I have an iPhone 4 and an iPad. The devices are synced with my MacBook Pro so that apps appear on both. I would prefer to run iPhone apps on the iPhone only, and have the iPad-specific versions of the same applications running on the iPad. But it’s hard to tell which versions have been developed for which platform, especially for older versions, like Words with Friends (iPhone) and Words with Friends HD (iPad).
iTunes’ tools for managing an ever-growing iOS app collection are getting better…but they still have a long way to go. When you connect your device and select it in the source list, then select the Apps tab, you’ll see a checkbox for syncing all new apps automatically. That’s fine for your iPhone since iPad-only apps won’t sync to it anyway. So you know whatever apps are loaded with each sync will be either iPhone-optimized or universal (meaning, with one purchase and one app in your collection, you get native versions for each device).
But when it’s time to sync your iPad, if you have that same Automatically Sync New Apps box checked, iTunes will load all your new apps, even iPhone-only ones. My own “solution” for this is to just let that happen, then launch every new app on the iPad and delete any that aren’t iPad-sized. (Touch and hold an icon until they all jiggle, then tap the X by apps you don’t want because they are iPhone apps on your iPad and that’s just annoying.)
You can sort your apps-to-sync list by Kind or by Date, but not Kind and then Date—how is that fair?
iTunes will let you sort your apps list by Type, but you can’t then also sort by date purchased. And of course the current version (10.1.1) doesn’t have a simple checkbox to “Only sync iPad and Universal apps to this iPad,” which we’d love to see in an update. Please. Soon.
Universal apps are a wonderful trend—we love buying it once and getting two versions, so you don’t have to use up precious brain juice figuring out which app in your library is for which device. But for older apps, like your Words with Friends example, you can look for clues like HD in the app name or right in the icon. And once you set them to sync to the right device—as tricky as iTunes makes that—they’ll keep faithfully syncing that way until you change things up.
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mrplow
February 10, 2011 at 1:36am
An implementation of playlists (applists?) would be my preferred approach.
Then you could seperate apps by device (by just syncing selected playlits). You could have smart playlists (ipad only, universal, iphone, last 10 bought etc).
It's an easy to introduce concept because people already use these system for music and it's unobtrusive in a way that it doesn't have to be used if you don't want to manage which apps sync.
