6th gen iPhone and screen ratio

So here's something interesting. There are overwhelming rumours pointing to the next iPhone being 'widescreen', as in a much taller device, more akin to a 16:9 aspect ratio like that of a lot of Android phones. Yes there's always rumours with Apple but these are starting to become quite strong and consistent.

http://www.macdaddynews.com/wp-conte...e-5-Render.jpg

http://5.mshcdn.com/wp-content/galle...iPhone%205.jpg

I could go for this, I mean I like the idea of having the same extra vertical screen space Android users get, and to have a full widescreen ratio to work with for my games, but I never cared for how HUGE Android phones are getting, this whole 'taller but not wider' idea works for me.

My question is, what will the exporter do about the varying screen widths if/when this turns out to be true? Do we risk having apps rejected for having 'letterboxing' on older devices, or think of some new way to deal with it?

I would think any old apps made in the past will be fine, anything new submitted to apple after the iphone 5 comes out will most likely have to fill the screen.

Hm saying that, I best prepare my game for such a thing just in case.

I'd imagine it being more like the retina display, where support for it is optional, but it must be downscalable to the old device. My concern is that with the exporter in it's current state, it outputs in one aspect ratio and adds black borders for anything which doesn't match, meaning we could build for the 16:9 screen and it'd add black borders for the older devices, but Apple tend to reject any apps with borders on the iPhone.

I just hate these aspecs variations...

I think we just need the option to select cropping instead of letterboxing.

Maybe.

It will mean a lot of legacy apps will have letterboxing or they will be stretched. Apple are all about appearance so this change doesn't seem like a very 'apple' thing to do to me. It would sacrifice the way a lot of their apps look for a new screen ratio designed to display video- which not a huge amount of people use on their phones anyway.

We'll see. Personally, I think keeping the original aspect ratio but increasing screen size a little would be my preference.

I kept thinking "Apple wouldn't do this, they've got the 3.5" screen size perfect, so you can reach the whole screen with your thumbs" etc. etc. but the rumours are gaining a little credibility lately with how many seem to be consistent with each other.

I'm not really sure how this dilemma is any different from the existing one between ipad and iphone/ipod. It would be even more awesome if we could somehow define multiple aspects in our MMF2 files. Either allow per frame resolutions (so we could have a frame for each aspect ratio) or maybe have some kind of cropping mechanism, where we could define the screen boundaries for each device type, but only have a single frame that is used for the largest resolution and assumes some amount of the outer pixels are cropped out.

It seems kind of pointless to go to 16:9, since (as Steve Jobs once pointed out) that is a movie industry standard and the purpose of the device is NOT to watch movies.

I think it would be nice if the screen was slightly larger. But considering a lot of people develop with a larger size in mind, it shouldn't be too much of a problem.

Apple probably won't make all of the apps look by changing the ratio. I can see them changing the screen size a bit though. Going back to an iPod Touch is very strange after using a Galaxy Nexus and it seems Apple is the different platform than the rest in terms of screen size. Hopefully it will be retina out of the blocks, rather than just bringing along another model later on for retina.

The ipad's ratio is so similar to the iphone's anyway I don't know why they didn't just choose 3:2 for that as well. In fact it makes more sense for the ipad to be 16:9 as it's a much better video watching device than a phone.

But at least with the ipad/iphone difference, it's a different device which you use differently. Having a situation where the iphone userbase is divided between different aspect ratios isn't a great for apple's developers imo. It's one of the reasons I prefer iphone development to android development right now (in terms of design anyway- technical reasons aside), I'm always slightly uneasy that some people are going to be viewing my graphics at stretched resolutions or letterboxing when I've put a lot of time into making them look the way I want them.

Maybe apple's masterplan in the next few years is to have both iphone and ipad be 16:9?

Adding the ability to crop/overscan of sorts is all we really need to fit all devices well, I personally don't mind exporting a game made just for iphone or ipad but this new widescreen phone is just chucking a spanner in the works.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mobichan

I'm not really sure how this dilemma is any different from the existing one between ipad and iphone/ipod.

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Because Apple will reject an app which doesn't fill the screen on iPhone, whilst they allow it on iPad.

i dont find it likely that apple with compromise the full-screen resolution of half million apps in their app store. im sure any screen changes wont mess with the resolution. at the very least, dont sweat it until you know for sure.

Yeah, good point... Apple are all about consistency.

I'm sure apple had an awnser to the already made apps out there but you also have to think about new phone users, having an app run in native is attractive just like ipad 3's launch, a lot of HD retina ready apps did well for about 2 weeks and do better in the long run, you know what touch arcade users are like :P

I setup my game to run under 3 different resolutions last night, setting a value moves the virtual buttons to new co-ordinates and realigns menu items, what clickteam should look into if not already is allowing the app to run in all 3 device resolutions instead of having to compile the game as one and just let it stretch, saying that even cropping is a good option as you could set it for retina ipad and it will just expand to fit all devices like overscan on a tv.

This is the title screen of my game running on all 3 device screen sizes:

http://i.imgur.com/23RTr.pnghttp://i.imgur.com/q1JqB.pnghttp://i.imgur.com/lfOaO.png

My original plan was to export a build made for iphone (first image) and ipad (third image) instead of going universial because I really want to use the native screen size without bars, but with iphone 5 (second image) being the oddball res we have no idea if we can export for iphone 5 only or not yet.

With an overscan resize option we could make a game as 1136 x 768 then the game could cut off the edges.

http://i.imgur.com/BtxK9.pnghttp://i.imgur.com/1mQrN.png

I don't want to sound pushy and i'm sorry if anyone reading at clickteam if it sounds forceful but it would be amazing to have this kind of crop resize option instead of black bars, a universal app could then work near perfectly.

I hate to bump this kind of thing but any chance that someone could say if this is actually possible with the exporter? I kind of need to know so I don't make my game with 200+ frames to find I need to go back and manually adjust stuff or export 3 different API's for the app store which would kill most chances of getting into the top 200 listing with spread sales.

I wouldn't worry about it for now DH, these iPhone images are likely just fan speculation and hoaxes, Apple probably wouldn't want their millions of apps to suddenly be letterboxed, nor would they release an unnecessarily larger device. Best to cross this bridge when we come to it I think :)

But remember, making your app easily resizable will benefit you if you ever want to put it on other systems. Any code which re-positions your on screen buttons, HUD, etc. you should put in the behavior of the objects and then make them global, that way if you need to make a change later on you need only do it once. :)

By the way, your image there, well the exporter shrinks stuff to fit, so I imagine if they added a cropping feature, rather than cutting borders around the entire thing like in your image it'd shrink the image down to fit horizontally but cut off the top and bottom.

I would be very surprised if Apple changes the ratio, they know fragmentation is bad.

The added screen space are more likely to replace the analogue home button, with digital buttons. So instead of adding more pixels for app's there will be screen space reserved for configurable buttons only. Maybe even with the new technology that gives the digital buttons a tactile feel: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXITjLurof0&feature=fvsr

I would be up for software button(s) instead of the current real button, though then you might get accidental swipe presses which close the app without meaning too. I do such a thing on my android phone every now and again.

I never thought about that though.

I'm not into software buttons at all, I have an Android tablet by Samsung and when something freezes you're pretty much stuck!!

I think this pretty much confirms it:

"9to5Mac reports that it has discovered through some testing with Apple's official iOS simulator that iOS 6 is capable of automatically scaling its home screen display to fit a taller 1136x640 display, compared to the current 960x640 display. Numerous rumors and part leaks have indicated that Apple will be including a taller display on the next-generation iPhone to be introduced next month.

'Thanks to some tweaks to the iOS Simulator application that is included in the iOS development tools, we were able to run the simulator at the rumored next-generation iPhone display resolution of 640 x 1136. We did this running both the current public release of iOS 5.1 and the upcoming iOS 6.0 The iOS 5.1 simulator displayed the home screen with a stretched set of four rows of icons. On the other hand, iOS 6 displayed five complete rows – as our sources said Apple was testing for taller iPhone displays.'

http://cdn.macrumors.com/article-new...ler_screen.jpg

Notably, setting the iOS simulator to resolutions other than 1136x640 does not result in automatic scaling, with the software instead simply defaulting to an "iPad-like home screen layout" different from what is seen for the iPhone. The observation suggests that there is something special about that 1136x640 resolution that suggests Apple has at least been working on an iOS 6 device supporting that screen size."

From macrumors.com.

CT, we DEFINITELY need some kind of auto-cropping now.

The person who hacked the simulator should try running an app in it with that res enabled, I am guessing the game will center with black bars to the side on older apps.

We really do need cropping, I am in a loop of making my game in the old res or supporting widescreen, setting the sticks to new locations and stuff.

Keep in mind that 'new' resolution could also be a new resolution for a smaller iPad built to compete with the Kindle Fire.

I hope this doesn't mean an end to the MMF2 iOS exporter.. the CT programmers kept saying it's not possible didn't they?

Totally possible, it'll just be a bit of a pain for them.

I don't understand, doesn't it already scale your game to the correct resolution of the iPhone/Pad? Regardless of what weird resolution it may have been made in? I guess most games would look a bit weird stretched out like that though.

And I was getting all excited about releasing on iOS. :( Hope this all works out.

It does, it's just that it scales to fit instead of cropping to fit, meaning you'll get black bars.

I think we should have the option between Scaling to fill screen size, and cropping.

That would be perfect for more than just this new phone. If they added that option we could make the screen size square and rotate the app in 90 degree increments. It would allow developers to have more app rotation options.
That's how the Blackberry runtime works and how I supported different device rotations and screen sizes. I just adjusted the on screen buttons based on the screen size and phone rotation, but made the actual app resolution larger than the screen size on the device.

I suggested this during the beta, but my idea was shot down at the time. "Not possible" is what I was told.

http://www.gforgames.com/wp-content/...d-rendered.jpg

Eugh! I really dislike that form factor (all but confirmed now), why is it so tall and thin? I think I'll stick with iPhone 4 for iOS dev, needs to be underpowered anyways. The simulator should suffice for testing the aspect ratio. Talk about don't fix what isn't broken!

I'm still puzzled why they would do this, but I'm gonna wait for the press release before planning/thinking about it.

There have been loads of rumours before every launch that turned out to be false. I remember according to rumours the 4S was gonna have a curved back, have a 'lite' version etc.

If the 16:9 ratio is true then I'd like to know their reasoning behind it. It's a loose-loose situation for developers; develop for the new device which only a small portion of the market owns but has the most up-to-date hardware? Or stick with the old format which most people have and ignore the superior product?

Sacrifice the way apps display in favour of how video displays, on a device that hardly anyone uses to watch video on? I'm not buying it just yet.

This rumour stems from the implementation of that aspect ratio in iOS 6 right? And 16:9 is a tv resolution- could be something to do with that. Running apps on the tv- building on the success of the Ouya project. That's my prediction ;)

Fingers crossed the new iphone will have a bigger screen & resolution but the same aspect ratio. So all existing apps scale to fit nicely. 100% backwards compatibility, bigger screen, more pixels to play with for the developers. Everyone's happy :)

Regardless of video playback, I think the whole UI could benefit from being taller.

This is what sold me:
http://www.iphonehacks.com/2012/08/a...h-display.html

That post also answers the cropping question (as of iOS 6 Beta 4).

No, there's tonnes more than just the iOS6 resize feature, just check out macrumors, there are tonnes of leaked parts and shells from different sources that all match perfectly, and some cases being manufactured that fit this form. If it's a hoax it's an insanely elaborate one, or a red herring put in place by apple.

This sucks on so many levels, it'll be a while before most apps and games are reformatted to fit, and until then you'll have to stretch your thumbs right into the middle to play. If this turns out to be true, their next innovation had better be the iRessurrectionCasket for use on Steve Jobs!

LOL, OK I exaggerate a little. It's something we'll all get used to eventually, but what a pain. Big screens are only what the geeks want. The real phone users out there (those who aren't online bickering about iOS vs. Android etc. want a small and convenient phone, any bigger than iPhone 4 just seems cumbersome) CT will need to implement some kind of cropping option.

EDIT: Looking at this:

http://img.ibtimes.com/www/data/imag...cases-diff.jpg

The screen width isn't as insanely different as it appeared to be on the picture posted further up. I think CT really should be nailing down trying to enable some kind of cropping feature though, we should get onto them about it.

It's quite easy for someone to custom build/order a different sized phone part like that bezel, for a few £100, then sell it to a tech site for profit claiming it's a leaked part. Or they could just be parts from one of the myriad of knock-off apple products they have in China.

Not saying you're wrong, it does look like the rumor with the most weight behind it. I just think we should wait and see.

Yeah, that would be fine, but the point is there is that AND the fact that iOS6 in XCode scales to 1136x640 but doesn't scale to any other sizes.

too many parts to just call it a hoax or fake IMO, this thing is legit to me.