[0x0]

I wonder if it will be possible to opt-in to 1:1 pixel rendering on the iPhone6+ after all, particularly for opengl/metal/video playback. It seems the downscale hack is mostly required for UIKit backwards compatibility and to maintain approximately equal physical sizes for UI elements only.

Very nice visualization in the OP, by the way!

[MCRed]

The downsampling is representational of how the OS renders your App.

Especially in Metal, but probably in OpenGL, I'm sure you get access to the actual resolution buffer you can render into.

[fidotron]

Have to admit I'd be surprised if a full screen OpenGL or metal thing wasn't available, as for gaming the overhead of writing to a much larger offscreen buffer and then to the screen is not going to be a good idea. Quite often the reverse is done of scaling up a smaller buffer.

[santaclaus]

This isn't even always possible with Apple's software on a retina MacBook with OS X, and vexes me to this day. QuickTime won't play video back at 1:1 without setting the entire display to 1:1.

[0x0]

At least there is a way to set the mode to 1:1, though. There's several tools that are able to switch the retina macbook into 2880x1800.

[pilif]

There must be a way. Otherwise the samples they have shown in the keynote of the landscape mail with the split view or the "enhanced" CNN sample app would never work as in the default mode outlined in this infographic, the screen can't possibly offer any more real estate for UI than the smaller screens, but the samples in the keynote were clearly showing more UI content.

[0x0]

The samples with the wide split screen are rendered at 1242x2208 (3x 414x736, which is larger than any other iphone which is either 320x568 or 375x667) - and then downscaled. My question was really about whether is it possible for software to render framebuffers at 1080x1920 (3x 360x640) - perhaps bypassing UIKit completely.

[3JPLW]

Hunh? Developers work in terms of the "points" described in the first image.

The 6+ has an extra 39 points in height and 69 in width the 6; about 10% more real estate in each direction. Sure, it's not that much, but it's not nothing. It's an even bigger jump over the screens of the iPhone 5 and 4.