Other operating systems automatically take care of resizing the content for different screen sizes (mac OS, windows, android, x11).
It is only iOS that has problems with screen size fragmentation.
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iPad Pro [Crowdsourcing] Non-Optimized Content on the new iPad Pro (10.5" + 12.9")
- Thread starter NightWingz
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Other operating systems automatically take care of resizing the content for different screen sizes (mac OS, windows, android, x11).
It is only iOS that has problems with screen size fragmentation.
The non-optimized Apps look bad (but not terrible) on the 10.5" iPad Pro. The texts and images appear more blurry. The difference is clear when you use an optimized App. I can imagine how terrible they would look on the 12.9" iPad Pro. Whether the app is optimized or not can be measured by the length of the battery icon on the top right corner (non-optimized are larger).
From my knowledge, Non-optimized Apps include (date 7/3/2017):
Facebook
Google Maps
Amazon
Flickr
Optimized Apps include:
Youtube
Dropbox
Notability
Lightroom
Skype
Office Suite
From my knowledge, Non-optimized Apps include (date 7/3/2017):
Google Maps
Amazon
Flickr
Optimized Apps include:
Youtube
Dropbox
Notability
Lightroom
Skype
Office Suite
Current non-optimized apps that I see now (4/3/2017)
- Facebook
- Google Maps
- Amazon Kindle
- LINE Messenger
- Netflix
- Google Inbox
- Calendars 5
- LinkedIn
- Google Maps
- Amazon Kindle
- LINE Messenger
- Netflix
- Google Inbox
- Calendars 5
That is exactly what I fear... That getting the 10.5" would end up being an INFERIOR experience due to the non-optimized blurry apps, as the 9.7" remains the dominant and primary resolution developers go for.
Apple could do more to drive developers to optimize and update their apps.
Simply the threat to remove any non-optimized apps by a year's time (as an example) would do the trick.
But look for more non-action on Apple's part. As long as they get their percentage revenue from the App store, they will take a back seat.
As said earlier, I am in no rush to buy an iPP...it needs more before I will jump in.
This is a worthy thread.
Simply the threat to remove any non-optimized apps by a year's time (as an example) would do the trick.
But look for more non-action on Apple's part. As long as they get their percentage revenue from the App store, they will take a back seat.
As said earlier, I am in no rush to buy an iPP...it needs more before I will jump in.
This is a worthy thread.
This is the primary reason I'm not in a hurry to switch from the Pro 9.7 to Pro 10.5. It's also why I didn't jump on the OG iPad and Pro 12.9 right away. App support (or lack thereof).
I see Netflix as optimized on the 12.9. Is it on the 10.5 that you're referring to?
Yet many of you guys complain that Android tablets have none tablet optimized applications...imo they all work just fine due to Androids resizing technique natively in its software and there is really no need for any heavy optimizations. If it works and has the necessary functions, it's fine to me.
Nah no worries. I assumed afterwards it must be as I noticed google maps also is native on the 12.9.
I'm surprised some are native on 12.9 but not 10.5. Guess they're not using auto layout?
It's here and it's amazing! Just checked, comiXology and comiXology-powered apps support 12.9 but it doesn't do split-view. Now excuse me, I'm off to download a bunch of comics.
The thing is, before Apple started fragmenting the screen sizes, they also provided the tools needed to do resizing. They provided them in iOS 6, even. They made more improvements in iOS 8.
The problem here is that Apple made both automatic resizing for the screen, and split screen, an opt-in process. And a lot of developers are still using fixed layouts, simply choosing not to opt-in to either feature. Some even opt into split screen, without fixing the layout issues their app has, resulting in the garbage that is Dark Sky and Reddit in split screen.
Part of it is that to do good adaptive UI, you need to do work. That's true on both Android and iOS when working with both tablets and phones. Android has had problems in the past with lazy developers doing poor auto layout and getting bad results on tablets that wasted a ton of space, even if it did scale. iOS developers get lazy by doing fixed layout, despite auto layout being an option for 5 years. And while Apple did ship the iPad on iOS 5, then introduce auto layout in iOS 6, they've been better about introducing certain things in the OS a year or so ahead of the hardware that needs them if developers have to adapt. An example was iOS 8 getting better auto layout that if you adopted, made split screen "free" for you when iOS 9 landed next year, once you toggled the flag.
In general, the take away I get between the two platforms is that when devs get lazy:
- Android: It'll scale, but it just may not be a great experience.
- iOS: It'll be a tablet optimized experience, but it will not be a great experience on new Apple hardware that makes some change (screen size, retina, etc).
Yeah, no. I suspect the developers of these apps looked at the cost of doing auto layout vs just detecting the screen resolution and fudging it, and decided on the latter. There's still many who tend to think Apple will avoid breaking them, when it is clear those days are over.
Thanks to everyone who contributed. The main table on the first post has been updated. Keep it coming, guys!
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comiXology is such a popular app, that they should update it though; with all the resources the company has.
Chunky Comic Reader already supports split-view.
I realized usually its the small agile developers who adopt new features fast for users. The big companies who regularly makes their app more bloated over time (with no relevant/non-transparent change logs!), are slow or refuse to adopt new features. It's so frustrating.
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It's here and it's amazing! Just checked, comiXology and comiXology-powered apps support 12.9 but it doesn't do split-view. Now excuse me, I'm off to download a bunch of comics.
comiXology is such a popular app, that they should update it though; with all the resources the company has.
Chunky Comic Reader already supports split-view.
I realized usually its the small agile developers who adopt new features fast for users. The big companies who regularly makes their app more bloated over time (with no relevant/non-transparent change logs!), are slow or refuse to adopt new features. It's so frustrating.
There's also a different attitude the bigger a developer gets. Once you get accounting involved, there's more demand for the cost/benefit analysis of doing certain work. And you start prioritizing work based on that analysis.
And things like split screen can be put to the side in favor of things that drive "customer growth" or "customer monetization". Something like comiXology is being driven by metrics like attach rate (how many comics a customer buys), and number of customers who buy comics in a given time period. I doubt their metrics even account for the sort of touchy-feely thing that customer satisfaction on a single platform a feature like split screen would bring.
A smaller developer on the other hand? They tend to live and die on the feedback and customer reactions. And they tend to be on a single platform more frequently. So platform-specific features can be a win for them (rather than a maintenance drain), and they tend not to have the apparatus needed to collect and process user data to do the sort of user-based testing a larger dev can do via these metrics.
Independent iPad developer chiming in. If an app already supports the 12.9" resolution, it might launch at native resolution right out of the box on any new iPad, even the 10.5" one.
When I got my 10.5" iPad Pro, I was delighted that I had to do zero work to update my app for the resolution. I didn't even need to upload a new binary, the app worked right of the box.
How can that be? The answer is twofold:
I had to start making use of launch storyboards to support the resolution of the iPad Pro 12.9" - it didn't look like the old method of providing launch images with just the right resolution worked at all for that screen size. (Not 100% sure though.)
Long story short: If an app already supports the 12.9" resolution, it might launch at native resolution right out of the box on any new iPad, even the 10.5" one. Even the app's layout has a good chance of being correct, as the new resolution is between the two old ones, so it's not unexpectedly large or small. (This might be slightly more problematic when iPads come out with resolutions outside those bounds - e.g. a screen even larger than 12.9" - but that hasn't happened so far.)
(If you want to verify this yourself, you can download a free version of my app and see that it launches at the 10.5" native resolution without scaling, even though it was last updated before that iPad came out. This is not meant as an ad for my app, just to illustrate this behavior.)
When I got my 10.5" iPad Pro, I was delighted that I had to do zero work to update my app for the resolution. I didn't even need to upload a new binary, the app worked right of the box.
How can that be? The answer is twofold:
- Auto Layout (or mostly code-based layout, as in my case) certainly helps in making your layout adapt your content to new screen sizes.
- But that's not sufficient. Each app needs to tell the operating system that it supports the current resolution. This used to be done by including a launch screen image with exactly the correct resolution. iOS would detect that launch screen image and deduct that your app was optimized for this resolution.
I had to start making use of launch storyboards to support the resolution of the iPad Pro 12.9" - it didn't look like the old method of providing launch images with just the right resolution worked at all for that screen size. (Not 100% sure though.)
Long story short: If an app already supports the 12.9" resolution, it might launch at native resolution right out of the box on any new iPad, even the 10.5" one. Even the app's layout has a good chance of being correct, as the new resolution is between the two old ones, so it's not unexpectedly large or small. (This might be slightly more problematic when iPads come out with resolutions outside those bounds - e.g. a screen even larger than 12.9" - but that hasn't happened so far.)
(If you want to verify this yourself, you can download a free version of my app and see that it launches at the 10.5" native resolution without scaling, even though it was last updated before that iPad came out. This is not meant as an ad for my app, just to illustrate this behavior.)
I found this thread because I've noticed that GarageBand and Music Memos seem to run scaled up on the new 2017 IPad Pro, but work fine in the 2015 model. Anyone else noticed this? All the other Apple apps seems to work fine.
Thanks for your insight.
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Not even Apple's own apps are optimized for the Pro models? SMH.
It's possible they did a hack that checked for the specific iPad model to enable the support. Something Apple itself says you shouldn't do. If so, I'm LMAO at them for that gaffe.
Logic Pro X just have an update, so GarageBand soon to support 10.5 native resolution.