New iPhone 6 / 6 Plus sizes and aspect ratios

Solar2D iOS
#1

From today’s product announcement, it looks like these are the new screen sizes:

earlier iPhones: 3.5” / 960 x 640 (326 ppi) 1.5 aspect ratio

iPhone 5: 4” / 1136 x 640 (326 ppi) 1.78 aspect ratio

iPhone 6: 4.7” / 1134 x 750 (326 ppi) 1.512 aspect ratio

iPhone 6+: 5.5” / 1920 x 1080 (401 ppi) 1.78 aspect ratio

for comparison:

Nexus 5: 4.95” / 1920 x 1080 (445 ppi) 1.78 aspect ratio

Samsung Galaxy S5: 5.1” / 1920 x 1080 (432 ppi) 1.78 aspect ratio

Samsung Galaxy W (2014): 7” / 1280 x 720 / 1.78 aspect ratio

And, according to CNET’s notes, new gestures, Xcode layouts, and sensors:

http://live.cnet.com/Event/Apple_September_9_event

"Schiller: We’ve also added a brand new geature for iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. It’s called Reachability. If you double touch the TouchID button, the whole display slides down so you can reach anything at the top

"Schiller: Xcode - automatic layouts, easier to make software scale. But what about apps that haven’t been updated yet. Well here’s what happens. They just work

“Schiller: It can also figure out elevation, such as flights of stairs. A new sensor called the Barometer measures elevation from air pressure”

One nice thing is that Corona developers presumably already know how to handle variable Android screen sizes, and the new iPhone aspect ratio is the same as the Nexus 5/Galaxy S/etc…

#2

Interesting, the iPhone 6’s (4.7") screen ratio is just a tad more than the iPhone 4’s, so hopefully not much issue with existing iOS apps. 

If you’ve already designed apps for Android then the iPhone 6 Plus shouldn’t be an issue either.

I guess we’ll need new icon sizes however.

#3

Yup. iPhone 6+ seems to have the same aspect ratio as an iPhone 5 so things should work reasonably well if you don’t mind your app looking just bigger. The idea is to make better use of the larger screen estate though so if you aren’t detecting 6 and 6+ and adjusting your UI then you are probably missing out on the opportunity. 

On a related note, I really hope Corona SDK starts supporting the variable text size feature in IOS. With the new larger screens I bet more people will fine tune the text size to their liking than ever before. Our apps should be allowed to respect the user choice in this regard.

#4

Anyone knows what are the sizes of the launch image png’s for iPhone 6 and 6+? What about the app icon sizes (residing inside the app)? 

#5

see related post: http://forums.coronalabs.com/topic/51066-screenshots-and-new-iphone-size-compatibility/

#6

1334/750 = 1.77866667  or 16:9

I’m looking into it. I just downloaded the GM of XCode 6 which should have the iOS 6 simulators in them.

Rob

#7

I’d be really interested to hear comments on whether there would be any recommended changes for the ultimate config file / modernized config file Corona Blog post with IOS 8 / iPhone 6s    [probably the most revisited blog post for me :)]

   http://coronalabs.com/blog/2013/09/10/modernizing-the-config-lua/

#8

Actually I’m pondering thought at the moment.  If you just want your app to fit, you won’t have to make any changes other than potentially supporting an @3x graphics set.  I’ve not worked out the math on that, but I’m guessing it would split the recommended 1.5 and 3.0 multipliers that are suggested for the @2x and @4x graphics.   Though honestly, the 1242x2208 native resolution (before being downsampled to 1080x1920) isn’t that far off from the 1536x2048 of the Retina iPads, so you might want to use the same sized images in both, so the real need for @3x may not be that important.

The other question which I haven’t figured out yet (I won’t be getting a new phone until November probably, and my Xcode 6 install is causing me issues right now), is how to keep the basic 320x480 point system (which Apple seems to be recommending) and allow the config.lua to adapt to make the screen bigger in points.  I would think for most games, this would not be a desirable feature, though maybe for a tile game or a dungeon crawler showing more map tiles might be important, but we really don’t address that same concept now between the phones and iPads.

Rob

#9

iPhone 6: 4.7” / 1134 x 750 (326 ppi) 1.512 aspect ratio

FYI you have error here.  iPhone 6 is 1334 x 750 = 1.78 aspect ratio, just like iPhone 5 and 6+

#10

Interesting, the iPhone 6’s (4.7") screen ratio is just a tad more than the iPhone 4’s, so hopefully not much issue with existing iOS apps. 

If you’ve already designed apps for Android then the iPhone 6 Plus shouldn’t be an issue either.

I guess we’ll need new icon sizes however.

#11

Yup. iPhone 6+ seems to have the same aspect ratio as an iPhone 5 so things should work reasonably well if you don’t mind your app looking just bigger. The idea is to make better use of the larger screen estate though so if you aren’t detecting 6 and 6+ and adjusting your UI then you are probably missing out on the opportunity. 

On a related note, I really hope Corona SDK starts supporting the variable text size feature in IOS. With the new larger screens I bet more people will fine tune the text size to their liking than ever before. Our apps should be allowed to respect the user choice in this regard.

#12

Anyone knows what are the sizes of the launch image png’s for iPhone 6 and 6+? What about the app icon sizes (residing inside the app)? 

#13

see related post: http://forums.coronalabs.com/topic/51066-screenshots-and-new-iphone-size-compatibility/

#14

1334/750 = 1.77866667  or 16:9

I’m looking into it. I just downloaded the GM of XCode 6 which should have the iOS 6 simulators in them.

Rob

#15

I’d be really interested to hear comments on whether there would be any recommended changes for the ultimate config file / modernized config file Corona Blog post with IOS 8 / iPhone 6s    [probably the most revisited blog post for me :)]

   http://coronalabs.com/blog/2013/09/10/modernizing-the-config-lua/

#16

Actually I’m pondering thought at the moment.  If you just want your app to fit, you won’t have to make any changes other than potentially supporting an @3x graphics set.  I’ve not worked out the math on that, but I’m guessing it would split the recommended 1.5 and 3.0 multipliers that are suggested for the @2x and @4x graphics.   Though honestly, the 1242x2208 native resolution (before being downsampled to 1080x1920) isn’t that far off from the 1536x2048 of the Retina iPads, so you might want to use the same sized images in both, so the real need for @3x may not be that important.

The other question which I haven’t figured out yet (I won’t be getting a new phone until November probably, and my Xcode 6 install is causing me issues right now), is how to keep the basic 320x480 point system (which Apple seems to be recommending) and allow the config.lua to adapt to make the screen bigger in points.  I would think for most games, this would not be a desirable feature, though maybe for a tile game or a dungeon crawler showing more map tiles might be important, but we really don’t address that same concept now between the phones and iPads.

Rob

#17

iPhone 6: 4.7” / 1134 x 750 (326 ppi) 1.512 aspect ratio

FYI you have error here.  iPhone 6 is 1334 x 750 = 1.78 aspect ratio, just like iPhone 5 and 6+