Apple’s new iPhone 5
comes with a larger, 4-inch display and with it all native apps come
redesigned to fit the larger screen. For the majority of apps, though,
that’s not the case.
"Well here's an app that hasn't been updated. It runs at the same size. We center it and place black borders on either side," Phil Schiller explained at the iPhone unveiling yesterday.
Now, that definitely doesn’t sound like the prettiest experience you can get, so we imagine developers will rush to scale their apps to the new screen. Will that be a problem? Most prominent iOS developers say that scaling shouldn’t be that huge of a problem in the majority of apps. A new default image will also be required to apps that want to make full use of those 4 inches.
The actual process of updating the app however will be different and complexity will vary. “It’s hard to say,” Tweetbot developer Paul Haddad explained that it’s not possible to say how difficult it’d be to update. “For some apps it’s really easy for others it’d involve an entire redesign of the app.”
Most work will be required from game developers. With most 2D games based on custom graphics, simply everything would need to be updated. Will all developers be willing to update? Our guess is that most profitable and popular games would definitely be updated in the months to come, but we’re not sure whether developers will find it worth it reworking titles that are not that profitable.
"Well here's an app that hasn't been updated. It runs at the same size. We center it and place black borders on either side," Phil Schiller explained at the iPhone unveiling yesterday.
Now, that definitely doesn’t sound like the prettiest experience you can get, so we imagine developers will rush to scale their apps to the new screen. Will that be a problem? Most prominent iOS developers say that scaling shouldn’t be that huge of a problem in the majority of apps. A new default image will also be required to apps that want to make full use of those 4 inches.
The actual process of updating the app however will be different and complexity will vary. “It’s hard to say,” Tweetbot developer Paul Haddad explained that it’s not possible to say how difficult it’d be to update. “For some apps it’s really easy for others it’d involve an entire redesign of the app.”
Most work will be required from game developers. With most 2D games based on custom graphics, simply everything would need to be updated. Will all developers be willing to update? Our guess is that most profitable and popular games would definitely be updated in the months to come, but we’re not sure whether developers will find it worth it reworking titles that are not that profitable.
