Hi, I’m going to buy one of these devices mainly for game development. I wish I could afford both of them to test different resolutions, but I can’t. So, which one should I choose and why?
Btw, can every iphone app run on ipad too? or vice versa?
I would say iPhone as it is a phone as well. But more so that i believe the number of units sold is extrordinarily higher…That being said, you dont have to buy an iPhone, why not an iPod Touch and iPad? One of the main reasons to have them is to understand how they feel in your hand and develop the player interaction around that.
If it’s for testing I would say neither. While the consumer in you may want the top of the line device to play with, when testing you get MUCH more worth out of the low ends.
It may run fine on the iPhone 4s, but can’t even load on an iPod Touch 4(less memory), or can’t keep up the framerate on the 3GS.
If it’s for testing purposes you want to get your lowest supported devices, as if it plays well on those it’ll play well on the newer ones too, and you won’t alienate users (who paid for an app they can’t play) and get tons of 1 star reviews, which can hit you badly in sales.
If you support only the Arm7/OpenGL ES 2.0 devices, which is one of the limitations you can apply (same one as Infinity Blade, and seemingly all games released on iOS nowadays), the iPhone 3GS is the most likely to run into CPU issues, and the iPod Touch 4 will be the most likely the have memory/GPU issues when you support the retina display.
Get 3 devices.
The weakest device is probably going to be 3GS touch and iPad1 so try to get both of those. The reason for 3GS is because it has a crap CPU, and the iPad1 has crap fill-rate. But iPad2 offers the upgraded CPU and GPU, which you’ll need if you want to push quality settings higher.
If you aren’t making unity pro games you will probably waste your money getting iPad2.
Try at minimum, to get a 3rd gen ipod touch, and an iPad1 on the second hand market. Making your game run well on these two will guarantee a smooth experience for all the others. Having a retina touch around will help you if you can’t plan ahead with resolution independent stuff.
For example, I use a 2nd camera with abstracted orth camera coordinates (0-1 range) to position my buttons and stuff. They always look the same no matter the screen. That might be worth investing a little time into coding, especially if you’re not sure you’re going to have all the devices to test on.
Test with Analyze on in xcode to ensure your game never goes beyond 80-100 meg (or there will be tears aplenty. Physynth runs fine at 110 megs on iPad1, but the moment someone runs it on a jailbroken iPad, it crashes. There’s not much I can do because people running JB devices tend to have a ton of shitty background tasks running)
Testflight will be your friend too.
Totally agree with this.
If you want to make great games, you shouldnt be thinking only as a programmer (not getting only one device for testing perfomance/technical issues).
But also for design stuff, user experience, etc…
If you want to make great games, and also money of it, you should at least get all the necessaries devices to accomplish that mission.
If you dont have money, sell your stuff, borrow from friends, get a part-time “quick” job,etc…Of course, only if you plan to take this seriously.
Its an investment. Its a tool. Not a luxury.
Thanks all for the replies… The game I’m currently developing most probably won’t run on 3gs or ipad1, since it’s a 3D game and not much optimized 
…Intel atom does not run it smoothly 
And if you have an iphone or ipod touch, how can you simulate the experience of a large screen of ipad? Do you all have at least 2 devices for testing?
One more thing… I’m also going to buy a mac mini. Will an Intel HD 3000 gpu be enough for development?
hey rextr09,
i think its definitely important (as everyone above stated) to get both an iPad and an iTouch/iPhone. I tried initially dev’ing only on an iPhone and quickly realized there are just far too many differences between the devices (with the screen being the biggest issue).
As far as systems go… yes a mini will work fine. Just picked up one of the newest ones for one of my dev’s about a month ago and we’ve had no issues with it. Obviously its not going to be a 3D goliath or great at generating stuff in zbrush, but unity runs great w/it and we’ve no issues.