What Will iPhone5 Mean To Corona SDK Developers

01 September 2012

What Will iPhone5 Mean To Corona SDK Developers

According to the rumor sites iPhone 5, or whatever it will be officially called, is set to be announced soon with a taller screen that will support another row of icons.

For consumers this will mean they’ll have access to more apps on their home screen and more viewable real-estate for playing games and getting things done, but what will it mean to mobile developers who use the Corona SDK to produce their cross platform mobile apps?

As the MacRumors mock-up video below shows, it probably won’t mean much initially. Existing Corona apps will likely function as they do today, with the exception that they’ll be displayed in the center of the screen with black letterbox bars on either side of the app.

That’s good for existing apps, but what will the screen change mean to developers who want to create new apps for the larger display or refactor existing apps to take advantage of the extra screen real estate? Will app developers have to do a lot of extra work to format their apps for the new screen size?

The answer of course is yes and no. As always, app developers will need to be aware of the mobile canvas they are working with so they can tweak accordingly, but fortunately the Corona SDK already does a lot of the heavy lifting to make content scaling and dynamic image resolution as easy as possible.

Here’s what Walter Luh had to say about the upcoming iPhone 5 screen changes in a recent Corona Labs blog post,

“Lots of rumors and leaked photos out there. From what we understand, the iPhone 5 will likely be unveiled mid-September and released in late September. Historically, Apple has launched a new iOS version at the same time as a new iPhone, so we expect iOS 6 to be launched then as well.

If you believe the rumors, then the new screen size 1136×640 makes the new iPhone 5 taller than the iPhone 4′s 960×640. Same width, but tall enough to fit an extra row of app icons on the home screen.

If true, that means we’ll be adding a new simulator skin. We’re also overdue for some new Android screen sizes, i.e. 1200×800. If there are others, let me know so I can add them to the list.”

So there you go. Between Apple and Corona, developers will likely have all the tools they need to make the transition from a 3.5-inch screen to a larger 4-inch display.

You know Apple is going to do everything they can to protect the user experience and Corona Labs is going to continue to provide updates to the Corona SDK so that developers can give customers the great mobile apps they’ve come to expect.

Tell me what you think. What will the new screen size mean to Corona SDK developers? Will there be extra challenges or will it be no different than working within the Android ecosystem where most every device has different screen dimensions?

Charles McKeever
Corona Geek