Got a cocos2d iPad game out there? Might want to check it out with the iPad 3 simulator, NOW –

More Pixels Equals More Panic

Like a good little Apple dev, I downloaded the newest XCode and iOS Simulator to test out my apps. The rest of the cocos2d community was doing the same and that is when the excrement came in contact with the bladed cooling device. Devs started to report that their apps were showing a black screen on the iPad 3 simulator. More reports were coming in of other strange behaviour…

The patch presented in the post is probably not one you want to use in the long term, as faking out cocos2d’s retina display detection was a side effect of repurposing iPhone retina assets for normal iPad,

The solution to the problem was a bit of an accident. I wanted to create universal apps that took advantage of the iPad’s resolution without needing new assets. With careful asset management and a few hacks it is easy to use your Retina iPhone assets on the iPad. This helps you reduce your app’s footprint and take advantage of additional pixels. DOUBLE RAINBOW!

The method that I use is partially outlined in this forum post. It adds a makeUniversal method to CCDirector which you call immediately after instantiation of the director in your app delegate. Here is the code:

… but hey, if you just want to submit an emergency patch RIGHT NOW so that all those new iPad 3 customers won’t be posting “it doesn’t work” reviews on launch day, the techniques pointed to there should get you through the crisis!

h/t: @iUridium via @romainbriche!