Developer Impressions - ipad2.

[mlfarrell]

Hi guys. So I got my hands on one of these things today. While mine hasn't arrived yet, the tests I was able to run on my friends' told me all I needed to know. The performance boost is beyond noticeable. Likely due to less RAM swapping, and the GPU upgrade, my app ran fast as he'll in comparison to the 1st gen iPad.

I'm very pleased and can't wait to do more tests and update my app to handle the new features of the device such as the cameras and and dual core capability. It's gonna be a fun ride developing for this thing. It's like having a PS3 in your hands that you can code for.

 

[That70sGAdawg]

Great to hear. Get creative developers !

 

[matrix07]

This thread will not be long. Nobody likes good news.

 

[thelookingglass]

Interesting observations, thanks. I know very little about development, so bear with me here. Will your app automatically run a less demanding iteration if it senses that it's running on an iPad 1?

 

[jclardy]

Interesting observations, thanks. I know very little about development, so bear with me here. Will your app automatically run a less demanding iteration if it senses that it's running on an iPad 1?

It is not automatic, but most developers will usually check what device it is running on and tone down effects in a 2d game or use the lower res textures in a 3D game. Basically like Infinity Blade uses more complicated shaders on the iPad 2 but still looks the same as it did before on iPad 1.

 

[mlfarrell]

It is not automatic, but most developers will usually check what device it is running on and tone down effects in a 2d game or use the lower res textures in a 3D game. Basically like Infinity Blade uses more complicated shaders on the iPad 2 but still looks the same as it did before on iPad 1.

this is correct, good programmers add code to detect whether a capability is available before using it (otherwise the app would crash if you try to use a feature that isn't supported by the OS or hardware).

 

[richlee111]

this is correct, good programmers add code to detect whether a capability is available before using it (otherwise the app would crash if you try to use a feature that isn't supported by the OS or hardware).

Also, do you have to optimize your code to take advantage of the multi-core processor in the iPad2? I just started coding in iOS and was curious about this.

 

[mlfarrell]

Also, do you have to optimize your code to take advantage of the multi-core processor in the iPad2? I just started coding in iOS and was curious about this.

richlee, if you do alot graphics, the OS will optimize that for you using the GPU. Computationally expensive stuff like calculating through large sets of data you'll need to do on your own using your own threads or grand central dispatch (if that runs on iOS, i haven't tried yet).

Being that my app, verto studio does alot of graphics but also alot of calculations, I may have my work cut out for me as far as optimizing some of my bottleneck routines like my surface-normal calculator.