Steve Troughton-SmithMar 21
⭐️ If you for some reason wanted to test your apps using the phone idiom on an expanded-layout device like an iPad, like, say, to simulate what might happen when unfolded on a foldable phone, you might try a swizzle like this that only kicks in when you pass -SimulatePhoneIdiomOnPad YES to your launch arguments
Show threadSteve Troughton-SmithMar 21

I'm a little alarmed at how many assumptions this breaks in several of my apps, including the entirety of my big Broadcasts 4 redesign 🫠

The practical realities of @markgurman stating 'iPhone Fold won't run iPad apps' are actually pretty damn consequential. This is going to mean some painful work for developers. If they don't announce this stuff at WWDC, and instead drop it upon us in September two weeks before launch… 😱

Show threadSteve Troughton-Smith

I think Apple has a way to preview this at WWDC:

iPadOS 27 *must* allow iPhone apps to be resized to any size.

Then we will have a means to simulate what a phone idiom looks like at larger sizes, without Apple having to preannounce the foldable itself. And it will increase the urgency with which developers have to figure this stuff out, before hundreds of millions of iPad users are resizing their phone apps willy-nilly.

Mar 21 at 10:09pmIvory for Mac
Show threadJacob WolmanMar 21
@stroughtonsmith I wonder how many iPad users run iPhone apps in windowed mode. I do, and it’s a buggy mess, so I would love (a good implementation of) resizeability, but I feel like it’s a niche of a niche case. Hope I’m wrong!
Show threadRhys MorganMar 21
@jwolman @stroughtonsmith It’s a lot better now that they can run properly in iPhone size with the new windowing mode, altho apps like Bluesky with no iPad app break when opening images, and forcibly rotate and resize.
Show threadJacob WolmanMar 21
@rhysmorgan @stroughtonsmith exactly the example I was thinking of/find annoying on a daily basis.
Show threadRhys MorganMar 21
@jwolman @stroughtonsmith haha! I don’t know why it forces the rotation, nor why it forces the window into an enlarged size when closing an image… Very odd behaviour. Here’s hoping 27 fixes it.
Show threadRhys MorganMar 21
@stroughtonsmith A lot like when they announced Size Classes, and it wasn’t even “reading between the lines”…
Show threadColin KnowlesMar 21

@stroughtonsmith Guessing pre-Xcode 27 apps will be forced in half-screen/side-by-side mode. The question would then be whether Xcode 27 will force iPhone apps to support full-width or can stay compact-size-class only. History suggests they'll be able to opt-out (like iPad apps can opt out of resizing).

I thought Apple basically deprecated idioms in favor of size classes way back when they first introduced iPad multitasking, which can simulate switching from phone screen to ipad/unfolded screen. What do your apps do when they're in an iPad sidebar?

Show threadSteve Troughton-SmithMar 21
@colink there are still all kinds of reasons you need to check idiom beyond checking for compact vs expanded layouts, because phone apps can and should function differently to iPad apps. Anything reasonably complex that has iPad and Mac support will have idiom conditionals everywhere
Show threadHunter C. MeyerMar 21
@stroughtonsmith I bet they’ll advertise it as freely resizable iPhone mirroring on Mac or resizable iPhone apps on iPad and we’ll all just know it when we see it.