps for it. I think something like a 4.5" 720p display (326 ppi) would be perfect for me, but obviously something a bit smaller (like 4.3") at a nonstandard resolution would be fine. Also hoping they keep the "glass sandwich" design.
Yes, ok, if the size of the screen changes, they'll probably have to change the resolution (and obviously if the screen ratio changes).
But your comparison with the iPad transitional use of iPhone apps doesn't work: there were no iPad before the iPad (eh!).
I doubt Apple wants to add fragmentation to its pocket devices: beside the new resolution, the iPhone 4/4S resolution will have to be supported by dev for few more years, as a lot of them are already in customers hands and Apple will still sell a bunch of them next year(s), and few more iOS iterations will support these devices, i.e. new apps will have to work with both resolutions.
How iOS should handle 2 resolutions (and if 16:9, also 2 aspect ratio) is the big deal of the story. Only talking about diagonal size increase is pointless if not linked with aspect ratio/resolution and the way software will deal with previous apps on the new hardware, and the way apps could support transitionally 2 resolutions.