the whole idea that applications written in software shouldn't handle screensize differences (and dynamic changes) intelligently is just so broken. I get that feeling in the pit of my stomach like "who let these people in? is the door wide open out there?"
i mean, to each their own, that's just me, but that's how I feel software should be written, and while we're at it, give the user some input/options at runtime.
* the developer for papers please's blog about the mobile port is indicative of the work that goes into supporting other screen sizes. Asking developers to have infinite time and motivation is just not realistic. also note that it took a few years for the mobile port to be released.
Even Apple themselves couldn't expend the effort to make an iPad version of their vaunted new Classical music app: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2023/03/apple-music-classical...
But almost always the experience for iPad users is terrible.
Which is why Apple's initial approach of forcing developers to build distinct iPad apps was the right one and a large reason why its tablets dominated the market versus Android competitors.
are you saying the tools aren't there for developers to create equally pleasing (mutatis mutandis) apps, or simply that the developers aren't able to create equally pleasing (mutatis mutandis) apps? Or that designers can't grok the mapping between their equally pleasing ideas and the tools available?
The “mutationes” that must be made reach deep into the functionality of an app, not just UI-level stuff. The whole purpose of the app should probably change. It’s therefore a big and challenging job to make an app scale seamlessly from one device to another. That’s irreducible complexity. The tools available will always be at best “necessary but not sufficient”.
That developers have the tools and can or cannot use the tools is secondary to that, imo.
You need to optimise for the particulars of each device.
Our UI for the iPad was a completely separate one. The core code was shared via various internal libraries, but the UI was entirely different. Adding a feature to iPhone required one entirely separate set of code compared to the iPad app. The app was a universal binary though and one app ran on both device types.
This was, at the time, an absolute requirement. There was no way to scale the app from iPad to iPhone in such a way that it would give a great experience on both iPhone and iPad. It just wasn't possible to give an excellent app.
I've long since left and the app does seem to be written in SwiftUI now and seems to be one shared codebase. But I wouldn't say it's as good as it was previously.
I prefer it when my iPhone and iPad apps have separate bespoke UIs that take full advantage of the different sizes and shapes.
yes, what you are pointing out is the challenge. solve it, don't slough it onto the user.
However, the same app can appear on different sized screens with different skins, it doesn't have to be a different app.