Games

Top 10 Reasons the iPhone is Incomparable - Wait-a-Thon!

By Rene Ritchie, Friday, May 2, 2008 a 12:30 am

[Ed: We're bringing back the Wait-a-Thon and making it regular again. Sorry we dropped it off there for awhile, folks. With all those 3G and iPhone 2.0 rumors flying about these past couple of weeks, it almost felt like the release was already here. In the meantime, comment on any post tagged "Wait-a-Thon" for your chance to win a $100 iTunes Gift Card!]

This is not a response to Crackberry.com's excellent article, Top 10 Reasons Why the iPhone Is NO BlackBerry. Quite frankly, the iPhone doesn't need a response; it's the rest of industry that's so desperately trying to find one to the iPhone.

I don't know about you, but it's getting more than a little tiring hearing everyone compare themselves to -- and constantly try to rip-off -- the iPhone. I can't surf a website or cruise the main without some claw-handed Crackberry addict, neck-bearded Palm artifact, or frazzle-haired WinMob frustrati glaring and frothing with barely-contained envy at the perfectly balanced, seamlessly integrated, lustfully convergent iPhone held ever-so casually in my grip.

They know the iPhone is beyond cool. Sure, they cling to their once innovative, formerly revolutionary (at least in the case of Palm and RIM) devices, the ones overwhelming nostalgia or massive business infrastructure investment won't let them slam to the ground and stomp into the call-dropping, web-mangling, constantly crashing oblivion they so richly deserve.

So the comparisons to the iPhone just won't stop, despite the fact that the iPhone is pretty much incomparable. Don't believe me? I've got ten reasons to back me up. And these aren't minor feature gripes or personal peccadilloes. In proper Apple fashion, these are just 10 simple little words...

iPhone Gaming: Quake This! Redux

By Rene Ritchie, Thursday, Apr 10, 2008 a 2:55 pm

Remember that Quake III video running on jailbroken iPod Touches a couple of days ago? Engadget hunted down the developers and wrung us out some more:

iPhone Gaming: Quake This!

By Rene Ritchie, Sunday, Apr 6, 2008 a 1:26 pm

While we've speculated about the huge potential for iPhone/iPod Touch gaming, is it possible we're still underestimating it?

Pre-SDK, Engadget brings us word -- and video -- of Quake 3 absolutely shredding Apple's little hand-hand revolution. Tilt-to-move, touch-to-fire, wi-fi to multi-player, it looks beyond sweet to me, and this is almost certainly still an early-stage, pre-app launch demo. And I'm not even sure it's coming officially from Carmack and id Software at this point!

But words don't do it justice. Check out the video after the break!

Gaming: iPhone vs. Nintendo DS and Sony PSP

By Rene Ritchie, Sunday, Mar 23, 2008 a 8:55 am

We've covered gaming here a few times already. Now Roughly Drafted Magazine's Daniel Eran Dilger chimes in with another of his highly detailed (and highly partisan) articles, this one looking at Apple's iPhone and how it compares to, and seems poised to disrupt, the established portable gaming platforms:

Devs on Apps: Charge Us More, Users Less

By Rene Ritchie, Saturday, Mar 8, 2008 a 8:55 am

Craig Hockenberry, the widely acclaimed Mac developer of Twitterific, has had extensive experience developing for jailbroken iPhones and iPod Touches. So, when he weighs in on the iPhone SDK, it's definitely worth a read.

iPhone SDK Event Showcases Games

By Casey Chan, Thursday, Mar 6, 2008 a 7:20 pm

[Photo credit: PhoneMag]

Wait…You mean it’s a phone, an internet portal, an iPod AND a gaming device? Apple is certainly following through with this one-gadget-to-rule-them-all motif. In fact, the game demos pretty much stole the show at the iPhone SDK Roadmap event.

Using the three-axis iPhone accelerometer, multi-touch, and pretty much everything else that the iPhone is capable of doing—portable gaming is officially on notice.

Peering into the iPhone SDK Crystal Ball

By Rene Ritchie, Monday, Mar 3, 2008 a 2:12 pm

Thursday brings the SDK. You know, the one that needs no other identifier. The one that the entire tech-verse has been chomping at the bit for since roughly 0.001 seconds after Steve Jobs slipped the iPhone from his pocket at Macworld 2007.

But that’s all we know: SDK Event March 6th.

We don’t know whether the SDK will be ready to code that very same day, who’ll be given access to it, how they’ll test for it, what type of approval process Apple will require, how apps will be distributed, how they’ll be priced, and most importantly for the end user: whether or not “OMG teh iPhone can has WoW!!11”

However, that doesn’t stop us from guessing!

Apple Making Games for the iPhone?

By Dieter Bohn, Tuesday, Feb 12, 2008 a 9:27 am

What does the iPhone lack? Besides the obvious -- 3G, Office Doc editing, the ability to actually make julienne fries -- what the iPhone lacks is games. Real, on-board games. Some of this pain is mitigated by the fact that you can get web-based games (including some great iPhone games by our very own forum member cmaier). Still, though, do you know what the most popular video game on the planet is?

Solitaire. Because it's built into Windows.

iPhone Games from Cliff Maier

By Mike Overbo, Tuesday, Oct 9, 2007 a 12:28 pm

Longtime forum member Cliff Maier (cmaier in the forums) just posted his sixth full game, making him long overdue for accolades on the front page. All of the games are simple, clean, and optimal candidates for boonies mode data URLs. All of the games are small and make excellent use of the fonts present on the iPhone; due to his careful programming, all of the games com in at around 80k (and even less for ThumbTrek). This is important, as it means that the games will still be eminently playable over EDGE networks.

iPhone To Get 2nd Party Apps?

By Mike Overbo, Friday, Oct 5, 2007 a 11:15 am

I've claimed over and over that the iPhone is built to buy things from iTunes. One of the things that we should be able to buy from iTunes is programs. Games, if that's your thing; mental diversions. I'm glad to report that 9to5mac.com says that it's coming. Of course, they call it 3rd party development, which is kind of a misnomer. If it requires that a developer sign a contract and get Apple's blessing just to get the development tools, it's a lot more like 2nd party development. It would bring the iPhone and iPod Touch to feature parity with the iPod Classic and Nano, so I'm glad to see it, assuming it's true (which I do).