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gtr
Inspiring
Apr 19, 2012 12:56 PM UTC
Question

iOS: Thoughts on scaling down Retina content for iPad 2?

I don't have a non-Retina device to test on (yet. Still early in development on my universal first app), so I was wondering if anyone else is considering scaling Retina content down 50% for non-Retina devices? (iPod Touch 3rd Gen, iPhone 3GS & iPad 2) This method would sure be nicer than having to package a bunch of extra images!

Testing for appearance in Flash CS 5.5, this scaling method seems to work fine, with the exception of small text; (button labels) doesn't look that great. Anybody have some insight or experience with scaling text on these screens? Will it look better on the actual device or should I import native resolution non-Retina elements for the smaller text?

Thanks for helping an iOS noob!

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5 replies

gtrAuthor
Inspiring
Apr 19, 2012 8:06 PM UTC

Update since I played with this some more today...

I decided to create new tab/nav bar with buttons at standard (non-Retina display) resolution and call that in for non-Retina devices, while scaling down my app pages 50%. (Larger text seems to look fine when scaled down) I dropped the font on my button labels from Helvetica Neue "medium" to "regular" as well as checking "use device fonts." Both actions seemed to bring a marked improvement on legibility for the small font size (11). Hopefully this will all check out when I get to test it on a real non-Retina device, but I do hear Apple's hardware does a pretty good job at scaling.

Hope this helps someone...

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Applauz78
Inspiring
Apr 19, 2012 1:30 PM UTC

gtr,

I'm working on an iPad app right now that I built only using retina ready graphics.

What I did is use a stage size of 1024 x 768. 

Just size all graphics down by 50% and make sure smoothing is turned on.

I find that JPG's dont work well.  

As for fonts...  as long as you embed the fonts .. they look great.

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Colin Holgate
Colin Holgate
Inspiring
Apr 19, 2012 1:34 PM UTC

It shouldn't matter whether the image was JPEG or PNG, it's whether smoothing is selected in the library info.

Bitmap text can look a bit crunchy when scaled down. In some cases I have had an alternate image that shows if the screen is a small one.

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gtrAuthor
Inspiring
Apr 19, 2012 1:56 PM UTC

Thanks guys,

What about replacing bitmap text with static text fields using device fonts? Would that make much of a difference when scaled down?

@ Colin. Yes, my next test was to import a native resolution, non-Retina tab bar and keep everything else as-is (scaled down versions of Retina content).

My goal is not to skimp too much on the non-Retina device quality; there are a lot of iPad 2's in the field, and if the iPad "Mini" rumors hold true, it looks like we'll having to deal with non-Retina support for a long while...

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