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I'm using Xcode 4.2 and in the process of writing a universal app. I selected SingleView Application template when starting with a new project. XCode added ViewController1.h, ViewController1.m, ViewController1_iphone.xib and ViewController1_iPad.xib. I need to add more UIs and clicked on the File...New...New File and selected UIViewController subClass template and seeing two checkboxes (Targeted for iPad, With Xib for User Interface).

What should I do here to support both iPad and iPhone while at the same time have a common .h and .m files that share the same code. Do I need to add code to check whether it is a iPad or iPhone by doing this in my view controllers?

if ([[UIDevice currentDevice] userInterfaceIdiom] == UIUserInterfaceIdiomPhone) { } else { }

Also, I have seen people talking about ~iPad and ~iPhone. What is this all about?

If I understand correctly, do I have to design the UI separately both for iPad and iPhone due to different screen sizes?

I'm totally confused here.

Please help.

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5 Answers 5

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You can either add two nibs (one for ipad and one for iphone), or you can add one nib that will properly scale for either interface. Normally you'd add two nibs if you're making a view that will cover all or most of the screen, and you'd add one nib if you're making something small that will, perhaps, be fullscreen on iphone but displayed in a popover on ipad.

The tilde suffixes ~ipad and ~iphone are described under the heading “iOS Supports Device-Specific Resources” in the Resource Programming Guide. Notice that the suffixes are entirely lower-case, not camel-case as you wrote in your question. This matters because iOS uses a case-sensitive filesystem.

When you get a path for a resource using an NSBundle message like -[NSBundle pathForResource:ofType:] or -[NSBundle URLForResource:withExtension:], iOS will first look for the resource file with a suffix of ~ipad or ~iphone, depending on the current device. For example, suppose you do this:

NSString *path = [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:@"setup" ofType:@"plist"];

  • If you run this on an iPhone-type device (including an iPod touch), or on the simulator in iPhone mode, iOS will first look in your app bundle for a file named setup~iphone.plist. If it finds such a file, it will return the path of that file. If it doesn't find that file, it will instead return the path to setup.plist.

  • If you this on an iPad-type device, or on the simulator in iPad mode, iOS will first look in your app bundle for a file named setup~ipad.plist. If it finds such a file, it will return the path of that file. If it doesn't find that file, it will instead return the path to setup.plist.

All of the other APIs that get resources from bundles are built on top of NSBundle, so they all benefit from this device-specific lookup. That means if you use +[UIImage imageNamed:], it will automatically use a device-specific image, if you have one in your bundle. And if you use -[NSBundle loadNibNamed:owner:options:], it will automatically load a device-specific nib (.xib) file, if you have one in your bundle.

This simplifies your code, if you use the suffixes. If you create MyViewController~ipad.xib and MyViewController~iphone.xib, your app will automatically load the correct one for the current device. You don't have to check the user interface idiom; NSBundle checks it for you. (You could also use the names MyViewController~ipad.xib and MyViewController.xib and get the same effect.)

Now, you may have noticed that when you created your “universal” project, Xcode gave your project files named ViewController1_iPhone.xib and ViewController1_iPad.xib, which do not use the tilde suffixes, and it included code to look at the user interface idiom and choose a filename accordingly. Why does the universal project template do this? I don't know, but it is stupid. I suggest you fix the filenames to use the tilde suffixes and rip out the code that checks the user interface idiom.

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3 Comments

All replies are excellent although I have pick one as my answer. I'm not using Storyboards though. Btw, how should I continue from here?. Select the "Targeted for iPad" in my universal app?
Create a xib targeted for iPad and give it the ~ipad suffix. Create another xib targeted for iPhone (as in, not targeted for iPad) and give it the ~iphone suffix, or no suffix.
Sure. Thanks a lot and thanks again to all people who replied. Every bit of it is useful
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I would recommend moving your .xib files to Storyboards, one for iPhone and one for iPad. They put a lot of joy back into development and are easy to learn.

Then, assign your custom class to your view controllers and link your UI elements to your code. If you do this for both storyboards, then they can both share the same code by referencing a common .h/.m file.

In the project settings, you then assign the appropriate storyboards to the iPhone/iPad deployment info once the app has been configured for universal development.

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If you are completely new to storyboards, you only need 1 per device (iPhone/iPad) which serves as a container for all your view controllers. If you need to handle UIViews without UIViewControllers, then these need their own .xib file.
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It's more or less up to you how you choose to implement things and structure things, but I tend to work with the following idea :

  • Ignore the 'Target for iPad' and 'With Xib' options (unless not using storyboards. See later)
  • Create a parent view controller that holds all shared code. E.G. MainViewController
  • Create 2 subclasses of this for both iPad and iPhone. E.G. MainViewController_iPhone and MainViewController_iPad (you could use MainViewController~iPhone which you mentioned. Simply a matter of naming preference here)
  • Any code that you want shared between iPhone and iPad, stick in the MainViewController parent class, and anything specific to each device place in the appropriate subclass

Generally you shouldn't really need to test if you're running on an iPhone or iPad. That's not to say that it's wrong and you shouldn't do it, but by separating the classes like this, you shouldn't really need to. But what I like to do is check what device I'm running on when I handle what orientations the device can handle, and put this in the shared parent view controller.

As for your UI, you've got 3 options. - Use storyboards (I'd recommend this) - Use separate XIB files - Code everything manually

Depending on how much you now about iOS, coding everything manually can be more efficient, but will most likely take you longer. Using interface builder is nice and simple, although any customisations you want to make you'll still need to do in code but that's fine.

I'd suggest using storyboards so that you don't have loads of different XIB files. It also simplifies the split between iPhones and iPads, as you simply have 2 files for your interface. One will have all of your screens for the iPhone, and one will have all the screens for the iPad. iOS will automatically load the right storyboard at startup so you don't have to do anything. Then, to get your view controller and view, you can do something like :

MainViewController *vc = [self.storyboard instantiateViewControllerWithIdentifier:@"MainViewControllerIdentifier"];

Note that the identifier is specified inside the storyboard.

Hopefully this helps slightly, but if you have more questions just fire away :)

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Here is what you want:

if (UI_USER_INTERFACE_IDIOM() == UIUserInterfaceIdiomPhone) { storyboard = [UIStoryboard storyboardWithName:@"ViewController1_iphone" bundle:nil]; } else if (UI_USER_INTERFACE_IDIOM() == UIUserInterfaceIdiomPad) { storyboard = [UIStoryboard storyboardWithName:@"ViewController1_ipad" bundle:nil]; }
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If you name your nib files MyNib.xib and MyNib~ipad.xib, the required nib will be automatically loaded, depending on the device your app is running on. However, it is not always necessary to create different nibs. If you don't require much customization, and it can be solved with the autoresizingMasks or you are setting some frames programmatically, it can be solved with only one nib. If you check the "targeted for ipad" part, your view in the nib will be larger, and the grouped tables look a little differently, but I don't know of any other difference in the outcome.

Hope this helps!

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