Impact of iPad on iPhone: universal binary
Even if you don’t plan to buy an iPad, the fact that it goes on sale will have positive impact on iPhone users… and will be beneficial for iPhone developers too.
Of course we expect that some iPad apps like iBooks ebook reader will trickle down to iPhone, but one particularly interesting thing in iPad is so called “universal application” concept:
Preparing Universal Applications
Developers can now start planning for universal applications, allowing them to take full advantage of the technologies found on iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch with a single binary.
In other words: developers will be able to write apps that adapt and when running in iPad they take advantage of full resolution of iPad and when running in iPhone they take advantage for example of the camera (that iPad is missing) – all in one app, in one binary! This is a very impressive achievement considering that for example no Windows Mobile apps can run in Zune HD and the other way around. It also means that many apps developed for iPad will easily be available/portable also to iPhone. Of course somebody might write an app that works only in iPad and refuses to work in iPhone, but we expect that high-resolution iPhone is coming in July this year, so it’s better to have/write apps that run both on iPad and iPhone.
Conclusion: even if you yourself don’t plan on buying an iPad, the fact that iPad is being released means that a lot of new apps are coming also to iPhone. In other words: iPhone users will benefit a lot from the iPad, even without owning it. So, iPhone users, please stop whining that you don’t need iPad, that you will not buy iPad, but instead please just rejoice that you will get more, and better apps for iPhone – as side effect of iPad release!
To learn more, visit http://www.apple.com/ipad/sdk/.
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About the Author: Gareth
Seasoned tech blogger. Host of the Tech Addicts podcast.Subscribe
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