Apple's iPhone 4 simulator shows off Retina resolution

Posted:
in iPhone edited January 2014
The iPhone 4 simulator included in Apple's iOS 4 development tools provides an early look at how much clarity the increased resolution of the new Retina Display delivers.



The iOS SDK simulator can render an app's images, user interface controls and text at the resolution of both the existing iPhone/iPod touch (320x480) and the new iPhone 4 (640x960).



The detail photo shown below, provided by an iOS developer, presents both images at the same scale, illustrating the difference the higher resolution density makes in text clarity and graphics.



Note that bitmapped images created at the iPhone's exiting resolution, including the "ai" logo and the "search AI" field in the AppleInsider mobile web page (shown below), are not affected by the increased resolution and will need to be updated to appear as sharp as the native controls used in the Safari app.



Text and vector images are rendered at the full resolution, however, without any work by the mobile app or web sites.







This capture of Safari operating in landscape orientation with its keyboard visible shows off the additional clarity and sharpness delivered by the iPhone 4's new display.











The iPhone 4's 326ppi TFT Retina Display leapfrogs existing high end Android phones with resolutions of 480x854 TFT (Verizon Droid, 265ppi) or 800x480 OLED (Nexus One / HTC Incredible, 254ppi, but drops pixels to deliver an effective subpixel resolution of 392x653) or 480x800 TFT (HTC Evo, 217ppi due to being a larger screen).



While a large number of the more than 50 million existing iPhone users worldwide are likely to upgrade to the new iPhone 4, Verizon and Sprint users who just signed two year contracts on Android phones in the last six months are unlikely to race out to buy the next higher resolution devices that become available, particularly given that US service providers are now forcing users to pay as much as $350 in early termination fees.
«1

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 35
    mazda 3smazda 3s Posts: 1,613member
    Man, we STILL can't escape the mobile-formatted version of AI...
  • Reply 2 of 35
    echosonicechosonic Posts: 462member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AppleInsider View Post


    While a large number of the more than 50 million existing iPhone users worldwide are likely to upgrade to the new iPhone 4, Verizon and Sprint users who just signed two year contracts on Android phones in the last six months are unlikely to race out to buy the next higher resolution devices that become available, particularly given that US service providers are now forcing users to pay as much as $350 in early termination fees.



    Well...seems like you can either pay the 599 contract-free price, or get the 299 early-term price, in which case if you leave, it costs you about 599...give or take.
  • Reply 3 of 35
    kasperkasper Posts: 941member, administrator
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Mazda 3s View Post


    Man, we STILL can't escape the mobile-formatted version of AI...



    Actually, we just worked on overhauling it. It looks almost the same but functions differently, hopefully more towards everyone's liking. I'll make it live shortly.



    K
  • Reply 4 of 35
    nagrommenagromme Posts: 2,834member
    All that sharpness and useable in daylight too. I’ll take one!



    By the way, some of the article images are actually shown smaller (with the softening that scaling causes) than the pixel size of the actual iPhone 4. So the real thing would be even higher-res and sharper. The big keyboard images are 600 tall instead of 640. (I’m not looking at the cropping, but actual scaling.)
  • Reply 5 of 35
    jdwjdw Posts: 1,324member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AppleInsider View Post


    Note that bitmapped images created at the iPhone's exiting resolution, including the "ai" logo and the "search AI" field in the AppleInsider mobile web page (shown below), are not affected by the increased resolution and will need to be updated to appear as sharp as the native controls used in the Safari app.



    What are the implications of this? And I am quite shocked no one is talking about it!



    Are we now going to see web pages grow larger in terms of filesize, chewing up bandwidth, only because web designers are now going to start saving bitmap graphics at higher resolutions than 72dpi, so they display more sharply on the iPhone 4?
  • Reply 6 of 35
    eriamjheriamjh Posts: 1,631member
    Me Want.
  • Reply 7 of 35
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Kasper View Post


    Actually, we just worked on overhauling it. It looks almost the same but functions differently, hopefully more towards everyone's liking. I'll make it live shortly.



    K



    Excellent!
    edit: Scratch that logo comment. I got fixated on the blown up size of the logo for a second.
  • Reply 8 of 35
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by JDW View Post


    What are the implications of this? And I am quite shocked no one is talking about it!



    You don't know the implications, yet you're shocked no one is talking about it?



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by JDW View Post


    Are we now going to see web pages grow larger in terms of filesize, chewing up bandwidth, only because web designers are now going to start saving bitmap graphics at higher resolutions than 72dpi, so they display more sharply on the iPhone 4?



    No. You may see sites however create 2x images specifically for iPhone 4 versions of sites, but that's about it. Sites like NYT that do not have an iPhone "optimized" version will display beautifully on this new display, as all of those images were designed with a desktop display in mind.
  • Reply 9 of 35
    gregoriusmgregoriusm Posts: 513member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solipsism View Post


    Excellent!



    Fingers crossed! Yippee!!
  • Reply 10 of 35
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Matthew Yohe View Post


    You don't know the implications, yet you're shocked no one is talking about it?



    I think his statement is reasonable. Sometimes we notice things in retrospect. For example, the iPad rendering the iPhone 4 at 1:1 without the ugly 2x option. I hadn't thought of that, but then wondered why it hadn't been mentioned earlier by someone more clever than me.



    Quote:

    [No. You may see sites however create 2x images specifically for iPhone 4 versions of sites, but that's about it. Sites like NYT that do not have an iPhone "optimized" version will display beautifully on this new display, as all of those images were designed with a desktop display in mind.



    Yeah, all we're really talking for websites are mostly elements, not full on images which are likely still optimized for fullsized monitors when clicked. The AI logo in the example is 4Kb go to 4x the resolution won't make that GIF even close to 4x as large, but even if it did, I'd wager it's still small compared to other data we access in browsers and won't affect DL speeds by noticable amount on a site like iphone.appleinisder.com. For those near 200MB/month they may want to get the 2GB option, but I don't think it'll be a real issue for anybody.
  • Reply 11 of 35
    number9number9 Posts: 14member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by JDW View Post


    What are the implications of this? And I am quite shocked no one is talking about it!



    Are we now going to see web pages grow larger in terms of filesize, chewing up bandwidth, only because web designers are now going to start saving bitmap graphics at higher resolutions than 72dpi, so they display more sharply on the iPhone 4?



    No, if anything, they should be more streamlined. Bitmapped images are usually larger in size and do not scale, while a vector graphic is the same size or smaller if made correctly and will scale with the resolution of the screen.
  • Reply 12 of 35
    mstonemstone Posts: 11,510member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Matthew Yohe View Post


    No. You may see sites however create 2x images specifically for iPhone 4 versions of sites, but that's about it. Sites like NYT that do not have an iPhone "optimized" version will display beautifully on this new display, as all of those images were designed with a desktop display in mind.





    I don't know. Maybe there is a way programatically to take advantage of higher resolution but when you scale images in the browser bad things happen to the quality.



    I made a sample test. There are four images, the top two are jpg and the bottom two are png. Actually the results are the same so it is irrelevant which file format you use. The point is, the top image of each pair is a high res image scaled and the bottom one is regular 72 dpi not scaled. You can see for yourself that the high res image is inferior due to scaling.



    Test Page
  • Reply 13 of 35
    synoticsynotic Posts: 151member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by JDW View Post


    What are the implications of this? And I am quite shocked no one is talking about it!



    Are we now going to see web pages grow larger in terms of filesize, chewing up bandwidth, only because web designers are now going to start saving bitmap graphics at higher resolutions than 72dpi, so they display more sharply on the iPhone 4?



    Shouldn't be too tough ? the server can just check the request and serve up higher resolution graphics based on the PPI of the device. Or the website could just switch to vectors for graphics which would like the even smaller than the original image.
  • Reply 14 of 35
    I bought a verizon droid six months ago and since i bought it when it first came out my etf will only be about $140. So in other words i will be rushing out to buy an iphone.
  • Reply 15 of 35
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by number9 View Post


    No, if anything, they should be more streamlined. Bitmapped images are usually larger in size and do not scale, while a vector graphic is the same size or smaller if made correctly and will scale with the resolution of the screen.



    I'm by no means an expert on graphics so please correct me if I'm wrong, but I am under the impression that vectored images are best when try don't contain a lot of detail and at small sizes can be significantly larger than bitmaps.



    Not the size of the AI logo In the arrticle. What would be the file size for that same image, since it is simple? Is their proxessing overhead for vector over bitmap that can slow down the page render? If vector images are generally ideal why does Apple offer Icon Composer and create all it's apps as 16^2, 32^2, 128^2, 256^2, and 512^2 as bitmaps?
  • Reply 16 of 35
    anyone else notice why the address overlaps the address bar in the second landscape view screenshot? strange
  • Reply 17 of 35
    Looks fantastic...Thanks AI for posting it. Now I want a 4G even more!
  • Reply 18 of 35
    ajmasajmas Posts: 597member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solipsism View Post


    I'm by no means an expert on graphics so please correct me if I'm wrong, but I am under the impression that vectored images are best when try don't contain a lot of detail and at small sizes can be significantly larger than bitmaps.



    Not the size of the AI logo In the arrticle. What would be the file size for that same image, since it is simple? Is their proxessing overhead for vector over bitmap that can slow down the page render? If vector images are generally ideal why does Apple offer Icon Composer and create all it's apps as 16^2, 32^2, 128^2, 256^2, and 512^2 as bitmaps?



    As you indicated, It all depends on the complexity of the image and the supported features of the vector format. Also, is the vector format binary, text, or compressed text. Any comparison would have to be done with JPG or PNG vs SVG. Then again, this presumes that the resolution of the image is suitable for all display devices and scales. Bitmaps would have to be available in multiple sizes, whereas a vector can be scaled to almost any resolution.
  • Reply 19 of 35
    oc4theooc4theo Posts: 294member
    I want one for sure. Hope it will help my iSight, because I started wearing reading glasses few months after I got my first iPhone in June 2007. But then most people my age use glasses for reading.
  • Reply 20 of 35
    I don't get the crazy talk about web site graphics on the new iPhone. Safari scales down the images for viewing. If you zoom in all the way it will display the image at full resolution. Same will be the case with the iPhone 4, but the threshold for Full resolution will be half that on the previous models. In other words you will see an image displayed at it's full resolution at half the screen size of the old iPhones and thus will see more. No one will make sites with higher resolution graphics as web browsers are pixel to pixel not DPI.



    So at full resolution you will get twice (or 4 times by area) the view on an iPhone 4. Fonts are rendered sharper, but same size. Vector art will be sharper, but same size. Web sites stay the same.
Sign In or Register to comment.