I wasn’t planning on discussing this until April 3rd, but some sites have already picked it up, so I might as well explain the why behind it. Simply put: X-Plane 10 will be for the iPad only. I figure that by letting you know now, you can make an informed decision about whether you want to buy an iPad. (Hint: you do!)

This wasn’t an easy decision to make, but here were some of the deciding factors:

  • I spend a lot of my time debugging video drivers, and it makes me very grumpy. You guys seem to think that you can plug anything with copper and wires into your PCIe socket and call it a “video card”. By restricting version 10 to iPad only, we cut down development time by targeting only one GPU.

  • We love everything Steve Jobs does and kiss the ground he walks on. Steve says the pad is magical.

  • The biggest single feature request we get for X-Plane is “can I use X-Plane while operating a motor vehicle.” X-Plane 9’s requirement of 1 GB of RAM, a modern CPU, etc. means that most X-Plane 9 machines are not particularly portable. By making X-Plane 10 iPad only, we can provide X-Plane in a portable format that’s more compatible with flying a flight simulator while driving.

One fringe benefit to cockpit builders: because the iPad is so light and thin, creation of a realistic home cockpit with X-Plane 10 will be easier than ever. Simply take some super-glue, wipe it on the back of your iPad, and simply “stick” the iPad to whatever part of the cockpit you want. It’s so easy a four-year-old could do it!

About Ben Supnik

Ben is a software engineer who works on X-Plane; he spends most of his days drinking coffee and swearing at the computer -- sometimes at the same time.

5 comments on “X-Plane 10 Will Be For the iPad Only

  1. Will we get 130fps on the iPad? I won't fly on anything lower than 130fps. People say the human eye can only see 30fps but i can tell the difference between 129fps and 130fps.

  2. This must be an April Fools joke…

    Not converting a sim as popular as X-Plane for the PC is idiotic to say the best. What about all the flight schools that uses X-Plane as a training tool? You chaps expect all of them to upgrade their simulators to Apple based?

    Stop pulling our legs!

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