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The purpose is probably to make the home screen symmetrical. Moving the two rightmost columns of app icons two pixels to the right achieves this. Note that prev
by revolvingcur 15y ago
The purpose is probably to make the home screen symmetrical. Moving the two rightmost columns of app icons two pixels to the right achieves this. Note that previously the outer margins were asymmetrical.
- jarin 15y agoI'm honestly shocked that Steve let them get away with an asymmetrical home screen.
- tango76 15y agoPardon my ignorance, was Jobs obsessed with symmetry?
- Anti-Ratfish 15y agoHe did seem the obsessive type, however given that there is hardware asymmetry (the camera, volume mute etc) I doubt he was.
- Synaesthesia 15y agoYes. Many Apple products are very symmetrical, even looking at our old iBook G4, there has been an attempt to make it as symmetrical as possible.
- spatulon 15y agoThe white plastic Macbook has screws that appear to be purely decorative, on the left side of the case . The story goes that Jobs insisted on them being there, to achieve symmetry with the functional screws on the right hand side.
- nickheer 15y agoThis [1] was after Jobs stepped down as CEO, but it was obviously being planned while he was chief. The company went to an almost excessive extent in order for the store to be symmetrical. [1] http://www.macrumors.com/2011/08/30/new-apple-retail-store-design-is-perfectly-symmetrical/ http://www.macrumors.com/2011/08/30/new-apple-retail-store-d...
- Groxx 15y agoDid anyone notice that it was asymmetrical? I know I didn't. And given other mentions of right-handedness in the OS, and the oddity of it being by accident, I'm more than willing to believe it was intentional.
- seabee 15y agoBut the home screen can be made symmetrical while maintaining the same distance between icons. So the question is why not do that? Also as far as the outer margins are concerned, the badge extends the right side of the icon, so having the right margin wider was reasonable.
- rkudeshi 15y agoI suspect because they're trying to align to some type of grid. (Even spacing between icons would require 39px of separation, and the odd numbering probably throws something off.)
- naz 15y agoRight, on iPhone 4 it would be 39 pixels but on iPhone 3GS and lower it would be 19.5 pixels, which would require the icons to be aliased and blurry.
- gcb 15y agoUh? Just normalize 35 on the borders and keep 38 on icons. What am I missing for this to be more complicated?
- buddydvd 15y agoYou mean 37 pixels? (640-(4*114))/5 = 36.8 pixels. I wonder why they didn't choose this instead: 38+36+36+36+38 That would be most evenly spaced, symmetrical, and compatible with non-retina displays.
- sirn 15y agoApp titles. You can have less margin on the edge since you don't have to considers the app title length from the other side.
- buddydvd 15y agoAh, that makes perfect sense. I guess, this would be pointless: 36+38+36+38+36 (18+19+18+19+18) since the 2nd and 3rd icon wouldn't get the benefit of the extra spacing. So the reasonable option would be: 34+38+40+38+34 (17+19+20+19+17)