i happen to have an ipad 2 myself. i didn't plan to get one, and i still don't think it serves much of a purpose in my life. but i needed a second, physical device for game center testing. i could have bought an ipod touch, but apart from testing, it would have been money down a rathole. i could at least see myself using an ipad a little bit for other things. a lot of my game players are on ipad, and it's nice to be able to evaluate other people's ipad apps.
having said that, don't underestimate the value of the ipad simulator you get with xcode. i used it exclusively to write the first ipad version of my card game. i didn't have a choice: if you wanted your ipad app to be in the app store on day one, you had to use the simulator, because the ipad was not yet available to purchase. if you're careful and don't take any sloppy shortcuts, the simulator can bear most of the weight of development and testing. the ipad version of my game was in the store for many months before i ever laid a hand on a physical ipad, and amazingly, it worked perfectly.
you're in a slightly different situation, since you'll no doubt be running up against the limits of physical memory and the gpu, so you'll have to do more real-world testing than i did. but you can get all the logic right in the simulator first.
i still can't move to the great white north, but if you guys need development help, i am available to contract. and i have my own hardware for testing.
Thanks for the tip - Simulator useful. Though likely not for the OpenGL ES side of things (mentioned in the documents, perhaps it doesn't do shaders). Still, we've got a PC version of OpenGL ES to work on the 3D graphics side of the code and the simulator to get a start on the glue logic, and a enchanting old demo we can use as a testbed.
having said that, don't underestimate the value of the ipad simulator you get with xcode. i used it exclusively to write the first ipad version of my card game. i didn't have a choice: if you wanted your ipad app to be in the app store on day one, you had to use the simulator, because the ipad was not yet available to purchase. if you're careful and don't take any sloppy shortcuts, the simulator can bear most of the weight of development and testing. the ipad version of my game was in the store for many months before i ever laid a hand on a physical ipad, and amazingly, it worked perfectly.
you're in a slightly different situation, since you'll no doubt be running up against the limits of physical memory and the gpu, so you'll have to do more real-world testing than i did. but you can get all the logic right in the simulator first.
i still can't move to the great white north, but if you guys need development help, i am available to contract. and i have my own hardware for testing.
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