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What is your favourite Iphone application?

What are the benefits of creating a universal iOS application over creating a separate application for iPhone and iPad?

  • We are in the process of designing feedly for iPad and I am wondering if we should simply enrich the existing iPhone application or create a new Application. Except for being able to charge the users twice, are there benefits in having two separate applications?

  • Answer:

    The tradeoffs are fairly similar to any cross-platform vs. device-specific debate. I would argue, however, the largest consideration for iPad vs iPhone is your UI. While you can create a universal app with separate xibs for iPad and iPhone, typically the larger screen size for the iPad means you will be performing a larger, and potentially different, set of actions on a given interface. The benefit of a universal app is that you can avoid duplicate work for the overlapping elements. However, you will need to conditionalize the code for the elements used in one but not the other, and managing that can become unwieldy over time. From a design standpoint, I find being able to look at the two devices as separate entities helps unlock the creative juices a bit. The use cases for iPad vs iPhone/iPod are very different, and your design should reflect that. Always using one as the starting point for the other can create the benefit of consistency, but may prevent you from harnessing the relative strengths of each device.

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I dont think that design should be what holds you back from going universal. Look at an app like iCookbook - it is a universal app, however the iPhone and iPad versions have very distinct UI's that are specific to their device. (iPhone UI) (iPad UI) Putting out a universal app with an app that is paid is best for customer relations - no one wants to have to pay twice for the same app, and a universal app is also much better for an ad supported ad as the installation of one app causes the  app to be more likely to be used on the other device as well, driving more advertising (or in app purchase) revenue.

Aaron Watkins

Maintaining separate codebases in a MVC (Model–View–Controller) focused language such as Objective–C is cumbersome; so if you properly decouple data–centric objects from what appears on screen, you can maintain one codebase despite separate interfaces.

Alan Zeino

I totally agree that designs should be conceived for both devices in a way that maximizes the UX potential of each platform.  For most apps, a pure translation of the experience from iPhone to iPad will fail to exploit the possibilities of functionality and user experience.  The development side of the equation aside, I'm curious to know if there are any perceived downsides of submitting apps as "Universal?"

Adam Baskin

I believe another advantage of having separate apps is if you need to roll out a bug fix for iPad, say, your iPhone users are not prompted to upgrade to an app that has no improvements for them, and vice versa.

Mark Geller

From my marketing / sales perspective as observed on the app store.  If it is a paid app it makes sense to have different versions with slightly higher pricing for the iPad version else a universal version makes more sense

Siddharth Mukund

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