The iPad's chicken-or-egg developer problem
(Credit: Apple) SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO--While the release of the iPhone 4 may have taken some of the wind out of Apple's iPad marketing sails, developers are still scrambling to produce apps for the new tablet device. One of the biggest problems to crop up though, is how much of a priority the iPad continues to be, versus creating something for the iPhone--or another platform first.
At first blush the reasoning behind this seems simple: there are just more iPhones and iPod Touches out there than the iPad can hope to approach in the next few years. Especially after this past weekend, where Apple announced that it sold 1.7 million iPhone 4s in just three days; that's compared to the 3 million iPads Apple sold after its first 80 days on the market. Any developer hoping to make a profit out of their first app knows full well there are more potential customers where there are more devices.
