So what’s an iPad then?
Yes once again Apple has had the world on the edge of its seat awaiting their newest offering: the iPad. Given the direction they chose to take for this latest piece of hardware it’s hardly surprising that its announcement has been met with endless discussion about exactly what to make of Apple’s “tablet”.
Is it like a laptop? Is it a netbook replacement? Is it just a big ipod? Is it a sort of iPhone but without calling? Well enough info is now readily available to Joe public for us to all know pretty much what it can and can’t do, but as far as we are concerned all that matters is… what about the games?
Yes of course some of the current iPhone apps and games will work on the iPad via some clever upscaling wizardry, preserving some of the old favourites for use on the new coffee table platform, but the interesting bit is the new possibilities for games development.
Although the actual internals of the iPad don’t allow it to do anything far beyond the reach of an iPhone’s capability, its enormous touch screen opens up a whole world of new possibilities for games that just are not practical or enjoyable on a screen 2 inches across!
So is that it I hear you ask? Just a bigger screen to play on? Are we about to be bombarded with a bunch of higher definition apps in the familiar models we all know so well from the existing App Store?
Well I don’t think so. The secret to the new breed of app is going to be the context, when and where are people going to use it? And for what? An iPhone game is likely to be played in short bursts on the move, five minutes on the train, two minutes in the queue at the Post office or walking down the street when you just have to find out when the last tube is. But the iPad is far more likely to encourage extended use, at home, sitting on the sofa waiting a half hour for that film to start or those potatoes to boil. Players will be in a different mind-set and it is tapping into this that will likely produce the best iPad-specific apps and Games.
Of course the screen size will matter too, one can’t deny that mobile game and app development is currently limited far more by the iPhone screen size than by the device’s tech spec. But thinking a bit beyond the freedom afforded by those extra pixels will be what gives the real bright sparks in the development community their best products. Size is everything!”
