carpeaqua

As expected, I received quite a bit of mail and tweets over my Android App count. Most agreed with the sentiment of my list, but the Android apologists were out in full force claiming that it was unfair of me to not count Android apps that have been upscaled to fill the entire tablet screen. I disagree.

If that is all it takes to build a successful tablet platform, we may as well concede that the iPad is nothing more than a giant iPod touch. There is little purpose in buying into a tablet platform if the only thing it offers is a bigger view of your phone apps.

The best iPad apps are not those that just stretch their iPhone table views out to take advantage of the larger screen. They are apps like Twitter, Reeder and Flipboard that invented new paradigms and changed the way we used the device. They are the apps that get lost under our fingers because they work intuitively with multitouch gestures.

By similar token, the best Honeycomb apps are not going to be those that just stretch out a ListView control to adapt to the screen size whether it be 4” or 9”. Tablets offer us an opportunity to shake up how we have interacted with computers in the past thirty years. If all Android¹ subscribed to was to make it easy to port a product designed for a phone to a tablet, then it is a waste for developers and a shame for users who will embrace the platform. The Xoom is still in its infancy, so there is plenty of time for Android developers to kick the tires and see what the tablets can offer. Hopefully more will see it as an opportunity to shine and change how we use our devices rather than an opportunity to get an existing app on another platform with the least amount of effort possible.

If you want to learn how to build better tablet or phone apps irregardless of the platform, I highly recommend two books. App Savvy by Ken Yarmosh and Tapworthy by Josh Clark. Neither are programming books and instead focus on the design and business sides of the app markets. The first step to being a successful developer on these new platforms is to think like one.