This is my daring expose revealing the aspect ratio of the iPhone. After writing it, I realize it’s incredibly boring.
I’ve watched a few episodes of Weeds on my iPhone. The iTunes downloads of season one were sold in the standard TV aspect ratio of 4:3, while season two’s downloads are widescreen (16:9). I noticed that when watched episodes from each season that there were black bars on either the sides or top of the screen. Turns out the iPhone’s “widescreen” display isn’t actually the standard widescreen aspect ratio. The tech specs list the iPhone’s display at 480x320, which is an aspect ratio of 3:2. This means that no matter which format the video you’re watching is, either the sides or the top and bottom will be letterboxed. The 3:2 ratio is a little odd, as it actually turns out that the screen is closer to 4:3 than 16:9. A standard video illuminates 89% of the iPhone’s display, while a widescreen video only uses 84% of the screen. So if you zoom in on the video to get rid of the black bars, you’re missing about 20% of a non-wide image and 25% of a wide image. This isn’t exactly breaking news, of course, and in fact all of the iMacs and MacBooks that Apple sells are 16:10, just a bit taller than the usual widescreen 16:9.