14 DAY TRIAL // Judging by the rumors that have come out and all the leaks from the supply chain, we know the next iPhone will come out in two different screen sizes. There will be a 4.7-inch diagonal display and a slightly larger iPhone phablet sized at 5.5 inches diagonal.
The rumors however, do not reveal anything about the next iPhone 6 and iPhone 6L resolutions. Apple has been predictable so far in regards to screen pixel counts, but a larger 4.7-inch or 5.5-inch display cannot fit in the same game as before.
Apple blogger and podcaster extraordinaire, John Gruber posted a rather long, but well thought rant on this subject. He makes the case of not actually knowing the real resolution Apple will use, but he rather counts on mathematical educated guesses to see what the next iPhone will go with.
John Gruber believes the 4.7-inch display will sport a screen that is 1334 by 750 which goes to 326 PPI and the larger 5.5-inch display is going to have a resolution of 2208 x 1242, therefore the PPI count will be at 461. Also he believes the smaller iPhone will be double the retina resolution from iPhone 5s and the larger phone will be three times the resolution of the current model.
He explains the figures are based on a all the rumors about screen size and the fact that Apple may still take the 16:9 aspect ratio for both displays.
When it comes to what Apple may do with the stuff on the screen, Gruber thinks the Cupertino tech giant will not increase the touch targets and make everything bigger, but rather add more icons on the home page and showing more content in other apps.
Developer Steve Troughton Smith has used the Xcode simulator to generate the new possible resolutions. The result seems to be OK for apps like Maps, Calendar or Photos, but it looks weird in the Settings.app. This goes to show that Apple has to think about menus and other apps that have their contents left or right aligned. That includes the Phone app or Messages.
Apple prides itself in overthinking these things and especially the way an interface looks on iOS. That's why the regular-sized iPad and iPad mini show the same number of apps per row on the home screen, but the touch targets are bigger on the iPad Air.
iOS has been pretty intuitive so far and changing all of that just for the sake of creating a larger phone may turn against Apple because both users and developers will not be happy. The latter will even have to re-scale their apps and that is counterproductive if it is not done automatically by the iOS, like it happened with the switch from the iPhone 4S screen to the one for iPhone 5.
