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Design

Sean McCully
Sean McCully
6,177 Points
Posted by Sean McCully
Sean McCully
6,177 Points

Can someone confirm the difference between iOS points, android dps, CSS pxs and a printers point?

This has been boggling me for a long time. After thorough research, this is what I believe to be true...

An iOS pt is a density independent unit of measurement, and so are Android dps and CSS px. An iOS pt is equal to 1 pixel on a 163 ppi screen, an Android dp is equal to 1 pixel on a 160 ppi screen, and a CSS px is equal to 1/96th of an inch (http://blog.fluidui.com/designing-for-mobile-101-pixels-points-and-resolutions/)

So...

1 iOS pt = 1/163 inch

1 Android dp = 1/160 inch

1 CSS px = 1/96th inch

I just want to confirm I'm thinking about this correctly. It doesn't help that a printers point is 1/72 inch (from what I understand, this unit of measurement has no relation to an iOS point at all) and 1 CSS px has a completely different meaning to an actual pixel (picture element).

The only mystery left unsolved is that if I make a 10pt line in iOS, a 10dp line in Android, and a 10px line in CSS, will they all be different physical sizes? So 10px in a safari mobile web browser would be a different physical size than 10pt in a iOS application?