Question

I have developed a tabBar application in iphone,it uses 4 tabs to show the specific contents of the application.

Here are few furhter details
on click of 1st tab, I have a calendar, 2nd and 3rd tab I have tableView, 4th tab has also tableview but it has a navigation controller, so that when I click on cell ,it will navigate to the detailView.I hope I have given enough details of my app.

Now I want to port this app to ipad,and I have very little knowledge about how stuff works in ipad, I have many questions revolving in my mind,
1) how the design should be.
2) how the screen estate should be used.

So friends,I request you to please guide me w.r.t this .

Thanks
Ranjit.

Answer 1

I would recommend beginning with the iOS Human Interface Guidelines to get an idea of some good practices. The Design the App for the Device section may be the most relevant to you.

Depending what your app is actually trying to accomplish, you might want to look at UIPopover and/or UISplitViewController. These two classes are iPad specific and are great for utilizing the available screen space in the tablet setting.

Just a side note in case you really are at square 1: most, if not all, of your code will still work on the iPad. However, you must set the device target to Universal or iPad if you would like it to display correctly on the iPad. You can do this by selecting the project in XCode –> Selecting the app from your list of “Targets” –> Setting the “Devices” option under the “Summary” tab.

Lastly and perhaps most importantly, look at examples of iPad apps (Google screenshots/reviews of them if you do not have an iPad). Spend some time getting a good feel for the environment! Also, don’t forget there are plenty of sites/wikis with best practices if what I have given you does not answer a specific problem you run into.