Underlining its status as the leader in game development middleware for iPhone, Danish outfit Unity Technologies has released a free update to its Unity iPhone engine.

Version 1.7 enables developers to release games for iPad via the Unity iPhone Basic and Unity iPhone Advanced technologies.

It also includes support for the iPad Simulator and universal applications so apps can be designed to work for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch.

Big bang

The company's revealed that as well as the 600 iPhone and iPod touch games made with Unity, 15 iPad games including Slug Wars, Monster Ball, iQuarium HD, Sailboat Championship PRO HD, and Jelly Invaders HD are available at launch.

"Getting Monster Ball onto the iPad was literally just a matter of setting up a few player preference parameters in Unity and hitting build," said the game's co-creator Thomas Hentschel Lund.

"The Unity GUI system already took care of aspect ratio changes, so the iPad port was simple, pain free. It just works."

You can download the latest version of Unity iPhone from unity3d.com/iPhone.