Comment by jeswin
14 hours ago
It was useful for paper because it helped save time in cutting, folding, printing etc. None of that matters for a phone.
This is such a non issue given that iOS developers already have so many resolutions to test.
14 hours ago
It was useful for paper because it helped save time in cutting, folding, printing etc. None of that matters for a phone.
This is such a non issue given that iOS developers already have so many resolutions to test.
> None of that matters for a phone.
Of course it does. They show the most basic example right on the page, which is that you can side-by-side full screen apps.
Hm, my folding phone doesnt have this aspect ratio and I can still do that.
I think they intended to continue "... without changing their aspect ratios".
I.e. an aspect ratio of Sqrt(2)is the only one where the inner screen (full) and inner screen (half) match, and they seem to have tried to make the outer screen share a nearly identical aspect ratio too. I guess it's a nice consideration for more consistency in layouts for apps targeting the device. Not sure I'm particularly excited about that myself though.
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This would matter for bigger versions of the same thing. For side-by-side, the aspect ratio is unimportant since you naturally unfold to have two of them.
Not sure if I'm misunderstanding you, but of course the aspect ratio is important. If you unfold a square, you don't get two squares.
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this isn't great design, it's tautology. of course the phone open is twice the size of it closed. it would be hard to make it otherwise.
You have to understand 1:√2. It’s not merely folding in half. The test is the folded half has to be the same ratio as the parent. It’s same ratio all the way down.
“The mathematical brilliance of A*”
https://youtu.be/oQfzSt5bLVs
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It isn't just twice the size.
Both sides have the same aspect ratio as the whole screen.
> this isn't great design, it's tautology. of course the phone open is twice the size of it closed.
Well, it sounds obvious now, but before Archimedes, ancient engineers split their screens 60-40, so the full screen wasn't twice the size of either side.
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first - it's not hard to make. Outside screen size doesn't have to be half of the open screen.
second - main idea is about proportions, if you want to design apps that seamlessly transfer from one screen to another they have to have the same proportions of the sides. This is not a given and depends on the height and width.
If you take iPhone 18 Pro resolution : 2,622 x 1,206 doubling it would make the screen with 2,622 x 2,412 - almost a square screen.
They chose to have the folded phone to have 1.4:1 aspect ratio which is consistent when folded and when unfolded.
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The difference is that it has the same aspect ratio folded and unfolded. If you look at other folding phones the inside screen is twice the area, but the shape of the phone is different. 1 : sqrt(2) is the only ratio where you can fold one side in half and the ratio stays 1:sqrt(2). Any other ratio of sides and the inside and outside have different ratios. Therefore, things have to move around, or scale.
Yes, but 1:√2 keeps the ratio even when you rotate the screen vertically. A folded 1:1 screen becomes 2:1 when "unfolded" and the area doubles, so you can go from showing one 1:1 window to two 1:1 windows side by side. But when rotated to a vertical orientation, you can't just scale that 1:1 window to double its size. With 1:√2 you can.
But apps can just rejigger into widths that fit. It would be more of an issue back when mobile sites were first becoming responsive and we pragmatically chose 2 or 3 media query widths to serve different layouts and then applied the same thinking to mobile apps. Of course the initial mobile apps, particularly on iPhone, stuck to just one and later just a few sizes themselves. As there was a wider range we did things more responsively on a continuum.
I still think the broader point of there being design reasons to hit these ratios stands and is great. I just think the idea that it needed to be precisely twice the width so apps can fit full-sized doesn't hold too much because there isn't really a "full size" notion. Or if there is, the full-size is probably the double width one. If it wasn't exactly twice the width, most apps are already built to fit into varying iPhone/mobile screen widths.
App rejiggering is not an exact science, and is often poorly done.
Even if apps transition well between aspect ratio / screen size breakpoints, there is a cognitive load to maintain 2+ UI configurations.
Preserving aspect ratios eliminates these issues. It'll make every app better.
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Apps already work on Apple devices with many different aspect ratios.
This way you don't need to design your app to work with different aspect ratios, because it's always the same.
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Easier to support one more aspect-ratio then two.
Unless these things start selling like hot-cakes (unlikely at the price) a lot of developers just might not bother.
Proportions absolutely matter for displays, both for aesthetic comfort and for efficient scaling. Most of the world uses ISO216 and its pleasing 1:sqrt(2) proportions. Leveraging aspect ratios with wide acceptance is a win both psychologically and for graphic designers.
The algebra proving why "halving long side H and flipping maintains aspect ratio" implies a ratio of 1:sqrt(2):
Our world is full of artifacts from a previous ages and using some of those as standards is useful/convenient.
We still use QWERTY keyboards even though our highly futuristic typewriters don't jam anymore. We type commands on tty teleTypeWriter, we save files with buttons using a floppy disk icon, etc etc.