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The iPad is finally among us and we’ve been getting many inquiries about whether our current apps are being optimized for the iPad or not as well as if there’s any new ‘bots in the works. Being a very small company has its pros, but one of the cons is not being able to do everything we want to at the same time. There are many things planned at Tapbots, but we must stay focused at one task at a time. So here are a few answers to questions that have been sent to us:

You guys have been quiet for a while. What are you up to?

For the past two and a half months or so, we’ve been hard at work on app #4. This is an app that we’ve been wanting to do for the longest time, but always put it off knowing it would be a huge project for us. We decided it was time to give it a shot. This app is currently being developed for the iPhone and an iPad version is also in early design stages. Our #1 priority is finishing this app for the iPhone and there’s no ETA yet.

The iPad was announced back in February. Other companies seem to have had plenty of time to release iPad versions of their apps. What’s the hold up?

As excited as we were about the iPad announcement, there were many reasons why we didn’t drop what we were working on to get an iPad app ready for launch. The biggest reason is the fact that we did not have a device to test on. A big part of our apps is the overall experience of them. We would not develop and release an app without being able to use the app as a normal user before selling it. What looks good in simulation doesn’t always work out well on the actual device.

The second reason we weren’t going to develop for the iPad early is because we had no idea how well the market would receive this device in a new category. We hoped/expected it to do well and initial numbers are very positive, but why take a risk when we can develop a new app for an already established market? It was an easy decision. Develop app #4 for the iPhone. By the time we are done, we’ll have plenty of play time with the iPad and have a better idea where the market is headed.

I have Pastebot running on my iPhone and iPad. Why can’t I sync both of them to my Mac?

Pastebot Sync was purposely designed to be very simple. We wanted it to be free and not create a lot of support requests. The less it does, the less issues it can have. That’s one of the reasons why the Sync app only supports one device at a time. The other reason was that most people only had one device anyways. If they had multiple, they probably only used one as their main device. With the release of the iPad, this changes things a bit. I think it’s safe to assume that anyone who buys an iPad already owns an iPhone or iPod touch. We are working on an update that will make the sync process with multiple devices a little better.

When will we see Weightbot/Convertbot/Pastebot made for the iPad?

We understand that our apps are not a great experience on the iPad right now, but it’s no surprise as they were designed for the iPhone. Since our apps have a custom interface, they take a lot of time to develop. We can’t say that all three apps will have iPad versions someday, but the one that makes the most sense right now is Pastebot. So if we develop iPad apps for our current apps, the first one will most likely be Pastebot. No official announcement on this because we still need to finish app #4.

Apple announced multi-tasking today. Does that mean Pastebot will finally run in the background?

We were hoping for good news regarding multi-tasking. It was great news for us as users, but not so great for Pastebot. While Apple’s multi-task implementation is smart, it doesn’t support the ability for Pastebot to grab what you copy in other apps in the background. If you really want Pastebot to import clippings in the background, tell Apple. The good news is going between Pastebot and the app you are copying from should be a better experience.

That’s about all I can think of for now. If you have other questions relevant to this topic, feel free to ask in the comments. We’ll do our best to answer some of them.