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It's interesting that the nostalgia for "pixel-perfect design" comes from a company that seems to have been on a mission to remove pixels from the user's percep

It's interesting that the nostalgia for "pixel-perfect design" comes from a company that seems to have been on a mission to remove pixels from the user's perception for the last 20 years. First, Apple promoted skeuomorphism as the most visible difference from the pixelated look of Windows (OS X, 2001). Secondly, they made pixel-perfect designs irrelevant by making a powerful, small handheld computer. It made the goals of pixel-perfect design futile and triggered the RWD trend instead (iPhone, 2007). Thirdly, they successfully pushed Hi-DPI screens to the masses, which make the smallest elements on the screen too small for the naked eye to be seen. (Retina, 2010). I say it with all due respect. These are absolutely brilliant achievements. Still, some "Yeah, thank us for killing pixels" would be in place.

jonassalen 4y ago
Correct me if I'm wrong, but Steve Jobs didn't believe in responsive webdesign and the browser on iPhone originally didn't support RWD. He believed people should access the full website and use gestures to zoom in and out on the website. Part of the reason apple.com was so late adapting to mobile breakpoints. So saying that the iPhone was responsible for RWD is too much credit I think.
- warpech 4y ago
  Apple invented the non-standard "viewport" meta tag and gave guidelines on how to use it [1]. The article that has popularized the term RWD mentions iPhone four times [2]. For me it is obvious that RWD started from the iPhone, but maybe our viewpoints (or viewports) differ. [1] https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/AppleApplications/Reference/SafariWebContent/UsingtheViewport/UsingtheViewport.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40006509-SW1 https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Ap... [2] https://alistapart.com/article/responsive-web-design/ https://alistapart.com/article/responsive-web-design/
  - jonassalen 4y ago
    A great piece of history, that ALA article. I believe you are right, but on a different level. Iphone started the mobile revolution which inspired other phone builders. When earlier we used build m.website.tld websites, the bigger screens from Iphone-inspired smartphones allowed us to use the same website, with mediaqueries. Maybe it's because I'm Europe based, but we didn't really develop for iphones initally.

jonassalen 4y ago

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Steve Jobs didn't believe in responsive webdesign and the browser on iPhone originally didn't support RWD. He believed people should access the full website and use gestures to zoom in and out on the website. Part of the reason apple.com was so late adapting to mobile breakpoints. So saying that the iPhone was responsible for RWD is too much credit I think.

warpech 4y ago
Apple invented the non-standard "viewport" meta tag and gave guidelines on how to use it [1]. The article that has popularized the term RWD mentions iPhone four times [2]. For me it is obvious that RWD started from the iPhone, but maybe our viewpoints (or viewports) differ. [1] https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/AppleApplications/Reference/SafariWebContent/UsingtheViewport/UsingtheViewport.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40006509-SW1 https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Ap... [2] https://alistapart.com/article/responsive-web-design/ https://alistapart.com/article/responsive-web-design/
- jonassalen 4y ago
  A great piece of history, that ALA article. I believe you are right, but on a different level. Iphone started the mobile revolution which inspired other phone builders. When earlier we used build m.website.tld websites, the bigger screens from Iphone-inspired smartphones allowed us to use the same website, with mediaqueries. Maybe it's because I'm Europe based, but we didn't really develop for iphones initally.