We all know how popular the Apple iPad has become today, both for developers and end users. The iPad offers the developer great freedom to develop apps for it. But like everything else, the iPad also has its disadvantages for developers. As a developer, here is what you should know before you create apps for the Apple iPad.
The iPad App Store
The App Store is simply superb and users can easily download iPad apps from iTunes. While this is great for the end user, Apple has largely restricted the iPad developer.
Apple has a “gated community” and restricts many third-party apps for the iPad. This works as a deterrent for many devs desiring to create apps for this mobile device.
Support for Many Basic Facilities Missing
The iPad offers no support for Flash, which is still very much used for web apps. So creating Flash-enabled apps will be of no use to the iPad developer.
The iPad also offers very limited GPS support, which means, developing location-based apps may not work very well on the device. Multitasking capabilities are also absent on the iPad.
Absence of USB and HDMI Ports
One other thing is the absence of USB ports. This implies that syncing the device with the computer or any other mobile device is impossible.
Though the iPad is great for movie viewing, users will also not be able to connect the iPad to their TV sets, as the device offers no HDMI outputs.
Debugging Hardware not Good Enough
During the launch of the iPad, most developers felt the absence of hardware to debug the apps. iPad apps developed by many coders were found to be behaving strangely while tested on the iPad.
There is still some amount of tweaking going on with many iPad apps. This, as some devs point out, could also be the result of introducing a great amount of iPad apps at launch. There had been around 3,000 iPad apps in the first few weeks of its release in the market.
Simulation Software Issues
Because Apple had kept details about the iPad in secrecy, developers had to create iPad apps using simulation software. This created problems with certain apps.
If there were, for instance, a screen resolution issue with a particular app, the developer would know about it only much later, after they ran it on the actual tablet.
The simulator, though not too bad, created some issues because it could not add music to apps, recreate low memory events and deal with in-app activities. Developers are still reworking some such apps.
In Conclusion
All said and done, there is still a rush among mobile app coders to develop for the Apple iPad. While it offers many benefits, the iPad, like all other mobile devices, comes with glaring minuses as well.
Have you created apps for the iPad? Do you think the effort was worth it? Let us know about your experiences and insights on developing for the Apple iPad.
