I am not a programmer, and I don’t have a computer science background beyond taking a Programming 101 class years ago. I understand that making quality applications takes a lot of time, effort, and caffeine, so don’t for one second think that this article is dismissing the hard work of programmers. With that out of the way, I have a serious question about iOS development. If you’re already making an app for the iPhone or iPad, why not do both?
Here is my assumption: The hard part of making an application is getting your concept to work properly on the device. After you’ve figured out the implementation, isn’t optimizing the user interface for most applications fairly simple? To be fair, some applications just wouldn’t work on a different form factor, but why doesn’t Facebook have an iPad-optimized app yet? Haven’t they nailed down the infrastructure with the iPhone app and the UI in the Touch-version of the website? I am completely missing the reason why some large companies with apps for the iPhone haven’t bothered making iPad optimized versions.
Now I want to hear from you folks — the iOS app developers. Tell me why doing optimized versions of your apps is harder than I think it is. If you’re not a developer, I’d like to know what app you’re dying to see iPad optimized. Please drop me a message in the comment section of this post.
Photo Credit: aless&ro
