It’s been years since Apple updated the display resolution on the iPhone. When Apple extended the iPhone’s screen size from 3.5 inches to 4 inches with the iPhone 5, it increased the display resolution from 960 x 640 to 1136 x 640, packing 326 pixels per inch. Now, code buried within the beta for iOS 8 hints that another upgrade is in store. Developer James Thomson posted to Twitter that he noticed iOS 8 automatically chooses to load images at a triple retina resolution rather than a double retina resolution like iOS 7 does.
Last weekend, we reported that the 4.7-inch iPhone 6 seemed likely to boast a 1334 x 750 Retina Display, while the 5.5-inch iPhone 6L could have a 461 PPI Super- Retina Display. Now it looks like that working iPhone 6 cobbled together may have confirmed the iPhone 6’s resolution. In this tweet, Troughton-Smith is noting that the “Connect To iTunes” image seen when the hacked-together iPhone 6 is booted up, it doesn’t actually fill the entire display, as it does on the right. And as MacRumors notes, doing the math and figuring out exactly where the “Connect To iTunes” image begins and ends on the screen implies that the iPhone 6 has roughly 17.5% more pixels on each axis than the iPhone 5s. The bottom line? It’s looking pretty likely that Apple will be rolling out a 1334 x 750 pixel display on September 9th, and the larger iPhone 6 will get a big jump in pixel density to follow suit. If you want the highest-resolution iPhone, you should wait for the 5.5-inch iPhone 6, which may or may not be unveiled on September 9th.
