How will current apps handle the screen resolutions?

[Mio_Ray]

At least 3 of the new phones will have a higher screen resolutions compared to the good old 800x480. How will the current apps be shown on these phones?

And how will new apps handle it? Is there something to be seen in the SDK's (if released yet)

Sent from my Lumia 800 using Board Express

 

[Heron_Kusanagi]

I could be wrong, but the apps will be scaled up accordingly. No black bars.

 

[power5]

I could be wrong, but the apps will be scaled up accordingly. No black bars.

Not sure how that is possible. Current WP7.5 resolution is 15:9. 1280x720 is 16:9, 1280x768 is 15:9. So its easy to scale up to the nokia. Not sure how to scale up to the HTC 8x or samsung Ativ-s without bars.

 

[GoodThings2Life]

It's apparently a feature of WP8 and the UI design... Microsoft demonstrated it briefly, but I don't recall which presentation. That's not to say that poorly designed applications with static graphics won't need to be updated or have problems, however, applications that follow the design rules should require minimal updates.

 

[brmiller1976]

It won't look terrible. WP's display engine is vector-based for most things. WP will scale up or down so long as the resolution is supported by WP itself.

Back in 2010 and 2011, Microsoft even planned to support lower-end WPs with 320 x 480 screens that would simply "downscale" from hi-res to low-res screens. (Fortunately, those 320 x 480 displays never arrived).

 

[AngryNil]

Not sure how that is possible. Current WP7.5 resolution is 15:9. 1280x720 is 16:9, 1280x768 is 15:9. So its easy to scale up to the nokia. Not sure how to scale up to the HTC 8x or samsung Ativ-s without bars.

For majority of apps, easy. You just elongate the content frame.

The will scale but look terrible.

Have you been on your WP hate campaign so long that you've forgotten that Metro is heavily text-based? Text can be effortlessly upsized.

 

[Heron_Kusanagi]

I believe it was with the original WP8 announcement back in June.

 

[mparker]

The WP7 UI layer is based on Silverlight, which is itself based on WPF, which is completely scalable. It's actually pretty hard to write an app with these APIs that *isn't* scalable. This isn't quite the case for games, which use a different API.

Big changes to the screen aspect ratio can cause usability issues however (WP7 won't reflow the UI elements to fit the screen) which is why a rotatable WP7 app needs different layouts for vertical and horizontal orientations, and why a Win8 app needs separate layouts for full-screen, 2/3 screen, and 1/3 screen sizes.

 

[thed]

Take a look at this. Scroll almost halfway down, there's an image that shows how current apps will scale.

Windows Phone 8 Application platform detailed | MobileTechWorld

A lot of other interesting things there as well.

 

[SnailUK]

Take a look at this. Scroll almost halfway down, there's an image that shows how current apps will scale.

Windows Phone 8 Application platform detailed | MobileTechWorld

A lot of other interesting things there as well.

Very good link, does a great job of explaining the wp8 new functionality.