iphone: render text vs. burn into image

Question

This might be more of a philosophical question, but is there a compelling reason to go one way or the other when presenting text above an image: 1. Burn the text into the image on the server side and just show the image on the iphone or 2. Send the background image and the text separately to the iphone and have the iphone render the text over the image. Obviously it's more work in the iphone to render the text (would need font, color, size to accompany the text). Plus the text may not render exactly where it was intended. But you do get native fonts and sharper zooming. Any opinions? Thanks. -Mike

Answer 1

Rendering and caching the image on the server would move the load of the work to the server, but would certainly be more client-friendly. This way, additionally, there is a greater benefit on BOTH sides from reusing cached images.

Answer 2

It's not really a specific enough question to have a single right answer, IMO. If practical, I'd probably assume you should render text onto the image on the client instead of the server. You sacrifice consistency, but you allow the user to select a larger font if they prefer it. You also get the ability to show your text immediately while your images stream in. Depending on what your application is, it also might be sensible to allow variations on the text, such as translations, or data from a different time period, etc. By rendering the text on the client, you can cache a single, universal version of the image, and then switch to showing the crime rate in 1931 in Swedish, or whatever, without having to download a new image.