News.blog: iPhone squashes widescreen

Add one more reason to doubt the iPhone hype: it appears that Apple's uberdevice utilises an unusual 1.5:1 aspect ratio. While that's wider than the standard square-ish 1.33:1 (4x3) aspect ratio found on older TVs, PC monitors and iPods, it's 15 per cent narrower than the 1.78:1 (16x9) screen dimensions found on most TV and DVD programming.

The specs of the iPhone list a pixel count of 480x320. In and of itself, that doesn't prove anything: some displays utilise rectangular pixels, which allows them to deliver a true 16:9 picture. (Older Hitachi plasma panels, for example, have a 1,024x1,024 pixel count, but their rectangular shape delivers a widescreen image, rather than a perfect square one might infer from the resolution).

But examining the photos of the iPhone on Apple's site reveals a nearly perfect 1.5:1 aspect ratio on the device's 3.5-inch screen when it's viewed in landscape mode. This ratio is most commonly used in photographs, but it is also used in many PDAs, such as the Palm TX.

The non-standard screen shape means that widescreen video content will either need to be zoomed (cutting off the left and right sides) or letterboxed (black bars on the top and bottom) when viewed on the iPhone. Neither option will be as cramped as it is on current iPods, which cut off more when zoomed or have larger letterbox bars. But it might disappoint prospective iPhone owners to learn that the "true video iPod" offers a compromised widescreen viewing experience.