Re: trying not to reopen the physical length units / DPI in resolution MQs thread but failing

On Wed, 25 Apr 2012 00:05:06 +0200, Edward O'Connor <eoconnor@apple.com>  
wrote:

> An iPhone 4 has an actual resolution of 326dpi, whereas the new iPad has
> a resolution of 264dpi. Yet, insofar as the resolution media query is
> concerned, both devices have the same "resolution" (192 'dpi').
>
> It makes me really sad that Web authors can't simply go to Wikipedia's
> "List of displays by pixel density" page[1], cut and paste, and end up
> with a stylesheet that does what they mean. We need to fix this.

When the dppx unit gets wide support, I believe it will be the prefered
unit to express resolution media queries. And with that unit, it becomes
very clear what resolution does and does not tell you.

For instance, resolution is a good media query to use to figure out if
you should to provide high resolution images to make things as crisp as
possible.

Trying to use resolution to find out if you should make the text bigger
to deal with hight resolution screens is misguided. If the css pixel
didn't solve that problem for you, it would be interesting to get the
physical dots per physical inches, but it does.

  - Florian

Received on Wednesday, 25 April 2012 09:10:01 UTC