Thread: iPhone 2012 ;)
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psmith2.0
Mr. Vieira
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Tennessee
 
2011-10-08, 20:57

I wonder if it's something as simply/silly as trying to keep the iPhone and iPod touch development (pretty much the same, I suppose) neat and tidy?

When the iPad was introduced, that created a new, larger 1024x767 9.7" screen that required developers to re-purpose their marquee apps if they wanted on that gravy train (face it...nobody wants to do the 2x thing (it's fuzzy) and it's silly to run an iPhone-sized app in the middle of an iPad screen. The iPad coming out was the first bit of new, extra work many developers had to do in a while (if they wanted a native, built-for-iPad app to offer).

That was the first deviation from the 3.5" iPhone/iPod touch sizes, and it's taken some companies forever to come around (some still haven't...Facebook, which I find odd).

Anyway, I'm just thinking of it from a control/approval/neatness standpoint, how it's easy for people to create apps to run on two, same-sized devices and cover a lot of ground.

I know there's a difference between the original iPhone/iPod touch displays and the current Retina Display-equipped ones. Things ran okay, but replacing some graphics here and there certainly helped.

But if things go to 4", 4.3" or whatever (possibly with different aspect ratios to boot), then you're branching out again, and you're just going to have a borderline c.f. in the store. I know it's not impossible, but you can't tell me that it wouldn't introduce a layer of complexity (or outright confusion) to some. Maybe that's just something Apple isn't prepared to get into? Because it'll ultimately fall back on them as well, in many ways.

And a bit of additional, tedious work for developers and designers who may not be able to sell these again, so there's no big payoff on the backend?