Rumors of Apple moving from 4-inch to 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch is widely reported. KGI Securities’ Ming-Chi Kuo recently reported that Apple’s 4.7″ iPhone 6 would have a 1334×750 Retina display with a pixel density of 326 pixels per inch. What is also obvious is that this transition could lead to fragmentation or headache for developers given the different screen resolutions.
Macrumors has come up with a theory that suggests Apple has already got plans to address this issue – AutoLayout.
According to the report, Apple has been encouraging developers to use AutoLayout in designing their apps:
Auto Layout is a system that lets you lay out your app’s user interface by creating a mathematical description of the relationships between the elements. You define these relationships in terms of constraints either on individual elements, or between sets of elements. Using Auto Layout, you can create a dynamic and versatile interface that responds appropriately to changes in screen size, device orientation, and localization.
Auto Layout is built into Interface Builder in Xcode 5, and is available to apps targeted at either iOS and OS X. Auto Layout is enabled by default when you create a new project. If you have an existing project that doesn’t use Auto Layout, read “Adopting Auto Layout.
Basically, AutoLayout paves the way for apps to more easily adapt to changes in display sizes and resolution in the future, the report said.
