Dynamic Typo

Got a great idea for an iPhone application? Have the perfect name? Well just remember the iPhone only allows you a certain number of characters to in your application name.

How many characters? I’m really not sure. So figured I’d fire up the emulator and try to figure it out.

The answer, your title can be somewhere between 12 and 14 characters. Since Apple’s font is not fixed, the width of the characters you’ve selected plays into the length.

For example, if you create an application with a name like “ReallyLongTitle”. You can see it re-formats the title to “Really…gTitle”. Since it is to long to display.

So let’s try a smaller name, such as “a thru m” all in lower case. You can get 13 characters in this format before it starts to re-format. I’m guessing you could get 14 characters if you just used the name iiiiiiiiiiiiii.

What is interesting is numbers seem to take up additional spaces. In the below example, I’m only able to get 12 characters without having the title re-formatted.

I’m not sure how Apple is handling fonts but, just comparing the sizes of the titles it appears when using numbers in your title they need one additional space.

I’m sure there is more documentation around Apple’s found and the rules for the maximum characters allowed, but I haven’t managed to track down that information yet. If you’re working on your next killer idea you might want to fire up the emulator and see how it handles your application title before spending to much time building your brand.

Please note the above is just a sample icons and is not licensed for distribution. If you use any images not created by you, please read the license carefully since many images have restrictions on use.