iOS 8 auto layout? Do I need it?

Question

Is there a way to have an app work on all tall iPhone devices (portrait mode) without using Auto Layout?

Can I just design for say iPhone 5 and have iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 plus stretch to fill.

Auto layout seems overkill when I don't need to design for landscape or iPad.

Any ideas?

Answer 1

Auto layout seems overkill when I don't need to design for landscape or iPad.

That's definitely not true. You could argue it was true before the launch of the iPhone 6, but even with only iPhones 4 and 5 it helps to account for different situations.

Can I just design for say iPhone 5 and have iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 plus stretch to fill.

Stretch to fill is something that you can easily achieve with AutoLayout.

I know it seems a bit tough at first, but it's actually based on really simple mechanisms and behaves very logically. It's definetely worth giving it a try, you'll get much more out of it than you might expect right not.

Answer 2

Although Auto layout is optional, but to me it is a recommended feature.

Once your design become complex, you would have to write a lot of code to support different screen sizes. This can be avoided by using auto-layouts.

Answer 3

Yes you can in Show the size inspector-> Autoresizing. But you have to do it for each subview for each .xib file or in storyboard