The iPad mini (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)
Even a cursory glance at the iOS titles available in the App Store will show a huge number of games available. More than Sony or Nintendo, Apple is in the driving seat of mobile gaming. The launch of the iPhone 5 continued to push the design envelope available to developers, but it’s the iPad mini that is going to have the bigger impact on the iOS gaming world.
The size and weight of the iPad mini make it a very good choice as a gaming machine. It’s much more portable than the iPad so easier to carry, it’s lighter and thus easier to hold and move for tilt controlled gaming, but unlike the high performance benefits of the iPhone 5, the iPad mini’s biggest contribution is going to be a consolidation of the platform.
The defining feature of the iPad mini is the 7.85 inch screen. It’s not a retina screen, so the obvious conclusion is that gaming is not going to be a good experience. And that conclusion is wrong. Keeping an identical resolution to the iPad 2 means that huge amounts of already written code will run on the iPad mini with no alterations required.
It also means that developers will continue to support the resolution of the iPad 2 and the lower tech specs on that machine because of the similarity to the iPad mini. That extends the life of the iPad 2 through the App Store, and that means that Apple’s whole range of hardware, especially those in the lower price ranges, are not left unsupported by third party developers.
The lower resolution also requires less memory for graphical work, meaning that the iPad mini can carry on using the older A5 system on chip. This is going to keep the build cost of the iPad mini low for Apple, but it also means that developers will already be very comfortable with the architecture of the iPad mini. The A5 can handle complicated graphics with careful coding, making the iPad mini a disruptive device in the 7 inch market space.
Apple have reduced any potential points of fragmentation from a hardware point of view on the iPad Mini. Developers do not need to worry about another version of each application they code, which reduces the work-load of the initial coding, the burden of ongoing support.
I’m not thinking about the blue ribbon games, which can afford to test and iterate over the various devices with multiple coders. I’m thinking about the bedroom coders, the one or two developer teams that create the bulk of titles in the App Store. The introduction of the stretched iPhone 5 screen led to many long sessions to tweak code. Thankfully the iPad mini is not going to add to the workload, Apple retains three screen footprints; the iPad 4:3, the regular iPhone 1.5:1, and the stretched iPhone 5′s 16:9.
The only negative that I could see with the iPad mini is one of the lowest specification iOS devices but it’s also one of the newest. Consumers will expect their new tablet to be able to run any new iOS application, and developers are going to be coding to the lowest common denominator of the iOS family. That could slow down the more development of more complicated games, but the strength of iOS has always been the volume of casual games.
iOS is not perceived as a platform where CPU grunt is needed (although if any genre needs grunt, it’s gaming). I’m sure that Apple have balanced the drag the lower specs will have on the iOS ecosystem against the increased sales of iOS as a platform. and are happy with the trade.
The iPad mini increases the number of people downloading games, it has the knock-on effect of keeping the iPad 2 relevant to developers, and ergonomically it’s probably the best iPad for gaming.
For the individual gamer, the iPad mini is a great choice. For the iOS platform it reinforces a number of areas without creating any burdens on developers. With the iPad mini, Apple have released a device that has seriously bolstered their gaming credentials.
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