MacMost Now 421: iPhone, iPad-Only and Universal Apps

Now that there are many different devices that run apps, it can be difficult to determine which ones work on the iPhone, the iPad or both. There are three basic types: iPhone apps, universal apps and iPad-only apps. Learn how to tell the difference and decide which to buy.

Comments: 5 Responses to “MacMost Now 421: iPhone, iPad-Only and Universal Apps”

    George Brickner
    14 years ago

    The Radarscope app runs native in both iPhone and iPad. It looks great on both platforms.
    It's pricey at $10 but I think it's worth it, especially if you live in "Tornado Alley."

    Shirl Parker
    14 years ago

    When I use Safari on my iPad to read my Google email, and a particular email has graphics displayed, that graphic will display on the next email that I open which also has it's own graphics. For example, I open an email from Netflix, and then I open an email from MacMost, the Netflix images will show on the MacMost email. I have to shut down everything and reopen to have the MacMost email appear as it should. Then it's graphics will show on the next graphic email I open.

    This doesn't happen if I use the Mail app to read the email, but because I frequently follow links from my emails, it works better to read them from Safari (except for the graphic glitch), and then it's fewer steps to get back to email.

    JC
    12 years ago

    I don't know if it's me but I'm a bit confused with the way universal apps "update" on both my iPhone and iPad. When I purchase an universal app for the first time, I've seen the app get downloaded on both my iPad and iPhone (and iMac if turned on) as expected. However, when it's time to update these apps, they don't seem to do so automatically as I would expect. In other words, when I update an universal app on my iPhone, I don't see the same app get automatically updated on my iPad. The same it's true if I do it the other way around. It does seem to work in the iMac. Another thing I've noticed is that if I have an iPhone or iPad-only app and the app gets updated to universal, when I update to the universal app, again, the app doesn't get automatically downloaded to the other divece it was not compatible with. In summary, my universal apps only seem to synch across divices when I first purchase them but not when I update them. I have the Apps Store automatic download feature turned on under settings for all my devices. Am I missing something, or is this the way universal apps should work when updating (manually updating them individually across devices)??

      12 years ago

      Well I won't get into the reasons for everything -- but the way it works is each device updates on its own unless you sync them with your iMac, which will update them via iTunes. So just do the updates. No big deal, just takes a second to tell it to update or download something new.

    JC
    12 years ago

    Hmm... That doesn't seem very intuitive to me. Same as iCloud takes care of updates of other apps like contacts throughout devices, for instance, I thought it would do the same for universal apps. If have an universal app, why wouldn't I want it updated across all devices automatically instead of doing it them individually or depending on iTunes sync?

    Thanks for your feedback Gary.

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