The leaks continue to pile up as we approach September 9. Are there any real surprises in store for what the new iPhones will look like? That we will know in a week.

What will take longer is to see how app designers adapt to the new screen sizes that we expect the iPhone 6 and 6L to introduce. I talked to five top iOS designers to get a preview of the shape of apps to come.

John Gruber of Daring Fireball calculated screen resolutions for the two new devices. It is likely that they are accurate to what Apple Apple will introduce next week. Gruber has a history of direct access to Apple, so his calculations may in fact be transmissions.

Russian blog Rozetked recently released a video that claims these as real versions of the iPhone 6 (left) and 6L (right)

The gist of Grubers formulations are about the radical difference between the two new screen formats. The 4.7-inch iPhone 6 will maintain the same scale and resolution as the current iPhone 5 line, but have room for 38% more content. The 5.5-inch iPhone 6L will have 3x retina graphics, a slight increase in scale and room for 68% more content. How will app designers respond to increased real estate and higher resolution graphics?

Games aside, there are two major types of apps that designers will have to adapt for this new environment. Most content apps will make use of the larger screens to display (surprise!) more content. Most utility apps will scale their UI elements to fit the new dimensions. All the designers I talked to did not think they would make optimizations for the iPhone 6 alone.

Michael Mamiye, designer of the Gist news summary app (see above), is in the content camp. He thinks that, Most developers will simply expand the frame of their apps, as opposed to actually using the new pixels for more features. As for Gist, he plans, To use the new space for additional content (more articles, larger font, etc.). He thinks that the best games and productivity apps will undoubtedly decide to use this new space for more creative purposes, such as new features. He concedes that once iPhone 6-optimized apps are in use, I may see some new and creative ways to utilize the larger space that I just havent thought of yet.

Mamiyes app is text-based with a strong news feel. Other content apps that rely more on images will have some greater challenges. Luke Wroblewski, designer of the Polar app (image above), sees a lot of work in his immediate future. There are, likely more changes we have to make vs. want to make, he offers. As expected, variable sizing of UI elements will be a must. If were dealing with wider screens, well have to add flexibility into many of our elements. [and] If 3x [resolution] is true, we have a lot of images to remake. The real rub is that Polar allows users to search for and upload images as part of the poll-making process. Images in our polls in particular might be tough as they are sized specifically for current screen dimensions. Any apps that display user generated content will have to be particularly sensitive to the demands of 3x graphics.

See the article here:

The Shape Of Apps To Come: Top iOS Designers On New iPhone 6 Screen Sizes