The reason I need to find out is that on an iPad, a UIPickerView has the same height in landscape orientation as it does in portrait. On an iPhone it is different. The iPad
Checking at runtime (your first way) is completely different from #if at compile time. The preprocessor directives won't give you a universal app.
The preferred way is to use Apple's Macro:
if (UI_USER_INTERFACE_IDIOM() == UIUserInterfaceIdiomPad)
{
// The device is an iPad running iPhone 3.2 or later.
}
else
{
// The device is an iPhone or iPod touch.
}
Use 3.2 as the base SDK (because the macro is not defined pre 3.2), you can target prior OS versions to get it running on the iPhone.