Native Applications: Better on the iPad

The iPhone and iPad share many of the same core native apps (the iPhone runs iPhone OS 3.1 while the iPad runs iPhone OS 3.2), but a few of the iPad’s have been optimized to take advantage of the bigger screen. The e-mail application, for example, in landscape mode shows recent messages and a search bar at the left, and displays the selected message at the right—a useful layout that simply isn’t possible on the iPhone's smaller screen. The Photo Viewer is equally cool: The app lets you preview many more images, more easily than on the iPhone. There are also more ways of viewing your images on the iPad including some cool slideshow options. I also love the way the contacts application resembles a physical address book.

Cooler Apps

No question, apps optimized for the iPad look incredible. Hardcore gamers in particular will be impressed. But as more of a casual gamer, I’m okay with playing my (much smaller) games on my iPhone. The same goes with other applications. I tweet a couple of times a day and am fine with Tweetdeck on my iPhone. But frequent Twitter users might get a lot more out of Tweetdeck on the iPad: You can tweet from multiple accounts, easily geo-locate tweets via a built-in map and view many more of your friends’ updates at once.

While I appreciate all that the iPad can do, I’m pretty satisfied with my iPhone 3GS and won’t be rushing over to the Apple Store any time soon. I’ve only spent a day with the iPad though, so my opinion might change—especially as more cool apps roll out.