Question

I’ve been a Flash animator for a few years and recently tried my hand at developing a simple iOS application using Flash CS6 and AS3.

When I began development I was creating for the iPhone 4S’ screen size, however now with the release of the iPhone 5 the new screen size obviously doesn’t fill the screen, resulting in the black-bar letterboxing at the top and bottom of the screen.

I have three questions to ask:

1. Is it possible to release two different versions of the app onto the App Store for separate devices or does it have to be universal? (I believe the answer is the latter but I can’t find a definitive answer)

2. Is it possible to have a stage size that matches the iPhone 5’s larger display but cut off the bottom (for example) for the previous iPhone sizes, in effect just adding some information to the bottom of the screen exclusively for iPhone 5 users?

3. If (2) is not possible, is there coding examples available change positions of items on the screen? For example, I have a title and taskbar as well as a background, could I code it to stretch to the size of the device screen rather than the stage? And would I need to alter the stage size or is there code available to do that for me?

I’m quite new to the programming aspect of AS3 and I’m sorry if there are answers that you feel that I should know, but I’m really thankful for your time to read and answer and I thank you in advance for your replies!

Ben Kahan

Answer 1

While all of your options are possible, you’ll want to make sure your program dynamically lays itself out and resizes visual assets depending on screen size, pixel density and orientation.

More here:

One Application, Five Screens (Including the iPad)

and

Writing Multiscreen AIR Apps