5 ms·

What iPhone 6 screen size means for developers

45 points by tfrank377 12y ago

interpol_p 12y ago
This is really interesting, it means that non-iPhone 6 apps are tricked into thinking they are rendering into a 320x568 logical buffer; but really a fractional scaling is applied to the UI views so that things like text labels and buttons render crisply into the larger resolution of the device without the app needing to be updated at all.
- gurkendoktor 12y ago
  This is not just a trick, it's a actually feature that the user can turn on throughout the system, look for "Zoom View": http://www.apple.com/iphone-6/display/ http://www.apple.com/iphone-6/display/ This is going to be great for older users :) But it begs the question if there shouldn't be a similar feature on the iPad mini.
djfumberger 12y ago
All existing apps will be rendered into the current 320x568 frame buffer and scaled up. It's really no different to an iPhone app running on an iPad in that respect. I'd imagine the scaled up apps will also look slightly blurry, but how much is to be seen once we get the devices. A developer has to build the app under iOS 8 SDK with new launch images for the iPhone 6 and 6+ to use the native resolutions of those devices. The frames will then be 375x667 and 414x736 for the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6+ respectively. So the auto scaling is a stop gap, you really need to have the app running at the native resolutions to look as best they can.
- stigi 12y ago
  Apparently launch images in different sizes will go away and will be replaced by storyboards with auto layout http://oleb.net/blog/2014/08/replacing-launch-images-with-storyboards/ http://oleb.net/blog/2014/08/replacing-launch-images-with-st...
- interpol_p 12y ago
  Is it definitely upscaling a 320x568 buffer, or is it fractionally scaling the UIView hierarchy to render at 375x667 or 414x736? My impression from the article was that it is doing the latter. In the keynote they seemed to imply that existing apps would appear sharp on the new displays, and this sort of rendering trick would achieve that.
  - djfumberger 12y ago
    As far as I can see in the simulator it's definitely upscaling the 320x568 buffer. I think the apps will look sharp because of a good scaler, not because it's messing with the UI View hierarchy. I get the sense the author of the article isn't aware you need new launch images to make the app iPhone 6/6+ 'native' ?
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
    - interpol_p 12y ago
      Thanks — I was kind of excited to think that they had found a reliable way to upscale an arbitrary view hierarchy. I guess upscaling the compositor output is more reliable.
- sphericalgames 12y ago
  > All existing apps will be rendered into the current 320x568 frame buffer and scaled up. It's really no different to an iPhone app running on an iPad in that respect. I don't think it quite works that way. In the past, your iPhone app was designed to run on iPhone only and it upscaled if you attempt to run it on iPad and the OS knew it had to do this due to a checkbox setting in xCode. Nowadays, most apps are universal and runs on any device by adjust the output according to device resolution and given scale factor. Basically the scaling is handle internally by the program and not by the OS as described above. In theory, your app should be future proof if you did this correctly. That said, you need HD Retina graphics so that your code avoids upscaling images. Beyond that, everything else such as fonts are not upscaled but drawn to scale.
RyanZAG 12y ago
Some "pixel perfect" iOS designers aren't going to like this, I think.
- kubazz 12y ago
  Game developers who need to be pixel perfect are already worried.
jinushaun 12y ago
It bothers me that we are still referencing iPhone 3 resolutions on 4 and above. Eventually @2x will be the default and we need to stop bundling apps with four versions of an image. Apple needs multi-targeted .ipa files. Why does my iPhone need to download iPad assets?
- unfamiliar 12y ago
  Because for historical reasons those apps are backed up to itunes where they may eventually be transferred to an iPad.
  - iloveshw 12y ago
    Yup - but there's no reason (other than app developers making a mess) not to remove images which aren't needed. So on install - from the app store or itunes, remove ipad assets if there's correct asset for iPhone (same with retina and non-retina). It has to be done at some point because it's already getting ridiculous
- interpol_p 12y ago
  We have moved to PDF assets for all of our apps. It's wonderful. Generally we have a single illustrator file, some export scripts, and push the resulting PDFs through ShrinkIt to minimise file size. The result is tiny apps that handle all scale factors, can easily be tinted programmatically, and generally match the aesthetic of iOS 7 and 8.
  - kalleboo 12y ago
    We're looking at moving to PDF when we adapt to fit the iPhone 6 Plus and I'd be interested to hear if you guys ran into any snags along the way or if it was all smooth sailing?
    - interpol_p 12y ago
      It's been very smooth for us. We use UIImage+PDF to load and cache assets. The only issue is that you can't use PDFs directly in Xibs or Storyboards — you'll have to load them in code. I'd recommend creating all your assets on non-retina sized artboards in Illustrator. We wrote a simple script to export all artboards to separate PDFs, using the name of the artboard as the file name.
rootinier 12y ago
Good, related Stack Overflow discussion: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/25755443/iphone-6-plus-resolution-confusion-xcode-or-apples-website http://stackoverflow.com/questions/25755443/iphone-6-plus-re...
wnevets 12y ago
does this mean iOS is a fragmented mess?
tfrank377 12y ago
I made some updates to the article taking into account some of the feedback mentioned here as well as quick way to "turn off" the scaling by adding launch images.

45 points by tfrank377 12y ago

This is really interesting, it means that non-iPhone 6 apps are tricked into thinking they are rendering into a 320x568 logical buffer; but really a fractional scaling is applied to the UI views so that things like text labels and buttons render crisply into the larger resolution of the device without the app needing to be updated at all.

gurkendoktor 12y ago
This is not just a trick, it's a actually feature that the user can turn on throughout the system, look for "Zoom View": http://www.apple.com/iphone-6/display/ http://www.apple.com/iphone-6/display/ This is going to be great for older users :) But it begs the question if there shouldn't be a similar feature on the iPad mini.

djfumberger 12y ago

All existing apps will be rendered into the current 320x568 frame buffer and scaled up. It's really no different to an iPhone app running on an iPad in that respect. I'd imagine the scaled up apps will also look slightly blurry, but how much is to be seen once we get the devices. A developer has to build the app under iOS 8 SDK with new launch images for the iPhone 6 and 6+ to use the native resolutions of those devices. The frames will then be 375x667 and 414x736 for the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6+ respectively. So the auto scaling is a stop gap, you really need to have the app running at the native resolutions to look as best they can.

stigi 12y ago
Apparently launch images in different sizes will go away and will be replaced by storyboards with auto layout http://oleb.net/blog/2014/08/replacing-launch-images-with-storyboards/ http://oleb.net/blog/2014/08/replacing-launch-images-with-st...
interpol_p 12y ago
Is it definitely upscaling a 320x568 buffer, or is it fractionally scaling the UIView hierarchy to render at 375x667 or 414x736? My impression from the article was that it is doing the latter. In the keynote they seemed to imply that existing apps would appear sharp on the new displays, and this sort of rendering trick would achieve that.
- djfumberger 12y ago
  As far as I can see in the simulator it's definitely upscaling the 320x568 buffer. I think the apps will look sharp because of a good scaler, not because it's messing with the UI View hierarchy. I get the sense the author of the article isn't aware you need new launch images to make the app iPhone 6/6+ 'native' ?
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - interpol_p 12y ago
    Thanks — I was kind of excited to think that they had found a reliable way to upscale an arbitrary view hierarchy. I guess upscaling the compositor output is more reliable.
sphericalgames 12y ago
> All existing apps will be rendered into the current 320x568 frame buffer and scaled up. It's really no different to an iPhone app running on an iPad in that respect. I don't think it quite works that way. In the past, your iPhone app was designed to run on iPhone only and it upscaled if you attempt to run it on iPad and the OS knew it had to do this due to a checkbox setting in xCode. Nowadays, most apps are universal and runs on any device by adjust the output according to device resolution and given scale factor. Basically the scaling is handle internally by the program and not by the OS as described above. In theory, your app should be future proof if you did this correctly. That said, you need HD Retina graphics so that your code avoids upscaling images. Beyond that, everything else such as fonts are not upscaled but drawn to scale.

RyanZAG 12y ago

Some "pixel perfect" iOS designers aren't going to like this, I think.

kubazz 12y ago
Game developers who need to be pixel perfect are already worried.

jinushaun 12y ago

It bothers me that we are still referencing iPhone 3 resolutions on 4 and above. Eventually @2x will be the default and we need to stop bundling apps with four versions of an image. Apple needs multi-targeted .ipa files. Why does my iPhone need to download iPad assets?

unfamiliar 12y ago
Because for historical reasons those apps are backed up to itunes where they may eventually be transferred to an iPad.
- iloveshw 12y ago
  Yup - but there's no reason (other than app developers making a mess) not to remove images which aren't needed. So on install - from the app store or itunes, remove ipad assets if there's correct asset for iPhone (same with retina and non-retina). It has to be done at some point because it's already getting ridiculous
interpol_p 12y ago
We have moved to PDF assets for all of our apps. It's wonderful. Generally we have a single illustrator file, some export scripts, and push the resulting PDFs through ShrinkIt to minimise file size. The result is tiny apps that handle all scale factors, can easily be tinted programmatically, and generally match the aesthetic of iOS 7 and 8.
- kalleboo 12y ago
  We're looking at moving to PDF when we adapt to fit the iPhone 6 Plus and I'd be interested to hear if you guys ran into any snags along the way or if it was all smooth sailing?
  - interpol_p 12y ago
    It's been very smooth for us. We use UIImage+PDF to load and cache assets. The only issue is that you can't use PDFs directly in Xibs or Storyboards — you'll have to load them in code. I'd recommend creating all your assets on non-retina sized artboards in Illustrator. We wrote a simple script to export all artboards to separate PDFs, using the name of the artboard as the file name.

rootinier 12y ago

Good, related Stack Overflow discussion: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/25755443/iphone-6-plus-resolution-confusion-xcode-or-apples-website http://stackoverflow.com/questions/25755443/iphone-6-plus-re...

wnevets 12y ago

does this mean iOS is a fragmented mess?

tfrank377 12y ago

I made some updates to the article taking into account some of the feedback mentioned here as well as quick way to "turn off" the scaling by adding launch images.