There’s a standard for paper sizes called the ISO 216 international standard, aka A-series paper sizes. You may be familiar with it outside of the American 8.5”x11” letter size. The simplicity, for example, where an A3 sheet is exactly twice the area of A4. One A3 sheet folded in half becomes two A4 sheets. This is intentional: when you fold or divide an A-series sheet exactly in half, the resulting sheets have the same proportions as the prior. The aspect ratio is preserved across all A-series paper sizes.
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.
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.
it's a neat tidbit, but not important in the slightest imo. Probably helps with smoothly transitioning between modes, but that's not been a particular pain from my foldable use.
Android devs have always had to handle different screen sizes. Not the case for iPhone devs e.g. I have a game "Ridiculous Fishing" (from 2013) which is a mess layout-wise on my iPhone because it seemingly hardcoded some pixel values and used percentages for the others. They have a fixed version for Apple Arcade.
The first new resolution for an iPhone was 2012 which also saw the introduction of Auto Layout. The second new resolution was in 2014 which added size classes. It's entirely possible that the 2013 game was built before they actually started caring about this. This is a non-issue for almost all apps you're realistically going to encounter.
>I think they intended to continue "... without changing their aspect ratios"
but the context was "see, you can have two different apps running side by side, each with the same aspect ratio as either of the apps when run in the space of the folded screen. not only the same aspect ratio, but the same dimensions"
the whole A3/4/5 scheme is completely overblown as a feature for consumers. You format a document for A4, ok, but you wouldn't print that document A5 because the fonts would be completely shrunken. nobody does that. We use word processors to format documents for the space we have, and we don't ever print wedding invites on A3 or A4
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.
I think the person you are responding to is not thinking visually. They basically seem (to me) to think reformat-flowed fixes this, and that having the view of a web page alter because you open a book, is "not a bad thing" when you (and I) are of the view, if you maintain the aspect ratio and simply decimate how many pixels are available to show it, the actual "change" in the layout is kept to a minimum WHICH IS THE INHERENT GOOD HERE -the whole point of the A, B and C series is that the scaling function preserves the ratio of sizes of the contents, under the quality change of bigger or smaller fidelity of presentation.
Unless there is some upsight I am missing, I think the OP just "doesn't get it"
The upsight is that they are responding to a point about side by side apps, not a single full screen app on the unfolded screen
I don't think this is a killer logic either. If you consider that the apps were both running, both full screen on the folded state and alternate which is in view, and now can come into view side by side when you open, surely the "good" is that nothing positional in the layout or styling changes, when you move from swipe-and-select to side-by-side.
>If you unfold a square, you don't get two squares.
yes, you do. Two squares will fold together into the space of one square, and the same with 2 A4 sheets of paper, or two 8½x11 sheets of paper, two of them will fold together to make one of them.
I'm not exactly sure what you're trying to say, or what would refute what I said.
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.
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.
> 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.
>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
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.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.
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
You are not answering the parent comment. If the original aspect ratio was a square, making the "full screen" aspect ratio 1:1, then folded out it would have aspect ratio 2:1, fitting two squares side by side.
The sqrt(2) aspect ratio allows a portrait full app to be scaled up to the exactly to the folded out screen. But does anyone want that? You probably want to fit more content on the bigger screen, so some layout necessarily changes.
It's still folding in half, so you can have have one app taking up the whole screen, or two half-screen apps, all with the same aspect ratio.
But its two states. What do you mean “all the way down?”
You can keep folding it and it keeps the same aspect ratio. Scaling becomesa simple matter of multiplying everything by 2^+/-n.
Everyone knows its impossible to fold a smartphone in half more than 7 times.
I failed at 2 times. My folding couch couldn't supply the required pressure beyond that point.
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.
Yes, I do understand the issue with the aspect ratio, which is indeed good design, but parent comment's example is that "you can run two apps side by side" is the tautology. Well, at least since the invention of double-entry bookkeeping and getting rid of Archimedian phone design.
No, you can't, unless the apps are designed for different aspect ratios.
If the outer screen has dimensions X by Y, then you unfold it to have the inner screen with dimensions 2X by Y, which cleanly permits side by side apps at the original dimensions of X by Y. This is true for any ratio between X and Y.
If the user isn't going to be multitasking, then the app needs to additionally support the widescreen dimensions of 2X by Y, and the portrait orientation of Y by 2X. Both of these are so drastically larger overall that aspect ratio is a barely-relevant part of the UI layout problem, because nobody wants every button and text label to be double the size (which would mostly defeat the benefits of having the larger screen for anything other than multitasking).
The inside screen, when divided in two vertically, along the fold line, is exactly the same dimensions as the outer screen. Pretty much by definition. Any folding phone, of any aspect ratio, can run two apps on the interior display side by side.
The issue of the internal screen being the same aspect ratio as the external when rotated is completely separate.
But, the iPhone Duo has a different aspect ratio from a regular iPhone. So your app needs to be designed for multiple aspect ratios anyway.
which they have to be anyway, to support normal iphones and maybe ipads and in many cases a cackle of Android phones too. (but I still think this is brilliant design)
in this thread many people have clearly never developed for iOS
Here's just the screen sizes, not even taking into account actual resolution:
Now, you can leave out a few of those as hopelessly obsolete like the OG iphone, 5, 12 mini, arguably the x, but it's still a pretty wide selection.Good list. And if you support both portrait and landscape, you need to support twice that, and you need to be able to switch on the fly.
But for the apps that don't currently support both orientations, it's possible they don't have support for switching aspect ratio on the fly. This design might help with those apps not completely breaking when folding/unfolding.
Yeah to be fair I'm all for the 1/sqrt(2) aspect ratio, I just think it's funny that it's treated as some kind of holy design constraint when they're all over the map on phone sizing :)
And the extra irony is I'm currently shipping an app that doesn't deal well with different size phones (just pads the edges), heh, so do as I say, not as I do.
The missing piece that makes it not a tautology is that two apps side by side have the same aspect ratio as one app full screen (but 90 degrees rotated)
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.
What app is going to design to flow nicely with a iPhone Duo but not a iPhone 18? Unless Apple has a 1.4:1 ratio across their entire product line, app designers have to deal with variation.
Also, when you rotate the device, the ratio changes. This is especially common when unfolding a foldable.
Folded and unfolded will both be designed for 2 aspect ratios. 1 for Portrait and 1 for Landscape. Opening the fold and rotating 90 deg will give you the larger version while keeping the aspect ratio
"larger version while keeping the aspect ratio" is of minimal benefit. You still need to present a different layout, because eg. any toolbar is going to be a different fraction of the available area depending on whether the app is on the small outer screen or the large inner screen in portrait orientation. Nobody wants a naive 2x scaling of the phone app on their iPad.
The tools can look however the dev wants them to. The utility is for content. It is an aesthetic choice
You don't seem to be engaging with the point, which is that the space available for content after subtracting out the space taken up by other UI elements is not going to have the same aspect ratio folded and unfolded. A real UI doesn't actually get this supposed benefit. Only something like a full screen video player might (depends on what kind of keep-out zone you need for the front camera), and maintaining the same aspect ratio folded vs unfolded for video content isn't particularly helpful when the aspect ratio in question isn't popular so you'll have letterboxing regardless.
You're right, it will only look the same for content where the other UI elements disappear
People keep saying it’s so an app can resize to the full interior screen but none of the marketing photos actually have this. So its hard to say “what a genius masterstroke by Apple.”
Most have the closed screen plus another view. Or the lock screen which is a full photo open and a small section closed.
Im not saying its not possible but it doesn’t seem like that is their intention.
A lot of people will look at this and say. Eh I already have an Ipad and a Imac why do I need a phone with such a large screen.
Their selling point is: Not having to switch from one app to another when Multitasking.
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.
^^This.
Despite all the responsive design tools and declarative layouts to ensure a great layout even on an oddball resolution... the fact is that in practice it's nontrivial, and remember that the companies that make most of the apps you use have finite design and QA budgets. They need to actually use the resolution in question in order to really do a good job of designing for it, and giving them double the work, for a $2000 and up phone which probably won't be super highly adopted, is a recipe for getting apps that end up with layouts that aren't optimized properly on one (or both) of the screen sizes.
My point is largely that the nontrivial work you've described is the norm today. What's being asked for tomorrow is not new. Most apps are already set. Not just because of work Apple does to make it easier for apps to "port" out of the box, but because the multiple sizes that apps are already prepared to handle across iPhones, iPads, and resizeable iPad apps (and to the extent that devs are having React Native handle this, then across Android too).
So it's a lot of work, yes, but it's work that's already been done and that engineering teams already assume in their processes. The future is the same because this has been the status quo for a few years. Whether the Duo has a 2:1 ratio or something slightly different, the apps are at about the same readiness for it.
This is already something every app needs to deal with on iPad, where users can arbitrarily resize apps and windows. And apps that support landscape layout on phones have always needed to support their UI being rendered in different aspect ratios.
At WWDC this year, Apple introduced a tool[0] to let developers arbitrarily resize their simulated iOS device screens.
Flexibility and adaptivity are more front-and-center for iOS devs than ever.
[0]https://developer.apple.com/documentation/xcode/configuring-...
I agree it will feel super nice to go from the front screen to the dual screen and have nothing "move". And similarly it will feel "mildly infuriating" if it doesn't do that.
I also think that I (personally) don't need a front screen and would love to have whatever cost savings or improvements would come if there weren't one. This last sentence is of course a me thing, but I mention it because I think that if people start on the front screen and then open the Duo, they may just want the full screen app or something else entirely. I'm not sure the use case of being in your banking app device folded, deciding midway through flow to open it, and wanting to be in the same UI is really what I want. The part I question is what's going on that step 2 came about—I think it's either you want to go into more depth on it or you're just opening the device the way you would had you not been in your banking app.
The case where I open it to find the app using half the screen and then I have to press something or drag something to make it full screen is not that great (and isn't great today with current iPad window resizing). The best case I can think of for wanting the app in the same size format when I open it is for is something like multitasking, I guess we'll see how that looks or feels and how you get the second app open (or whether it's very common use case anyway).
In general, I've long felt the folding tech is for tablet use cases not for phone use cases. I think Apple's foray (finally) into it more or less validates that. Even though there will be a meaningful number of people buying it to replace their phone, I think this is largely because their phone use is already tablet use case-y (for entertainment especially). I assume many people will also buy it as a(n expensive) tablet replacement in addition to their phone, which is perhaps related to the timing of iPhone Handoff (same SIM on two phones) too.
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.
But you still do need to support different aspect ratios if you want your app to work on any other iPhone models, because many of them differ.
Ok? I didn't say this iphone would solve all aspect ratio issues ever. It can only solve the problem for the space it controls, e.g. itself.
Even if it were true you would also have to design the app for when the device is rotated.
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.
I always forget the US doesn't use A4 etc. (or do you?)
How can you forget? Growing up in Australia, every computer I’ve ever owned has defaulted to “US Letter” as the paper size. (Even when your computer was set to use Australian localisations.) If you didn’t change the setting, you couldn’t print. The printer would complain that it was out of paper, because it didn’t have a tray with the requested us letter paper in it. It was one of those things you always had to check.
I don’t think I saw a “us letter” sized piece of paper until I was an adult.
Must be an Anglosphere thing. Every non-English computer and office software I've ever used correctly defaulted to A4.
Na, was normal in the UK to have A4 too
PC LOAD LETTER
Trail paper was letter format in europe.
Every windows install I've ever done (in Australia) I picked "English (Australia)" when possible, and "English (UK)" before Microsoft provided that localisation option. I've never seen US letter as a default.
That's funny because (living in the US) I've noticed that many printers default to A4. Maybe 20 years ago, one printer at work would think A4 paper was loaded in it after every power-failure and we'd have to go through the menu and change it, or it would require you to clear a warning before it would print anything sized for US letter.
We (normal citizens, businesses, government) mostly use “Letter” size https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_(paper_size) which is slightly shorter than A4
Apparently the reagan admin is responsible for making this our official government document size, and no one knows exactly why this size was chosen.
Like most of your standards. No-one knows why, but it's obviously advantageous to defend it religiously as "better than everyone else"
> it's obviously advantageous to defend it religiously as "better than everyone else
Or laugh at ourselves about it, which is what we normally do.
At a certain point things get so engrained the cost to switch would be huge and the benefits don’t (seem to) outweigh it.
I think switching to metric would make far more sense than this.
I don't know in terms of saved paper because the printer has somehow switched to Letter again I think an argument could be made...
It was just chosen earlier.
Here here! I will walk 500 km for this.
I'm sorry our paper size offends you. Had we have known it would cause such an inferiority complex we never would have done it.
That Wikipedia article was lacking citations so I dug some up with ChatGPT: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-CPUB-101spub9/pdf/GP...
On page 52 (57 of the PDF), there’s a letter dated December 18th 1978 (Carter administration, not Reagan) from the Congressional Joint Committee on Printing adopting 8.5”x11”, effective January 1st 1980 so departments & agencies could use up their 8.5”x10.5” stock.
I also found this article from Time from January 15th 1979 that this was actually slightly cheaper despite using more paper: https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0%2C33009%2...
The government adopted 8.5”x10.5” to save money back in 1921 vs what was already the industry standard of 8.5”x11”, but this ended up backfiring and a General Services Administration report in 1972 recommended switching to 8.5”x11” would reduce by 5% the amount of times a secretary would need a second page. The Joint Committee of Printing estimated this change would save several million dollars.
> On hearing the news, one straight-faced bureaucrat in the Government Printing Office said of his colleagues' reaction to the news: "Some people think that this issue has been inadequately studied."
Apparently the American Forest & Paper Association is under the impression that it was the Reagan administration’s proclamation:
> Oddly enough, the United States used two different sizes - the 8" x 10.5" and the 8.5" x 11". Separate committees came up with separate standards, the 8" x 10.5" for the government and the 8.5" x 11" for the rest of us. Once these committees found out about each other a couple years later, they agreed to disagree until the early 1980's when Reagan finally proclaimed that the 8.5" x 11" was the official standard sized paper.
https://web.archive.org/web/20120220192919/http://www.afandp...
I should have shared this YouTube short:
“The most beautiful invention of all time”
https://youtube.com/shorts/KW_bvB33kBc
Like as a standard? No. But I can go to a stationery shop and buy an A4 notebook.
No, "letter" is the standard
Or "legal".
legal is a standard, but not the standard. letter is the standard
And for writing a letter, ed is the standard editor.
The way this comment was going I was pleasantly surprised to see that the iPhone Duo adhered to the ISO standard.
From Apple's diagonal measurements [1], it looks like the screen is actually a few mm off from the closest ISO 216 sizes.
d = 7.58in = 192.532mm [1]
d^2 = w^2+h^2
Unfolded:
h = d/sqrt(3) = ~111.1584mm
w = h*sqrt(2) = ~157.2017mm
Closest ISO 216 size: A6 (105x148)
Folded:
D = 5.36in = 136.114mm [1]
H = D/sqrt(3) = ~78.5855mm
W = H*sqrt(2) = ~111.1366mm
Closest ISO 216 size: A7 (74x105)
[1] https://www.apple.com/iphone-duo/specs/
I imagine that would be to account for the bezel. The outer display is slightly less than half the size of the inner display, so to get the same aspect ratio they would have to adjust it slightly.
But it's not really the same aspect ratio, is it?
Because one is used predominantly vertically, and the other horizontally.
As long as there's this landscape vs portrait difference, how does the aspect ratio similarity actually help?
If you unfold and have two apps side-by-side, then the aspect ratio (and seemingly size?) is the same as having one app, closed. Seems nice to have.
That doesn't require a special aspect ratio.
I mean that's true for side-by-side foldables in general isn't it? It doesn't require what Apple is saying about the aspect ratio here.
I want to be able to open the phone and get the original closed-state image, but stretched to fit the new total hardware viewport size.
You mean unlike all of the marketing photos?
Yes, that's what I mean. I didn't see the desired mode in any of the marketing materials. This mode would be an effective 1.4x full-screen scaling. To be more specific: if the OS desktop has XxY virtual pixels in closed mode, if the user opens it and rotates 90 degrees, the desktop still has XxY virtual pixels. No new usable real estate. Everything previously seen just gets a bit bigger. I don't expect it to be the desired default for most people, but I have middle-aged eyes.
Most users would prefer to have adequately-sized text and controls regardless of whether they're using the smaller outside screen or the larger inside screen. Who would spend $2k on a dual-screen phone if they expected one of the screens to be mostly unusable for them?
> Most users would prefer to have adequately-sized text and controls regardless of whether they're using the smaller outside screen or the larger inside screen.
Yes they would, and neither of the existing scaling methods works robustly on regular phone sizes, so this is a particularly exciting opportunity.
Also there is an under-recognized problem with touch target sizes. For most touch targets, the common minimums are OK but not great for many people with large fingers and/or minor tremor. With a 1.31 zoom (I did more precise math) you get ~1.7x total increase in pixels in touch targets. Some may read their messages, etc on the outside screen, then flip to expanded for the tricky interactivity.
I really assumed the point of this was going to be to complain about how no phone/phone cases are exactly the same... which is an absolute scourge on society that I assume is continued by Apple here.
Too wide to fit in anyone's pocket, but the ratio is the sine of 45 degrees! Seems like a very non-Apple thing to do, honestly. My jeans don't care about math.
It’s the size of a passport, which does fit in most pockets.
I just put a passport in my pocket, and it did fit. It's a lot thinner, and bends a bit... but yeah, maybe it will. Interesting.
This aspect ratio is sqrt(2) - 1.4142...
It is funny to calculate it from proportions of A3 and A4 formats.
That's not far off the 4:3 of the Samsung Z fold 8. Around 4.24:3.
People mythologising Apple design will never get old
There are compromises to any proportion decision. A tall rectangle is much more natural to hold than a fat rectangle, especially at the size of this device. The user also has to relearn the location of on screen buttons that have always had a consistent location.
Take a sheet of A4 paper. Fold it in half. Fold it in half again. That’s about the size of the Duo inner screen (a little larger actually, A6 is about 13% smaller than the Duo screen).
Surely the next version will unfold twice to reach A3 size
You mean all two states?
But what's the point?
With a ratio of 1:√2, you can cut the sheet in half parallel to its shorter side, and each half keeps the same proportions.
I think the parent comment meant: "What's the point with respect to a phone's screen". As far as I can tell this is irrelevant for a technical screen size and app ratios? As far as I can tell the toothpaste is already out of the tube when it comes to reducing the aspect ratio testing burden for developers but maybe I'm just way too far away from the mobile development space to be aware of the pain points this is solving.
Aspect ratios are very important for UI design.
But why paper's ratio is important?
He is explaining that if you design an app that displays as desired on the outer display (in portrait mode). Then if you display that app to the inner display (also in portrait mode), it will show up exactly the same, just with everything twice as large.
This obviously makes life easier for both users and developers.
It's mathematically the only aspect ratio where this holds and thus you can resize in half and nothing has to move around.
One reason is making it easy to scale things up or down for printing on standard sizes of paper.
Size is even more important for UI design. If you don't think you need to re-design the layout of your app when the screen doubles in size, you shouldn't be doing UI design.
Moreover, app developers for iOS have to support fewer aspect ratios than developers of Android apps. In theory, this allows for more attention to be given to the UI design for each aspect ratio - rather than having to use a spring-style stretch layout.
If I were to guess, this does look like a new ratio to support, but at least it's just 1 instead of 2.
It's to make commercial use of paper mind-numbingly easy in terms of calculation and avoiding waste.
I would imagine this helps a lot having two screens side by side. You can remote into another phone and help a user like an old relative accomplish something. Or run a virtual machine or AI control panel
There is no doubt this is why Apple did this.
I often make the argument about whether metric is "better" being split by "is it better on paper" vs "is it better in day to day life" - and most metric stuff breaks down in the latter, meaning, the non metric systems seem to be perfectly fine in day to day life, but almost always better on paper.
Like Celsius - sounds great on paper, not any better (and in some ways, worse) in day to day weather/temperature.
One of the few exceptions I find is metric paper sizes. It's such a beautiful way of designing the sizes that is not only perfect on paper (pun proudly intended), is also totally practical in real life.
> "is it better in day to day life"
Speak to a carpenter or construction worker from any country with the metric system. Measure anything by simple powers of ten and simple decimal shifts makes life so much easier. Quick, what is half of a yard-length beam less 12 1/16"?
[dead]
Assuming you mean (3 ft / 2) - 12 1/16 inches, it's about 6 inches, which is probably the accuracy you need. But it's exactly 5 15/16 inches, which is also easy to do in your head. Carpenters do it all the time, and even a doctor can.
My head did 36" divided by 2, so 18", minus 12 1/16", so 5 and 15/16". That is harder than working with quarters or fifths of meters, but easier than thirds or sixths of meters.
I don't know which is better. Considering how nothing stops you from doing decimal inches or fractional meters, but people rarely do that, both ways seem fine.
33.3 cm is easy to measure out, and 99.9 cm is exactly 1 mm short of 1 meter, well within tolerances for carpentry. Narrower than the mark left by your pencil.
But also like, we have calculators…
Not sure how Celsius is worse? Its unit is the same of Kelvin, just shifted by 273. 0C is freezing, 100C is boiling. Some people say Fahrenheit is more representative of how people feel, but that is very subjective and biased towards the West and Northern hemisphere.
Celsius in a lab (or in cooking) is perfectly fine.
But as a way to describe daily weather (and thermostats) it's woefully inadequate.
The sum total of "comfortable" temperatures in celsius has to be squeezed between maybe 17 to 24 - why? you never ever use anything above 40 except when talking about people that died from a heatwave.
It's based on the freezing and boiling point of water _at sea level_ which almost none of us ever encounter (whether it's sea level, or the boiling point of water).
Fahrenheit is a much more intuitive scale (again... to describe daily weather or human temperature) - 0 - 100 better models the temperatures we experience daily, and you can intuitively separate into 10s, the way you "feel"
For example...
100s - honey, please, let's move to a cooler place.
90s - uncomfortably hot
80s - hot in the sun, not too bad at night
70s - you'd probably want a light sweater at night
60s - light sweater all the time
50s - medium sweater
40s - sweater, maybe a coat
30s - coat
20s - sweater and coat
10s - why am i living in this region?
0s - honey, please, let's move to a warmer place.
The point is that there's enough resolution to describe the actual human experience with temperature.
For everything else, celsius is perfectly adequate, totally agree.
FYI, none of this has ever made any sense at all to somebody who didn’t grow up with Fahrenheit. Numbers don’t need to go roughly between 40 and 100, and then occasionally 212 and 450.
The difference between 20 C and 20.5 C is not generally noticeable. The difference between 20 and 25 really is.
You’ll just have to face the fact that you feel comfortable with a really weird system that nobody else can see the point of, but it’s what you’re comfortable with. That’s OK, you’re allowed.
It's common here to say something like "this week it's in the 70s." In places that use Celsius, "in the 20s" must be too broad, so do they instead say something like "high 20s"?
Here in a metric country (Australia) they use words like cold, cool, warm, hot.
Otherwise people turn to BOM (Bureau of Meteorology) hour by hour / day by day records and forecasts of temp. and rain with radar cloud coverage - these just use nearest whole Celsius numbers, eg: https://www.bom.gov.au/location/australia/western-australia/...
Almost everything you've conjectured about "how they do it in a metric country" has been wrong; builders don't use a third of a metre, for example, everything is typically in millimetres - 1200, 1600, etc (aka, 1.2 metres, 1.6 metres) along side usages of 1 mm and 5 mm for small tolerances, expansion gaps, etc.
Why would you assume that this particular turn of phrase would be common at all?
People usually just say the temperature they’ve heard in the weather report, without giving a range. If you say “over 20”, people don’t assume “close to 30”, because then you would have said that.
Celsius has plenty of resolution for this; in fact I would say Fahrenheit has too much. You can feel the change of one degree Celsius, you can’t really with Fahrenheit. To illustrate this, not only is your scale in tens, but I often only hear people quote the Fahrenheit temperature in tens. In Celsius we almost always give the whole number, because it makes a difference.
They also accidentally got MPH right for cars. Fastest highway is like 85. 100 is the fastest a normal car can go and also a reasonable point to arrest the driver.
I regularly see people going over 110 MPH on European highways. And no, I don't consider it reasonable to arrest people just because they reached middle RPMs on the top gear of their cheap SUV.
You can make pretty much the same chart for Celsius and it makes as much sense.
40 - scorching hot
35 - super hot
30 - sunny summer day
25 - nice warm weather
20 - nice breezy weather
15 - a little chilly
10 - bring a coat
5 - getting cold
0 - drivers be careful
-5 - is cold
-10 - seriously cold
Etc.
Body temperature also has a nice cutoff point of 37.0C before you start to worry.
> The sum total of "comfortable" temperatures in celsius has to be squeezed between maybe 17 to 24
30° is perfectly comfortable for me.
> biased towards the West and Northern hemisphere
The widest range of temperatures found in any country is the USA. In the continental US alone the temperatures easily exceed -50°C and 50°C in both directions (much colder if you include Alaska). The USA also has the largest temperature change ever recorded in a 24 hour period, at 57°C.
Merits of specific measurement systems aside, the USA is arguably the most representative single country on Earth when it comes to temperature and "how people feel". It has among the hottest, coldest, and most extreme temperature ranges ever recorded.
Yep, highest outdoor temperature ever recorded was in the US. Even if you live in Death Valley, F makes more sense than C.
I really don't get this argument. Why does more extreme temperature mean that F makes more sense than C?
It doesn't mean that. F is better than C for weather no matter what kind of climate you live in.
A few comments up, someone was saying F only makes more sense than C because you live somewhere with specific temperature ranges. But the US has all sorts of ranges.
"Just shifted by 273"
To be clear, I don't have strong feelings. Obviously in a lot of science/engineering fields we use Celsius degrees a lot. But we also us Kelvin absolute scale a lot which would be ridiculous for day-to-day usage.
I am used to Fahrenheit but it is also a finer scale and a nice round number for boiling is largely irrelevant for the vast majority of purposes. Yes, knowing the freezing point of water can be important but memorizing one simple number probably isn't a huge stretch especially that the reality differs based on a number of factors. Arguably, knowing that 0 degrees F means fricking cold is sort of a higher latitudes bias but I'm not sure the degree to which Celsius simplifies.
The problem with "0F is fricking cold" is that so is 5F, and 10F, and even 15F to many people; and the difference between, say, -10F and +10F is pretty much none for practical purposes. Whereas knowing whether it was +1C or -1C during the night can have major impact on road safety.
With literally everything else about those two scales being a matter of preference and getting used to, this is the only objective difference with real world impact. Very tiny impact but still. Focusing on this one thing is the only way to answer the question of which is better with anything other than "whichever you're used to, it doesn't matter whatsoever". And if you focus on this one thing, then by the slightest of margins, Celsius is objectively better.
> Its unit is the same of Kelvin, just shifted by 273
You mean shifted by 273.15 because Kelvin doesn't have tidy fixed points at the freezing and boiling point of water, unlike Celsius and Fahrenheit.
Celsius and Fahrenheit are both utilitarian systems. Kelvin is the scientific system. Arguments about the relative utility of C° and F° are subjective and neither is particularly optimal for science.
Celsius isn't granular enough. Many digital thermostats will even add decimal places if you switch to Celsius mode that aren't present in Fahrenheit.
Secondly, the highest temperature ever recorded outdoors was 56.7˚C. So no matter where you are, from that to 99 is wasted.
I have a kitchen thermometer for making caramel (can't remember exact number but ballpark is 200C). I occasionally use my oven at 250C. My wife fires her ceramics in a kiln at around 1000C. I don't feel like I'm "wasting" anything here.
> Celsius isn't granular enough.
This argument would be reasonable if we didn't have to cut inches into 16 or 32 parts to approach decent granularity. At least we use decimal for cutting Celsius up...
As you said, it's occasional. Temperature describes weather more often than anything else. And there's no advantage to Celsius for the ovens either.
Yup, because neither has significant advantage over the other. The only place where Celsius imo has a slight advantage comes from how often the phrase "below freezing" is used when talking about weather. That to me suggests that 0C/32F has some special significance, and thus makes Celsius a bit more elegant because it acknowledges that point. The granularity doesn't matter too much, as long as we agree to use decimals for ease of calculations, instead of using 1/32nds or some other barleycorns.
Only Americans feel this way about Celsius. The only downside is that Celsius requires 3 digit precision to really accurately characterize what temperature a room feels. I would be willing to bet humans are woefully inadequate at knowing the temperature of the room they are in anyways
I put more details here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49635310
I do concede the overwhelming majority of people that argue that one is better than the other (both ways) are basically just arguing "the thing I grew up with is better" - because when you probe further, there isn't really any supporting argument, just "I understand this system better because I grew up with it" but it's equally vacuous coming from people who grew up with Celsius.
I came to the US when I was 12, so I grew up with Celsius but didn't pay attention to the weather as a young child. But still, I've lived in both systems.
I dunno I’m in a room and guessed that the temperature was 72°F and sure enough it’s 72° in here.
As an American, I find Fahrenheit much better for ambient temperature and body temperature, but I hate seeing it for things like melting points of materials and the like. I'm always thrown off by statements like 800-degree pizza ovens, because once you get above 500°F it is out of the realm of everyday measurements, and I have trouble mentally separating the values for metals melting in °C and "gee whiz" temperatures in °F.
All scientific and engineering use should probably eschew the customary measurements, even in the news. For example, in aviation, they use °C now unless your airplane is very old. Unfortunately, in the US we still use inches of mercury for pressure, both knots and MPH but never km/h or m/s, etc.
If it makes you feel better, in Poland we still use millimeters of mercury.
Celsius is not really related to the metric system. It's just a temperature scale the entire world (minus the US) agreed to use.
The only connection off the top of my head is that mL of water increases by 1˚C if heated with 1 calorie. Which is annoying because 1 Calorie is 1000 calories.
Why do you think Celsius is worse in day to day life?
Because in Celsius, 0 lets you know the water outside will likely be frozen and 100 lets you know the water in your pot is likely boiling. This is utterly useless information.
It is nowhere near as useful day to day as knowing 0°F means a very specific saltwater brine mixture will likely be frozen, and 90°F is kind of as hot as your insides. Or 96. Or 98.6 as the third revision decided.
I find F way more intuitive for weather. The larger scale helps. 100 is hot. 0 is quite cold. Boiling point is irrelevant. 32 freezing is the only thing that feels arbitrary.
Yeah and freezing point is whatever because that moves anyway and also doesn't say a lot about whether or not there will be snow
in celsius:
50 hurts to the touch, your chip has likely broken and given off its black smoke 30 is good for swimming in cold water >25 is worth worrying about sun stroke. make sure to drink a lot of water 24-26 is a nice summer day 18-22 is comfortable room temperature >15 is good enough shorts weather 0-10 needs at least a light jacket <0 you have to be attentive about frost bite, but not worried -5 either wants gloves or good pockets -15 wants a sweater and jacket < -15 you should probably plug in your car -10 - -25 is good downhill skiing weather -20 - -27 is right cold, full winter gear: toque, scarf, mittens, thick socks, the whole kit and kaboodle, but still chic -30 - -40: ski version of the full winter gear, including snow pants, double socks, and good boots. both your warmest sweater and ski jacket
----
its really just what you grew up with that will make sense.
like, wtf is 72 and 54 and mid 80s? i have no backing reference to put them into scale, even after living in the states for a decade. 500, 275, 425, 150 do make sense in F for me because thats what ovens list
>like, wtf is 72 and 54 and mid 80s
Exactly what their relation to 0 and 100 would imply. Middle, ~75 percentile, 80+ percentile.
I find that increments of 1C are too small to be useful in daily life but increments of 5C are quite big. As a result, you can't really round degrees Celsius to a multiple of 5 whereas full precision integer temperatures are too precise. So for example 15C and 17C feel like different temperatures, but each 1C step from 15C to 16C to 17C is not really useful.
In contrast, it's very reasonable to round temperature to increments of 5 degrees Fahrenheit. So for example 58F and 60F are basically the same temperature as far as my perception is concerned.
It's literally does not matter in day to day life. In the end you get to X degrees is cold, Y degrees is perfect and Z degrees is hot regardless of C or F.
I grew up using C and now I'm using F, if I move to a country that uses C, I will switch again. Its meaningless.
This is the correct take. The better system is the one that you have intuition in - just keep using that one if building up intuition in a different system is not worth the cost to you. At least when it comes to temperature. :)
What are you talking about? The same can be said about 59F (15°C) and 60F (15.56°C)
"One fahrenheit increment doesn't feel like anything"
At least Celsius are grounded in reality, should I be worried about ice? Just check if temperature is below 0°C. But hey you may need to check if your solution of water, ice and ammonium chloride is frozen, so I just need to check if below 0F. That's probably something you do often right?
theyre both grounded in reality because the represent real temperature conditions.
theyre both just arbitrary degrees though, since 0 isnt actually 0. they both have better alternatives too - Kelvin and Rankin. your criticism about freezing applies to celsius too. freezing is at a certain pressure and temperature, so both the 100 and 0 celsius only sometimes describe boiling and freezing
I can sense 0.5C changes when I set my AC at home.
1990s LCD HVAC thermostats that didn’t go down to half degrees had better precision when set to °F vs °C.
There's also this famous comparison chart meme: https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/t0lnjt/fahr...
...making the point that Fahrenheit's 0-100 range is better suited to normal day to day measurements than 0-100 Celsius. The numbers that feel easiest to communicate with are scaled nicely relative to the range of temperatures you most often want to communicate about.
i assume most of it is a joke?
> It is more precise. Fahrenheit has more frequent degrees, allowing for greater resolution with analog thermometers.
this is really about the graduation and size of the thermometer? you can print a useful line pitch as you like, and have it represent what you want, where thats a 0.25C, 3F, 10c or whathaveyou.
everyday temperatures are pretty well centered around 0C, half the year above, the other half below, and the 10, 20, 30, and 40 increments feel quite similar to each other in severity of the season. +30 is damn hot and -30 is damn cold. +/-10 is all mildly warm or cold, with +/-20 really being where you do seasonal acitivites like swimming or skiing.
as far as western units go, C fits fantastically for the the traditional western culture with 4 idealized seasons. I could see F being better for places outside the idealized west - eg. the american south/sun belt, the PNW, southeast asia, south america, a lot of africa, etc where the seasons are different
I like how the comments are like "um acxshaully as a Canadian [citation needed] [you forgot </s>](xkcd/234234)"
Yes we all know USA is the only country in the world.
sounds useless and ridiculous
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I mean, I wouldn't hate it if they got into cars
An Apple Miata is the dream. Take the design team from the MX-5 NA days and marry it to Apple's design team. Both are exemplar in engineering and the result has me drooling as I day dream here.
Apple design is the polar opposite of the MX-5. The MX-5 is a masterpiece of mechanical design and function. Apple makes minimalist purely electronic fashion gadgets that are highly form over function and remove user agency.
The Miata is good at one thing which is being fun. It’s not good at being a car. Apple’s devices meet most people’s functional needs very well.
What does it mean to not be good at being a car?
It’s a terrific car if you want a great handling convertible at a low price point. As you said, it’s fun.
It’s not good at moving a lot of people or things, or going really fast, or lasting for 500k miles, or being as cheap as possible. Other cars are good at some of those things, but what is the Miata missing that is otherwise required to be a ‘good’ car?
I imagine it would be held together with glue and tiny screws.
And the charging port will be on the bottom.
And it'd be a nonstandard charger
This has worked fine for Lotus products such as the Elise
Stickshift option instantly gone, with a recall to swap existing manuals to automatic
There's already Ferrari Luce
I'm very glad those Apple Car rumors didn't materialize
Then you'd need special apple fuel, special apple wipers fluid, special apple tyres…