The Web Designer’s Guide to iOS Apps: Create iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad Apps with Web Standards (HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript)

4. The IOS Interface and User Experience

The iPod touch and iPhone screens—they’re so small! How is it possible todesign a quality user experience on somethingas tiny as 320 × 480 pixels?

Coming from a large-screen environment where we are typically designing for 960 pixel, 1024 pixel, or even wider spaces, these mobile screens at first seem impossibly small. But millions of people are buying and using these devices, and they aren’t doing it to torture themselves—we’re seeing some great user experiences on these pocket computers. They can be fun, easy, and even delightful to use.

So what makes this possible? How can we learn from Apple’s own apps and from other examples? This is what we’ll be focusing on in this chapter, as well as some of Apple’s ...