Providing an insight into the comparative popularity of games for Apple’s iPhone and iPad, developer Michael Buford of Headlight Software, with chart-topping games for both the platforms, recently revealed that the downloads of his iPad app were nearly 5 percent as much as those for a similar game for the vast audience of the iPhone.

Updating his personal blog on Friday, Buford shared the download figures for his two free apps for the App Store – the iPhone-specific ‘Knife Dancing’, and the iPad-speciific ‘Heads Up: Hold'em.’

Noting that while Knife Dancing was the No. 1 free iPhone game in February, with nearly 165,000 downloads in one single day, Heads Up achieved the No. 1 iPad game status this Thursday, with 8,300 downloads in a single day; Buford said: “So according to those numbers, for a free game the iPad app store is about 5% as big as the iPhone app store on the day before the 3G launch.”

Buford further added that both free applications include in-app sales – Knife Dancing offering a $0.99 upgrade, and Heads Up offering a $4.99 upgrade; the pricier upgrade of the iPad game leading to over 10 percent of the revenue obtained via the iPhone title.

Meanwhile, a new report from App Store analytical firm Distimo has revealed that the $4.67 average price of an iPad app is higher than the $3.82 cost of an iPhone app; thereby suggesting that there is a higher ratio of paid apps for the iPad, vis-à-vis the iPhone.