I'm starting to think that the best thing to do would be to release two versions but instead of iPhone/iPod and iPad, make them Arm6+GL1.1 (with assets assuming 480x320, for all old devices and anyone wanting to save money or disk space) and a 'universal' arm7+GL2.0 version that runs on iPad, iPhone 4 AND 3GS that runs in various resolutions and with higher def assets. There are a few downsides, the biggest being that the app store just isn't organized that way. Chart visibility would be effected by there being two versions in the iPhone chart and iPad chart visibility would be reduced. Also, it would be confusing for users. Could you get away with an 'HD' app that also runs on the 3GS?
I agree that small text benefits from it but developers might better make the text bigger in the first place because most people dont hold the device close to their eyes and then there are also a lot people that dont have very good eyes. Good point!
I agree. Some of our apps have seen great benefits in speed from the 3G to the 3GS, and it's because of all the that artwork. Increasing the resolution to 4x, will really slow down the app again.
This close-up screenshot of an iPhone 4 gives you a good idea of how much detail it can show. Just creating graphics to make the most of that screen is going to be more work. http://www.flickr.com/photos/scobleizer/4695267529/sizes/o/
That's a good idea. I think the original suggestion posted a while back that Apple could serve the same game but as two different binaries would still be applicable as a good solution, but instead of separating iPhone and iPad into different binaries, separate iPod touch+iPhone devices into one binary and iPad+iPhone 3GS+iPhone 4 into another binary with bigger graphics and bigger filesizes. That would definitely be the most efficient and ideal solution for grabbing the widest share of the market, but it would be quite a lot of work. I've decided my own title in development will be a Universal app. The graphics can be downscaled quite easily from iPad + iPhone 4 resolutions down to 320x480, so the only extra work required will be some effort to reformat the controls for the iPad screen, which we're going to do anyway. The filesize will increase a bit, but ultimately we're not going to reach that over-the-air cap of 20MB anyway, so we're not too worried about it. I've found that most users don't care about the size of apps and will tend to just download it anyway and then remove some old apps, videos, or music to make room.
It occurs to me that it might even be possible to render some games on 3gs to 960x640 (iPhone 4 resolution) and downsample to 480x320 for effectively 4x antialising. They'd have to be simple enough for this to not cause slowdown of course but it's worth thinking about.
