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iPad to miss out on apps that utilize the iPhone 4's Gyro + Accelerometer

3N16MA

3N16MA

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jul 23, 2009
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As of now there is two kinds of apps in the app store. iPhone apps that can be used on an iphone or iPad and iPad apps that can only be used on an iPad. The iPhone 4 is going to ship with a built-in three-axis gyroscope. I have a feeling that developers are going to heavily utilize this function in games. This means that there is going to be a bunch of apps that can only fully work on the iPhone 4, almost a third category. Kind of odd that Apple did not introduce this with the iPad. There will be a bunch of apps in the coming months that will have features the iPad cannot take advantage of.

I love my iPad so far but will be getting an iPhone 4 when it's released in Canada. If developers start utilizing the gyro in games I can't see myself getting the iPad version without this function.
 
3N16MA said:
As of now there is two kinds of apps in the app store. iPhone apps that can be used on an iphone or iPad and iPad apps that can only be used on an iPad.
Click to expand...

Actually, I'd say there are three kinds of apps right now -- ones that work on iPhone, iPad *and* iPod touch, ones that work on iPhone only because they require camera/phone functions (not available on the touch and iPad), and ones that are iPad only.

But you are right that the introduction of the gyroscope means that there will be apps that work only on iPhone 4 -- although I'd expect that the iPod touch 4 will also have the gyro. And if the new touch has a camera... Wow, I'm really getting a headace now!

I sure hope Apple comes up with a way to clearly mark which apps work with which devices, or I see lots of angry/disappointed customers in the future who purchase an app only to find it doesn't work with their device.
 
You're really thinking of this wrong. Hopefully, developers aren't.

Other than the unfortunate OS situation with iPhone/iPad (with iPad for now running on a "forked" OS, but that will be fixed in the fall) you really need to think of this in terms of specific, individual features that may or may not be available (or enabled) on a specific device.

The APIs provide developers the means to determine is a specific feature is available on the device the app is running on.

So, an app that would like to use the gyro need only check "does this device have a gyro"? If so, it can enable functionality that uses the gyro. If not, obviously that functionality will have to be disabled, or else perhaps some other feature (e.g. accelerometer) might be used to accomplish something similar.

Same goes for "does it have a camera"?, "does it have a front camera?", etc.

Your initial statement is at least partially true, if obvious: iPad doesn't have a gyro, so OF COURSE iPad owners will miss-out on gyro functionality. But not necessarily on apps that happen to support the gyro if it is there.
 
Night Spring said:
Actually, I'd say there are three kinds of apps right now -- ones that work on iPhone, iPad *and* iPod touch, ones that work on iPhone only because they require camera/phone functions (not available on the touch and iPad), and ones that are iPad only.

But you are right that the introduction of the gyroscope means that there will be apps that work only on iPhone 4 -- although I'd expect that the iPod touch 4 will also have the gyro. And if the new touch has a camera... Wow, I'm really getting a headace now!

I sure hope Apple comes up with a way to clearly mark which apps work with which devices, or I see lots of angry/disappointed customers in the future who purchase an app only to find it doesn't work with their device.
Click to expand...


Good point, I always forget about the iPod touch. I guess that's what happens when you don't own one.
 
iPhone 4 to miss out on apps that take advantage of iPad's much larger screen.

Seriously, Apple makes the products as different as possible to make people buy them. That's why iPod touch always has less features than iPhone otherwise people would get a dumbphone and an iPod touch which would be much cheaper.
 
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