iPad Information July 24 2010

Repeat after me: Om mani padme hum, and then do it again, and again :-)

The iPad has required significant changes to iFuntastic.

The main reasons are the large screen and the fact that the Lock and Home screens can change their orientation. The internal structure of many files has changed; many images now come in two versions: portrait and landscape.

On the plus side, the iPad's processor is significantly faster, the large screen opens new vistas of widget fun and even the changing orientation allows some neat new tricks.

Features not available for iPad

No ringtones or voicemail (of course.)
Home Screen Layout is reduced to setting a home screen movie. Changes in various files preclude the (easy) changing of application names or icons. The really cool 'panoramic' background has lost appeal, since a rotation of the home screen scrambles the panorama. The same goes for the display order: icons are rearranged into different number of rows and columns depending on the orientation. This not only is a bit of a user interface faux pas (you can't rely on an app to stay in the same spot,) but it also makes insertion of gaps or careful custom arrangement pointless. You can still set 'per page' wallpaper, but it's now done on the WinterBoard Themes page. This, too, loses some appeal due to the rotated images not being centered.

Updated Features

I spent a lot of time updating the Widgetation and WinterBoard Theme pages to accommodate the iPad. 'Widgetation' is the preparation of special web pages for the Lock Screen, Home Screen and web clips with 'widgets' - customizable elements containing text or images. The new 'Sprite' widget is programmable and animatable!
You can choose a fixed orientation for your Lock Screen or Home Screen or, the default, let iFuntastic keep the widgets and background images centered at all times. You can interact with the Lock Screen: sprite widgets are clickable (tappable, rather,) and you can switch to other pages, adjust animation parameters or show and hide widgets in response. A live preview in Safari lets you check out your designs and animations.

Not quite iPad ready

The custom file shortcuts in the editors have not been updated yet, they still lead to the non-iPad version of the files. Documentation is woefully outdated. Most sample files are not iPad specific (for example, most wallpaper images are *tiny*.)

Special Considerations

The wonderfully large size of the iPad's screen - a hurdle on the desktop. The larger your monitor the better, especially when editing images or laying out web pages.

Don't get discouraged, though, there still is a lot of iFun to be had!