4 ms·

Give me a way to (optionally) provide separate packages for retina / non-retina and iPad / iPhone / iPhone 5. Sucks to have iPad retina assets sitting an iPhone

by ja27 13y ago

Give me a way to (optionally) provide separate packages for retina / non-retina and iPad / iPhone / iPhone 5. Sucks to have iPad retina assets sitting an iPhone.

jinushaun 13y ago
Yes! Multi-targeted IPAs! Don't force iPhone 3GS users to download retina iPad assets from store. Have xcode produce multiple IPA files. Android and Play Store already does this.
grey-area 13y ago
Or better yet, provide a way to provide resolution-independent assets for app interfaces in a format like svg or pdf, instead of providing bitmaps for 7 zillion different sizes. It sucks to have retina assets full stop and it's only going to get worse as screen sizes change gradually and we end up with a huge number of legacy sizes. Now that ios7 is all about flat design, they could look at moving developers away from producing bitmaps which fit the screen and towards using repeated patterns for grounds and resolution independent artwork on top.
- gress 13y ago
  Resolution independent assets do not work. http://mantia.me/blog/the-importance-of-icon-sizes/ http://mantia.me/blog/the-importance-of-icon-sizes/
  - grey-area 13y ago
    As screens get more and more detailed, trying to adjust pixels individually on say icons for each size the OS requires is pointless (I believe the count is 15 and rising). You need to design the icon with the usage in mind, and make sure it doesn't have too much detail which will matter when it is scaled. See the twitter icon for a good example of one which works at any size and could be scaled without losing its impact. IMO all icons on ios should be like that - simple and iconic. Same goes for icons in toolbars etc. The vast majority of developers simply scale down icons and other assets to fit the various sizes Apple requires, so in practice the retina approach just means the same assets being scaled resized and cropped lots of times by developers to jump through the hoops Apple requires, and the problem is only going to get worse. So I respectfully disagree, there are no easy solutions in this area, however I think resolution independence has better possible solutions than designing something as vector, then manually producing scaled rasters at every possible display size. At the very least Xcode should take care of that, but I'd prefer if iOS did, and accepted vector images within apps to start with - it could easily cache bitmap representations as it needs them, and then it could change those on the fly when screen sizes/resolutions change instead of requiring new binaries.
mikeash 13y ago
I don't understand why they don't do this automatically. For any image where you provide both retina and non-retina, strip out the one that isn't needed when sending it to a device.
- phil 13y ago
  Wouldn't this make signing more complex? Currently the bundle doesn't change after you sign it on submission, but it would have to if resources were getting stripped.
  - mikeash 13y ago
    Sure, but Apple's code signing stuff could be modified to accept this if it doesn't already. You just need a way to express a requirement that file A or file B must be present, but you don't need both.
Aqua_Geek 13y ago
Janky way around it: bundle your assets separately and put them on S3. It's a crappy user experience, to be sure, but it at least doesn't waste disk space. Granted, you can't do that with all your assets (default.png and icons). I'm not saying that Apple doesn't need to fix this, but there are some other approaches.

by ja27 13y ago

Give me a way to (optionally) provide separate packages for retina / non-retina and iPad / iPhone / iPhone 5. Sucks to have iPad retina assets sitting an iPhone.

jinushaun 13y ago

Yes! Multi-targeted IPAs! Don't force iPhone 3GS users to download retina iPad assets from store. Have xcode produce multiple IPA files. Android and Play Store already does this.

grey-area 13y ago

Or better yet, provide a way to provide resolution-independent assets for app interfaces in a format like svg or pdf, instead of providing bitmaps for 7 zillion different sizes. It sucks to have retina assets full stop and it's only going to get worse as screen sizes change gradually and we end up with a huge number of legacy sizes. Now that ios7 is all about flat design, they could look at moving developers away from producing bitmaps which fit the screen and towards using repeated patterns for grounds and resolution independent artwork on top.

gress 13y ago
Resolution independent assets do not work. http://mantia.me/blog/the-importance-of-icon-sizes/ http://mantia.me/blog/the-importance-of-icon-sizes/
- grey-area 13y ago
  As screens get more and more detailed, trying to adjust pixels individually on say icons for each size the OS requires is pointless (I believe the count is 15 and rising). You need to design the icon with the usage in mind, and make sure it doesn't have too much detail which will matter when it is scaled. See the twitter icon for a good example of one which works at any size and could be scaled without losing its impact. IMO all icons on ios should be like that - simple and iconic. Same goes for icons in toolbars etc. The vast majority of developers simply scale down icons and other assets to fit the various sizes Apple requires, so in practice the retina approach just means the same assets being scaled resized and cropped lots of times by developers to jump through the hoops Apple requires, and the problem is only going to get worse. So I respectfully disagree, there are no easy solutions in this area, however I think resolution independence has better possible solutions than designing something as vector, then manually producing scaled rasters at every possible display size. At the very least Xcode should take care of that, but I'd prefer if iOS did, and accepted vector images within apps to start with - it could easily cache bitmap representations as it needs them, and then it could change those on the fly when screen sizes/resolutions change instead of requiring new binaries.

mikeash 13y ago

I don't understand why they don't do this automatically. For any image where you provide both retina and non-retina, strip out the one that isn't needed when sending it to a device.

phil 13y ago
Wouldn't this make signing more complex? Currently the bundle doesn't change after you sign it on submission, but it would have to if resources were getting stripped.
- mikeash 13y ago
  Sure, but Apple's code signing stuff could be modified to accept this if it doesn't already. You just need a way to express a requirement that file A or file B must be present, but you don't need both.

Aqua_Geek 13y ago

Janky way around it: bundle your assets separately and put them on S3. It's a crappy user experience, to be sure, but it at least doesn't waste disk space. Granted, you can't do that with all your assets (default.png and icons). I'm not saying that Apple doesn't need to fix this, but there are some other approaches.