How will it look? .... How heavy will it be? .... Will it finally do the dishes for me?
From an app developer's perspective, however we are most interested in the technical specs - particularly the screen size, ratio, and resolution.
Why do we care ?
It's simple. Most apps that we develop are designed to look "just right" on whichever device they are used (from Samsung Galaxy S III to Samsung Notes and Galaxy Tabs ... through to every iteration of the iPhone and iPad). Our designers spend a lot of time moving things around on the screen to get the exact right look (for the user interface - or UI) and feel (for the user experience - UX).When you spend so much effort on creating gorgeous apps, you don't want that messed up by random device changes.
Almost every time a new device is launched (particularly in the Android space, but also very much in the Apple orchard), screen dimensions change to keep in step with technological and cultural advances.
Sometimes we can scale apps, but when the ratio (how "square" a screen is) changes then we have to rewrite the "View" of the app to better suit that proportion.
And so it seems to be with the iPhone 5 (if rumours are to be believed). The resolution may change to 1136x640 pixels, which is very close to the 16:9 ratio that your widescreen TV at home works at, and the same ratio as the latest Samsung Galaxy S III device (which is even higher in resolution at 1280x720).
If that is the case, and it likely is since the old iPhone 4/4S proportions now look far too square for today's media-heavy users, then app developers like Creative Intersection will once again be inundated by client requests to update their apps to take advantage of the new iPhone 5 hardware and use the full screen real estate.
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| The possible new screen ratio for iPhone 5 (credit: macrumour.com) |
If you have an app idea that you would like to discuss, or if you have an app that needs updating to work with new hardware (be it Apple, Samsung, Sony, HTC, Acer, etc), give us a shout.
