Killer feature the Passport needs to have!

Being such a huge flagship device it would be a shame if we had android apps confined to a zoomed in square like the q10. This can be a huge pain while using apps only designed for a rectangular screen and are not optimised to fit to square displays.

The Passport should have an android compatibility mode that letterboxes the screen vertically or horizontally to allow the entire app to show up on the screen. The phone has enough pixels to letterbox the screen to make a 1080p display. This should be toggle-able on a per app basis to give the best experience whatever app you are using.

I can see why BlackBerry have not currently implemented this on the q10 as the display would be too small to comfortably use but the Passports 4.5" display letterboxes to 1080p would give the equivalent of a 3.98" display (thanks Pythagoras) which is perfectly usable.

I feel like this feature is a necessity for a device like the Passport otherwise a good 30-40% of apps from the amazon marketplace are going to look like junk on its square screen. There are many customization options blackberry could implement with this too such as landscape mode without rotating the display and setting the position of the letterboxes to better facilitate one handed use etc.

Posted from my Z or Q!

Definitely something to consider, the format is certainly different from what we're used to seeing, from anyone.

I think some leaked picture of early windermere os showed rotation lock at quick settings!

What would be the point of rotating a square screen?


Posted via CB10

Originally Posted by ummie4

What would be the point of rotating a square screen?


Posted via CB10

Had something to do with using the keyboard to scroll web pages if you rotated it

So blackberry passport is having square screen. Lol it doesnt matter you are in potrait or landscape mode

Posted via CB10

Originally Posted by tomh235

Being such a huge flagship device it would be a shame if we had android apps confined to a zoomed in square like the q10. This can be a huge pain while using apps only designed for a rectangular screen and are not optimised to fit to square displays.

The Passport should have an android compatibility mode that letterboxes the screen vertically or horizontally to allow the entire app to show up on the screen. The phone has enough pixels to letterbox the screen to make a 1080p display. This should be toggle-able on a per app basis to give the best experience whatever app you are using.

I can see why BlackBerry have not currently implemented this on the q10 as the display would be too small to comfortably use but the Passports 4.5" display letterboxes to 1080p would give the equivalent of a 3.98" display (thanks Pythagoras) which is perfectly usable.

I feel like this feature is a necessity for a device like the Passport otherwise a good 30-40% of apps from the amazon marketplace are going to look like junk on its square screen. There are many customization options blackberry could implement with this too such as landscape mode without rotating the display and setting the position of the letterboxes to better facilitate one handed use etc.

Posted from my Z or Q!

There are definitely *not* enough pixels to make a letterboxed 1080p display as 1920x1080 display and 1920 > 1440. It may seem that there are enough pixels to letterbox an app for 720p being that 1440 is 2x720, however scaling would be impossible to execute as 720p is 1280x720 which means that to have 2x scaling required to display an app you would need a 2560x1440 display, not a 1440x1440 one. The only remaining option would be to display the app in 720p letterboxed at 1x scale, however that means you would have the app displaying black bars on three sides, left/right and top. This would however result in a tiny 3.24" diagonal display that would be nearly unusable.

I too hope they have a clever solution for Android apps otherwise Android apps will be just as unusable on the Passport as the Q10. However I am afraid that we will get the exact same implementation as the Q10.

Posted via CrackBerry App

I read somewhere recently that there are plans to support screen rotation in 10.3 for the square devices. I agree that this doesn't make much sense for the Q series, but it's an interesting thought for the Passport.

Posted by twiddling my thumbs on the mighty Qued! - Channel C003DAB77

Originally Posted by dejanh

There are definitely *not* enough pixels to make a letterboxed 1080p display as 1920x1080 display and 1920 > 1440. It may seem that there are enough pixels to letterbox an app for 720p being that 1440 is 2x720, however scaling would be impossible to execute as 720p is 1280x720 which means that to have 2x scaling required to display an app you would need a 2560x1440 display, not a 1440x1440 one. The only remaining option would be to display the app in 720p letterboxed at 1x scale, however that means you would have the app displaying black bars on three sides, left/right and top. This would however result in a tiny 3.24" diagonal display that would be nearly unusable.

I too hope they have a clever solution for Android apps otherwise Android apps will be just as unusable on the Passport as the Q10. However I am afraid that we will get the exact same implementation as the Q10.

Posted via CrackBerry App

Whoops, got confused with my display resolutions. In order to keep the 16:9 aspect ratio, it would need to be 810x1440. Although they could probably be quite flexible with this as android isn't hugely picky. As long as the virtual dpi value of the apps is set right they should work well and i'm sure they could do something akin to the display scaling used on the z3 to maintain compatibility with normal display resolutions.

The letterboxing probably wouldn't even be necessary if the dpi was set correctly. Have you ever noticed that ui elements in android apps appear larger on the q10 than z10? Hopefully they will at least have adjusted this for the Passport as if apps look exactly the same as on the Q10 but scaled up it is going to feel like using a toy.

The best solution for customisation and compatibility would be something akin to the Xposed Framework mod, App Settings, which let's you set a virtual display resolution and custom DPI scaling on a per-app basis on rooted android devices. This would also allow us to invoke the tablet ui on certain apps if it were better suited to the Passports massive screen.

Posted from my Z or Q!

Originally Posted by louzer

I read somewhere recently that there are plans to support screen rotation in 10.3 for the square devices. I agree that this doesn't make much sense for the Q series, but it's an interesting thought for the Passport.

Posted by twiddling my thumbs on the mighty Qued! - Channel C003DAB77

It does make sense actually! When you rotate a device like the Passport, the touch sensitive keypad becomes a track pad...what would you rather do? use the device upright and scroll while trying to avoid the screen? Or would you rotate the device and use the pad without any obstructions whatsoever...I'm sure BlackBerry's holding stuff back and hasn't revealed what all the Passport can really do...

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Originally Posted by riseinskies

So blackberry passport is having square screen. Lol it doesnt matter you are in potrait or landscape mode

Posted via CB10

Think it does for certain cases.

Using Z10, wanting Z30, eyeing Windermere