Report: iOS 6 Accommodates Rumored Longer iPhone 5 Display

Skeptics of the purported iPhone 5 prototypes have suggested that the longer display and stretched aspect ratio would cause mayhem in the app world. But new evidence shows that iOS 6 can accommodate the elongated screen.

Among people who are skeptical of the iPhone 5 sightings first released by 9to5Mac, there tends to be two camps: the “I don’t like it” camp” and the “it cannot be done” camp. Those in the former group are acting on personal preference, and imagining that Apple would not dare elongate the iPhone 5's display on account of their not liking the idea. But for the latter, many say that the likelihood of an altered aspect ratio for the iPhone 5 is low, since a chance in aspect ratio would run the risk of fragmenting the all-important app market that already exists for iOS devices.

A new report from 9to5Mac today, however, indicates that there are clues within iOS 6 beta that suggests it can handle the change in aspect ratio, thus bridging the gap between the old iPhone display dimensions and the new 640 x 1136 display rumors that continue to persist.

9to5Mac reports that:

Thanks to some tweaks to the iOS Simulator application that is included in the iOS development tools, we were able to run the simulator at the rumored next-generation iPhone display resolution of 640 x 1136. We did this running both the current public release of iOS 5.1 and the upcoming iOS 6.0 The iOS 5.1 simulator displayed the home screen with a stretched set of four rows of icons. On the other hand, iOS 6 displayed five complete rows – as our sources said Apple was testing for taller iPhone displays.

To be sure, skeptics will point to the fact that this test is far from being completely empirical, considering that the experiment was done by tweaking the iOS simulator. It very well may be that the simulator was altered to give 9to5Mac the results they are looking for — a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. For example, if the simulator was tweaked to display 640 x 1136, could it also be tweaked to accommodate the aspect ratio of a Samsung Galaxy S 3, or some other competing device?

9to5Mac seems to have anticipated this critique, and added the following:

Perhaps even more interesting is that the simulator will not correctly display five rows of icons at resolutions other than 640 x 1136. At other resolutions, the icons will scale to an iPad-like home screen layout, not at the proportions and spacing of the current iPhone and iPod touch display. This may just add another layer of proof that the next-gen iPhone display will come in at a resolution of 640 x 1136.

It may, but because the “tweaks” are relatively unexplained in the article, it’s hard to necessarily call this a “smoking gun” piece of evidence for the longer display. In other words, the ability to alter the simulator does not necessarily prove that Apple is developing the long-screened iPhone 5. Or at least as far as we know from the article.

However, what this test does do is give us a sneak peak into what the UI effect would be of such an innovation. 9to5Mac was kind enough to render the displays side by side, so that we could compare and contrast the dimensions:

iphone 5 aspect ratio

What’s also interesting here is that the longer-screened upgrade is seen as a kind of improvement to the UI experience by adding more icons and gesture area — not simply a means of improving video viewing.

The legacy of the long screen has been perhaps the most intriguing rumored feature of the 2012 iPhone 5 rumor mill. From its early inception in the Verge forums (which immediately was characterized as Apple’s attempt at floating the idea to the general public) to 9to5Mac’s photos, and now this — we seem to being led down a path towards adoption of this new screen and aspect ratio. If in the end the iPhone 5 turned out to look exactly like the images we’re seeing in the rumor mill, then I think it’s safe to say that Apple allowed these leaks of the iPhone 5 in order for the new screen and aspect ratio to sick in before the official unveiling.

The question is, are you buying into it?