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Comment by wtallis

18 hours ago

You said: "If you unfold a square, you don't get two squares."

In the context of this discussion, it is reasonable to assume that any "square" available to be unfolded is something approximately like the folding phone, consisting of two layers joined by a hinge. When you unfold that, you go from having a square to having a rectangle equivalent to two adjacent squares, and usable as two adjacent squares.

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wtallis

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anamexis  18 hours ago

I see. I agree (obviously, it's a fact), but in the context of this discussion about aspect ratios and why the golden ratio would be relevant to this situation, it is reasonable to assume that the point here is that a full-screen, unfolded image would scale exactly to a half-screen/folded image with no change in aspect ratio.

  • wtallis  15 hours ago

    > it is reasonable to assume that the point here is that a full-screen, unfolded image would scale exactly to a half-screen/folded image with no change in aspect ratio.

    Sure, but aside from being interesting from a mathematical standpoint, there are no practical implications from that fact. When the user unfolds the phone and rotates it by 90 degrees, the fact that they're left with about the same aspect ratio (modulo whatever changes with status bars, etc.) means very little for UI design in light of the much more important fact that the screen doubled in size and thus the application's layout should be using the extra screen space to show more information, and should not assume that a majority of the screen is easily reachable by a thumb.

  • fsckboy  17 hours ago

    >it is reasonable to assume that the point here is that a full-screen

    wrong. you answered under the context of yunwal's comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49630931#49634166

      > 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.

    which is talking about the case of two separate apps running side-by-side (unfolded), as was shown in one of the pictures of the device.

    • anamexis  16 hours ago

      Right, which is under the context of hbarka’s comment

      > The iPhone Duo is designed with this in mind. The aspect ratio any way you view it, folded or open, is preserved. Apple design knows a thing or two.

      which is talking about the aspect ratio being preserved in the open and folded/half modes.

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