With the availability of Retina graphics on the new iPad, we've been working on upgrading our images to 2x. We are finding, however, that our non-retina (1x) graphics look just as nice scaled up on the new iPad as the "native" retina graphics. The size of our test app, however, has grown by about 30% to accomodate all of the 2x retina files. So we're wondering if updating to retina is worth the extra download size if there isn't a huge difference in image fidelity. The thoughts of the community are most appreciated.
why do you care about the app size? look at soem of the top grossing games. they're really heavy. some are even 110mb+! retina matters. specially when people are expecting it.
If the difference isn't really noticeable than there is really no reason to increase the resolution. Really depends on how much of a difference it makes in terms of visual quality. It would be interesting if you could post some screenshots to compare the two versions. I think it is a good thing that a developer cares about file size. Personally I will delete huge apps sooner because when i have to make some room on my 16gb iPad big apps show up on top of the usage list under settings and I delete those first... That said however I can't imagine that it isn't that big of a difference. Often I can tell from a mile away if an app is retina optimized or not - and I almost exclusively buy retina apps cause old apps just look bad on the new iPad.
People flock to the new devices and expect to see all apps upgraded. Also, its best to represent the latest devices just in case Apple wants to feature it. Your main question was in regards to file size and as someone already pointed out how large other games are, its not really a factor. The file size would need to be 1gig or higher to cause any red flags. People consume 4MB just the same as 200MB, you should be good.
well first of all it would be nice if you actualy told people what app you are talking about.. i assume its steal bee jam.. the question is not if it looks better or not but ifit even makes sense to put more work into the project.. looking at your ranking that would be a big no.. in addition to the tools rather simplistic visual style i doubt it would make a big difference. then of course no one forces you to make everything retina.. in alot of cases partial high res art is more than enough..
I think it's not worth it if the retina graphics grow the app size to over 50MB(3G/4G download limit). If the app size is already over 50MB, I would definitely go with the retina graphics. 30% larger file size isn't that much. How did you manage to do that? Retina files are 4x in terms of pixels. I'm guessing you have lots of vector graphics that compress well...
