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Differences in design for iphone and ipad

What are the main differences between developing an application for iPhone and iPad?

IPhone applications should be aware of incoming cellular calls, and this will have an effect on developers who need to program a call-related application.

I also know that the permissions are different.

What other real differences do developers need to consider when developing for these two platforms?

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  • OS is different. The iPad still runs on iOS 3.2, which does not support multitasking.
  • there are different hardware - the iPad does not have a camera, not all iPad have GPS (3G, Wi-Fi - no), no gyro.
  • The user may differ not only because of different permissions, but also because of different physical sizes - size and weight. specific examples below.
  • typing with two thumbs on the iPhone is quick and easy, typing on the on-screen keyboard of an iPad is not so simple.
  • targets have different sizes on both devices due to different ppi. what is easy to put on the iPad can be harder on the iPhone 3GS and even harder on the iPhone 4.
  • in the UI layout of differences - iPad works better for split views, where two separate pieces of information can be displayed at the same time and supports pop-ups (context menus, if you want); while the iPhone UI displays lists / tables and toolbars better.
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iPad also has more user interface controls, including Popover and Split View ( see Apple documentation )

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The user interface design is very different - check out the development instructions. First, tab stripes tend to extend beyond the tab bar at the top. In addition, you are much more strongly encouraged to design for all directions.

Basically, the flow of things is very different, because instead of a big tree of trees, like on the iPhone, you have much more space for placing objects in front of you. Almost the entire user interface should be thought out, although it makes sense to reuse some table view code when presenting side lists for something like splitting.

Also think that people on the iPad can be much less random users of your application, on the phone people are usually in and out of the applications pretty quickly, but on the ipad the user is usually more suitable for doing something in the long run Therefore, you might consider how to optimize the iPad for users who are doing something more complicated or in the application for a longer time.

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