I was wondering what the delta was between the screen sizes of the different iPhones you need to support as an iOS designer. Did some math and realized that, even though not perfect because of rounding errors, going from an iPhone 5 to a 6, you gain about 1 (44×44 point) column and 2 rows. Same happens going from an iPhone 6 to a 6 Plus.

i5>i6: 1col, +2row i6>i6: 1col, +2row i5>i6: +2col, +4row (unit = +/- 44pt) If you want to add more functionality instead of content.

— Tim Van Damme (@maxvoltar) October 24, 2014

Sketching on squared paper, I was curious to know how many rows and columns of tappable targets you could fit on the different iPhones. Some more math and I came up with these numbers, which I turned into a handy grid.

So, if you want to simplify things: i4: 7×11 units i5: 7×13 i6: 8×15 i6+: 9×17 Attached a little sketch pad. pic.twitter.com/m3JBb24pa0

— Tim Van Damme (@maxvoltar) October 24, 2014

Here’s how I got to these numbers:

	iPhone 4	iPhone 5	iPhone 6	iPhone 6 Plus
Width (points)	320	320	375	414
Width/44	7.2	7.2	8.5	9.4
Width rounded	7	7	8	9
Height (points)	480	568	667	736
Height/44	10.9	12.9	15.2	16.7
Height rounded	11	13	15	17

Each square in that image represents a minimal tappable target. Not perfect because of rounding errors, but damn handy to quickly sketch.

— Tim Van Damme (@maxvoltar) October 24, 2014

If you follow this grid, you get a good idea how much content you can fit on any iPhone screen. Again, it’s not perfect (rounding, status bar not included), but hopefully it’ll help you save some time sketching your next app.

Been thinking about this for a couple of weeks now. Some advice from a mentor and Mandy Brown’s article convinced me to pull the trigger.

This industry is built on people helping people.

When I started out designing websites, I’d email those who pioneered the craft. The questions I asked them feel trivial today, but the fact that 90% of the emails I sent out got a helpful reply helped me turn this passion I had into a real job. Through a lot of hard work and some luck, I’m now living a life I couldn’t even dream of a decade ago.

This experience of people helping out others has inspired me to give back to the community as much as possible. Responding to emails, grabbing coffee or lunch with whoever asks, reaching out to students proactively… It never feels like work.

Mandi Brown is better with words than I am:

I think mentoring is something we can do for each other regardless of our respective levels of experience.

But it’s hard to scale, which is why I’m doing this: Email me at tim+askme@maxvoltar.be with whatever questions you have. I’ll keep an eye on incoming questions and will try to group them around certain topics. Once an interesting topic emerges, I’ll write about it on this blog. That way I hope to build up some sort of resource for those who are starting and/or struggling in this industry.

This isn’t an ego thing; I know far from everything, but I have been doing this for over 10 years, and have made lots and lots of mistakes others shouldn’t need to repeat.

I’ve chosen this structure of you asking me questions (instead of me just blogging away) because I have no idea what you want to learn.

In the span of one life it’s impossible to learn everything, but we can cheat by sharing what we’ve learned so far.

Friday will be my last day at Instagram.

The past 18 months were some of the best of my life, both personally and professionally. I’ve had the opportunity to work with some of the brightest minds in this business, on an app that transformed the way people interact with each other every single day, and also made a lot of new friends.

But it’s time to move on, time to solve a different set of problems.

I’ll be taking some time off with my family, and join the amazing Dropbox team early August.

Dropbox is a fascinating company. It provides value to a wide range of people, not just those who build things.

I can’t wait to learn from all the talented people I will soon call colleagues.