[sumukh1]

One possible solution is having apps ship with 1x graphics with an optional download to have 2x. That solution, however, is not something I would like as a developer or as an user.

Over the next few years, we'll probably go back to having just two screen sizes (Retina iPhone + iPad). This is just a side effect of the transition to retina, and it will go away soon.

Though from Apple's perspective it would make more financial sense to have you go buy a 64GB iPad. :)

[cbsmith]

If only things were done with vector graphics...

[sehugg]

Might not be so easy. http://www.pushing-pixels.org/2011/11/04/about-those-vector-...

[nkoren]

I skimmed the article to get the tl;dr, which seems to be that there is an appropriate level of detail (LOD) for icons of different sizes, and that therefore vector graphics won't work.

True, and false. All you would need is a vector graphics format with a per-element LOD specification. Here's an example of one format and editor which does that:

http://www.haiku-os.org/docs/userguide/en/applications/icon-...

[babebridou]

Well, small-size icons are not going to be the source of the application package size issue, are they? I mean if pixel-perfecting 16x16, 32x32 and 64x64 icons is something we do already, using svg against the other end of the scaling problem (1024x768 -> 2048x1536) is a good solution.

[ktizo]

That is a good article.