
IOS 6 Automatically Scales to Fit Taller 1136x640 iPhone Display - ashishgandhi
http://www.macrumors.com/2012/08/07/ios-6-automatically-scales-to-fit-taller-1136x640-iphone-display/
======
rauljara
Note the lack of stretching; it just increases the amount of space in between
the rows of icons.

I'm kind of sold on the idea that apple is sold on the idea that old apps
should work on new screen sizes either without any scaling, or with integer
scaling (eg. 2x, 3x, etc). A taller display that keeps the 640 width would let
them put old apps right in the new display, no scaling necessary. They could
either fill the extra pixels with black, the dock, or widgets of some sort.
Ideally all three with the user able to customize.

Anyone know the height in pixels of the iphone dock?

~~~
jonny_eh
I don't think legacy apps will auto-scale. I think they'll take up the same
number of pixels, but the extra screen real estate will have a widget bar,
showing things like the weather or stock prices.

~~~
smspence
"the extra screen real estate will have a widget bar, showing things like the
weather or stock price"

I highly doubt it. That would be very un-Apple. I think there are a lot of
legacy apps that will scale automatically to utilize the extra height, or
there will just be a little black bar above/below the legacy app, so the app
takes up the same amount of vertical pixels that it used to.

------
niels_olson
Only reason I can see for this vertical stretch is to add more battery to
power a 4G device. Yes, it's more pixels, and a lot people want more pixels,
but aspect ratio was a deep design choice made many moons ago by Jobs.

In the background, I see engineering getting a bit more clout under the
industrial engineer CEO. And I wonder if culturally the institution is asking
itself if perhaps nature truly cannot be pitched, bullied, or cajoled into
what cannot be done. Cancer will do that to a family.

<http://www.zdnet.com/iphone-5-rumor-roundup-7000002138/>

~~~
acqq
The reason is: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16:9> (divide then compare)

Personally I don't like that format on notebooks as I prefer vertical space
for programming, but I'm not asked anything...

Still I think iPhone can be OK. Real "fullscreen" 16:9 videos on iPhone, if
that's really going to be the resolution. Whatever.

------
zyb09
So they are adding 176px to the height of the display? Any idea why they would
do that? Apple usually goes for something new exciting, when introducing new
products. "We made the iPhone5 taller and added a few pixels on top, so it can
display 5 icons on the home screen" sounds like the anti-thesis of excitement.

~~~
cma
Since the display is larger and a more suitable aspect ratio for widescreen
movies, movie viewing will probably effectively get a ~30-40% larger space.

~~~
baddox
I've always preferred Apple's 3:2 aspect ratio to the more common 16:9 (used
by most flagship Android phones, like the Galaxy Nexus and the Galaxy S III).
I use my phone almost exclusively in portrait mode, so I think the advantages
of 3:2 in portrait mode far outweigh the advantage of watching widescreen
videos in landscape mode.

~~~
Synaesthesia
It will be enhanced in portait mode, showing more information at a time, and
also more content when the keyboard is up, as mentioned.

------
yuiwu
Original: [http://9to5mac.com/2012/08/07/upcoming-ios-6-is-scalable-
to-...](http://9to5mac.com/2012/08/07/upcoming-ios-6-is-scalable-to-
taller-640-x-1136-iphone-display-shows-possible-next-generation-device-user-
interface/)

------
iamdann
Adding the extra row for apps isn't revolutionary or surprising. And that's
fine. I don't think Apple is going to try to sell this larger sized screen as
_either_.

Rather, I think it's going to be what Apple decides to _do_ with this extra
space that has the potential to be a big reveal. These extra pixels, when
running previous resolution apps, is the talk of the town right now. And if
Apple can find a new and interesting way to deal with this extra space,
alleviating designer/developer headache while providing extra value to the
user, then we'll have something noteworthy.

This new alone is kinda boring.

------
DHowett
This could simply be a result of Apple switching to a responsive layout system
with iOS6. This correlates with the new automatic layouts you can create in
Interface Builder (if you're the sort to use it, and which themselves could
correlate with an increasing screen size ;)) There have been as many icon
layout changes as there have been major iOS versions - at least, within
SpringBoard itself.

I'll gladly eat my doubt if they do end up making the screen taller.

As an aside, did it bother anybody else that the author put the vertical pixel
count before the horizontal count?

------
kyleslattery
Anyone know how they got the simulator to work at a different height?

~~~
Someone
On my system, there is a file at

    
    
      /Applications
      /Xcode.app
      /Contents
      /Developer
      /Platforms
      /iPhoneSimulator.platform
      /Developer
      /Applications
      /iPhone Simulator.app
      /Contents
      /Resources
      /Devices
      /iPhone (Retina).deviceinfo 
      /info.plist
    

That file contains (among others), these fragments:

    
    
      <key>height</key>
      <string>960</string>
    
      <key>width</key>
      <string>640</string>
    

I haven't tried it, but that is where my hacking would start. The simulator
app is signed. It may not be possible to use it after editing it. Mu next
attempt would be to sign it with your own key. If that fails, too, I would try
and intercept the reading of the file. It may be easiest to put Xcode on some
user-mode filesystem that you control.

~~~
frankus
Tried it, and there's apparently more to it than that. When I change the
resolution that "Device" disappears from the Hardware submenu. Other changes
to the plist, (e.g. the name of the device) leave it working.

------
sylvinus
Reading this, my guess is they will be replacing the physical home button with
screen area. They may also have found a way to put the top speaker (but what
about camera & sensors ??) under the display somehow. Any way, I hope the next
iPhone won't be much taller itself.

~~~
nchlswu
This is a great guess that makes a hell of a lot of sense to me. A simple
elongation of the phone really doesn't fit in any mental model I have of
Apple's design decisions.

~~~
shinratdr
Why do you say that? It makes sense to me.

Apple just isn't into changing stuff like that for changes' sake. Here, there
is very little downside. You get more screen space for lists and pages in
portrait, proper 16:9 in landscape, your thumb doesn't have do do more work or
travelling, and UI elements aren't blown up or shrunk, all while satisfying
the public's demand for a bigger screen.

Seems pretty perfect to me, and moreover it is already set in stone. We've
seen the iPhone 5, it's the two tone metal casing design that's floating
around. It'll be longer, the glass parts make that clear.

Assuming otherwise is just hoping blindly against the evidence. Every time
there has been a big leak like this regarding Apple, it ends up proving to be
the final design. Happened with the fat Nano, happened with the iPhone 4 and
it has happened again with the 5.

------
geofft
Potentially-silly question: the iOS simulator is x86, not ARM, and therefore
cannot install App Store applications. Where did the Pinterest, Wolfram Alpha,
etc. apps in these screenshots come from?

Are these included by default in iOS 6? (_And_ in the simulator?)

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
They could be Web Apps installed to the home screen.

In fact, unless Apple has an app now, I'm fairly certain they are.

------
chmars
My favorite comment at MacRumors:

'But now dock can only hold one icon. Is nonsense~!'

------
Synaesthesia
Now I'm curious to see what all the other apps look like in that resolution.

