Re: let's bump to 10mm from 9mm

On 17/12/2015 21:33, Jonathan Avila wrote:
> Patrick, I agree with your concern.    I've seen the number 44x44 pixels mentioned before for a minimum device independ pixel size.

That value I believe originally comes from Apple's human interface 
guidelines, and it's 44x44 points (see 
https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/MobileHIG/LayoutandAppearance.html), 
not pixels. Note that the "points" unit used by Apple is not the same as 
"CSS points" (where 1pt = 1.333px), but their own way of talking about 
resolution independent pixels - so for all intents and purposes, 1 apple 
point = 1 css pixel (see 
https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/2DDrawing/Conceptual/DrawingPrintingiOS/GraphicsDrawingOverview/GraphicsDrawingOverview.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40010156-CH14-SW7)

It's doubly ironic, then, that despite Apple's aim to use points to 
"provide a consistent size of output that is device independent", their 
very own products (iPad and iPad Mini) actually don't follow the idea: 
with the iPad Mini having the same resolution in pixels/points as the 
iPad, but with a smaller physical screen...meaning that even diligently 
using "points" in the hope that they're indeed device-independent and 
adapted correctly to provide consistency won't actually work...and 
that's only looking at two models from a single manufacturer - now 
consider the myriad of different physical screen sizes of 
"mobile/tablet/laptop/etc" devices out there (some call it 
"fragmentation") and the disparate (virtual) resolutions they run at, 
and you can see that it's effectively impossible for a developer to 
guarantee (or even specifiy) any specific *physical* size that can then 
be measured with an actual ruler held up against an actual physical screen.

P
-- 
Patrick H. Lauke

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Received on Thursday, 17 December 2015 22:00:31 UTC