From: Paul Louden <paulthenerd_at_gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 26 Oct 2010 17:45:39 -0500

On 10/26/2010 5:40 PM, Antony Stone wrote:
>
> I find this question hard to manage - isn't resolution a quantity, which is
> measured in units of DPI?
>
> How can screens of different DPI have the same resolution?
>
DPI means "dots per inch." Resolution is an absolute measure of dots. A
1280x720 16 foot projector has the same resolution as a 1280x720 9 inch
netbook. But the DPI of them is drastically different because while the
number of dots is the same, the physical area of the screen isn't.

> I thought the earlier answer of "you cannot sensibly use the sim for this
> because the mouse is a terrible simulation of the thumbs,

this is valid for kinetic scrolling, but not as much for creating touch
regions that don't require movement of the finger, which can be
approximated, and doesn't matter much at all for stylus devices where
the thumb isn't necessarily the primary input.

> and because there's
> generally a huge DPI mismatch between PC and device displays"

DPI mismatch is only relevant at all if we're going to be creating
different versions of the screen for each DPI of device at each
resolution. If the screen is only to have one version per resolution,
it's obvious that the DPI excuse is irrelevant since DPI is already
ruled out as a necessary concern, or we'd be intent on having different
versions for different DPI.
Received on 2010-10-27