No Default Applications Or Secret Widget Mode On iPad

John Gruber of Daring Fireball says the iPhone stock widget apps which came on the original iPhone (Calculator, Clock, Stocks, Voice Memos and Weather) will not be included on the iPad, they were scrapped by Steve Jobs. Also, expect no widget mode either.

Actually, it’s sort of the opposite problem. It’s not that Apple couldn’t just create bigger versions of these apps and have them run on the iPad. It wasn’t a technical problem, it was a design problem. 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. Perhaps they’ll appear on the iPad in some re-imagined form this summer with OS 4.0, but when the iPad ships next month, there won’t be versions of these apps. At least that’s the story I’ve heard from a few well-informed little birdies.

(There is, alas, no secret “widget” mode for iPad in OS 3.2, either.)

Unfortunately, the stock apps which came on the iPhone were useful in my opinion. But, this can also open many doors to developers to release their own applications. Hopefully Apple will offer their stock apps as App Store downloads and not charge.