According to John Gruber, at Daring Fireball, those ‘missing’ built-in apps for the iPad – the ones that are on the iPhone but not the iPad; Stocks, Calculator, Clock, Weather and Voice Memos – are going to remain missing when the iPad is released. They won’t be showing up as Dashboard-style widgets or in any other form when the device launches, though he does think they might be ‘re-imagined’ by Apple when OS 4.0 comes out this summer.
Here are some of the reasons why Gruber and his sources feel Apple has decided to leave these apps out:
There were, internally to Apple (of course), versions of these apps (or at least some of them) with upscaled iPad-sized graphics, but otherwise the same UI and layout as the iPhone versions. Ends up that just blowing up iPhone apps to fill the iPad screen looks and feels weird, even if you use higher-resolution graphics so that nothing looks pixelated. So they were scrapped by you-know-who.
That sounds perfectly plausible / reasonable to me. If these reports prove true, I really won’t feel any great sense of loss.
Though I use the Clock app occasionally as an alarm, and fire up the Calculator once in a while, I realize there are plenty of alternative apps out there that can fill in for them. I’ve never been an investor, so the Stocks app has never served any purpose for me. I tried out the Voice Memos app and found it is far more basic and lacks features that a few other good voice notes apps I use have, so have never used it in ages. The Weather app is the same – I use Fizz Weather and World Weather, can’t even remember the last time I ever looked at the built-in weather app.
I did like the idea of Dashboard-style widgets on the iPad, and hope Apple will either do something themselves in that area or allow third party devs to – but as for the missing apps themselves, they won’t be missed at all by me.
How about you all? Will you be shedding any tears for any of these missing apps? If so, which ones and why?
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
True – that is a major drawback.
Come to think of it, your right!
But I would like the option.
Fair enough – I hope you'll get it one way or the other.
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I wont miss them, I rarely used those apps anyways. I have my phone as my alarm. Im sure those apps will comeback in a different form. I will miss the calculator App however, it came in handy on my Iphone, im sure there is a better alternative in app store.