More Details on the iPhone 5 Touchscreen Come to Light

Update: Apple recently announced the iPhone 5, which will be the biggest and fastest version yet.

Apple has reportedly settled on a larger, 3.95-inch display for its upcoming smartphone. This will require a slight change in the resolution.

The larger display will measure 3.95-inches diagonally and will keep its familiar 1.94-inches width. The new iPhone screen will grow to 3.45-inches tall and will sport a new resolution of 640 x 1136. Reports say that Apple has decided to add 176 pixels to one end of the screen, bringing it close to a 16:9 screen ratio.

It seems that Apple is attempting to use the new pixels by adding a home screen with a fifth row of icons and extended application UIs that allow users to more content, perhaps similar to Android?s widgets.

Backward Compatibility

The biggest concern for any change of resolution is breaking the backward compatibility for apps. If the new iPhone uses the unconfirmed screen resolution of 640 x 1136, then current third-party apps made for the 640 x 940 screen will still be able to run unmodified, but they will be left with a blank space above and/or below.

Aside from the new resolution, the next-generation iPhone is expected to keep its Home button unmodified, and include the new, smaller mini-Dock connector that has been brought up in previous rumors. Apple is expected to include the narrower dock connector to all of its mobile devices over time.

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