Porting an iPhone app to iPad -- single application, or fork?

Question

I have an iPhone application I am about to modify for the iPad.

My problem is: the application is designed to work for iPhone OS 2.0 and if I make it for the iPad, I will have to design it for OS 3.2.

I cannot change the iPhone version, because I risk some of my users with old versions of the iPhone not being able to run the app.

Obviously I can make an hybrid application that can work on iPad/iPhone OS 3.2 and iPhone/iPhone OS 2.0, but this will be a hell to maintain, with many API call changes and such.

Which is the best approach: a hybrid version or a separate code fork for the iPad?

Answer 1

1) Fork the code, but...

2) Create a Universal application.

Basically, make a new version that will only support OS3.2 from here on out. That single version can contain both the updated iPhone application and the new iPad application, allowing you to easily codevelop them in the future, and reuse view controllers and models between them. This is how Apple would like you to do it. Check out the docs on universal applications.

Answer 2

Fork your code. You're probably going to want a new UI or new graphics code to accommodate the larger screen anyway, so you're really looking at a "new" app that uses a lot of your existing classes.