iPad

[Demonike]

Since the announcement of the iPad by Apple yesterday, it is ripe time to gather our thoughts around porting the games to iPhone OS platform. I think Avernum and Geneforge would make excellent multitouch games (great even without multitouch)!

 

So, Jeff, what do you think? Would it be relatively easy to port or would it mean yet another rewrite of the whole game!? In the latter case, my honest guess would be that you do not bother

 

Having said that, I'm slightly disappointed in that the iPad does not support traditional MacOS - would've been nice to bring my games on a trip with me - now I have to buy what I can, again. Sort of.

[Alorael at Large]

The games would be painful to play without a keyboard, and they'd probably have to be substantially rewritten. Then he couldn't sell them at a price anywhere close to what they're worth on the iPhone/iPod platform. Jeff has written some blog rants about it.

 

—Alorael, who also believes Jeff has written about how even if he could sell the games at a profit the work of rewriting them means he'd lose too much money from not writing something new. He can't find that quote, though. It may be fictitious.

[Swimmin' Salmon]

just who do you think would want to spend hours staring at a stupid iphone screen when they could just use their computer instead?

[Student of Trinity]

Tiny little people.

[A less presumptuous name.]

Is the "iPad" anything more than an iPod touch on steroids with a terrible name?

[The Mystic]

Originally Posted By: Ferrous Oxide and Turpentine

—Alorael, who also believes Jeff has written about how even if he could sell the games at a profit the work of rewriting them means he'd lose too much money from not writing something new. He can't find that quote, though. It may be fictitious.

I remember seeing it too; I think it might be hidden somewhere in Jeff's blog.

[Ephesos]

I've seen a lot more jokes about it being a hygiene product than I ever wanted to... I mean, wow.

[A less presumptuous name.]

Originally Posted By: Ephesos

I've seen a lot more jokes about it being a hygiene product than I ever wanted to... I mean, wow.

This.

[jlsgaladriel]

Quote:

Is the "iPad" anything more than an iPod touch on steroids with a terrible name?

Well, they seem to have addressed battery life issues, which is huge.

I'd been ignoring the hype, because I'm broke, but at $500 a new platform -- for which I already own a suite of working software -- could very well replace my old powerbook. What a brilliant price point for Apple; mac folks are conditioned to much higher prices, but all of a sudden they've created something truly competitive.

The key question for me would be how it feels to use that virtual keyboard. If I can't comfortably write a sermon or a paper or a report on it, I can't use it for work or school. I'd buy one to *replace* a laptop, but I can't see many folks carrying around an iphone, a laptop, *and* a new device.

[Randomizer]

Jeff's interest in porting a game to another platform decreases significantly with the amount of programming code changes he has to make. Not being able to use Mac OS X is a huge minus.

 

I'm guessing most of the keyboard commands could be replaced by touch icons and mouse controls to touch commands. Still unless someone makes an application to easily convert his game, Jeff isn't going to do it.

 

His last concession was altering screen resolution so Avernum 6 could run on netbooks.

 

I have a vague recollection about the Jeff quote, but no interest in hunting it down. It may have been posted in General in a deleted topic.

[jlsgaladriel]

Quote:

I think Avernum and Geneforge would make excellent multitouch games...

I think the only way this would come about were if someone licensed the rights from Jeff to build it themselves. Jeff's got a model of indie game development which works for him, so he'd be crazy to break it. From what I've read of his blog, though, he's happy to have intellectual property on which to build in the future.

The problem is still the average price point of paid iphone/ipad apps... Assuming half of his regular users would buy Avernum Touch -- do half of us own iDevices, or will we in a year? -- at, say, the high-for-the-appstore price of $5.99, would it be worth Jeff's risk to hire someone to do the conversion, or would it be worth it to an outside developer to license the game?

[Slawbug]

The keyboard is the problem. Although this creates a sort of interesting point on a previously nonexistant part of the continuum between mobile phone and laptop, it seems to me much more like a very large iPhone and less like a keyboardless laptop.

[keira]

I just hope that addon hardware keyboard will work for the iPod/iPhone. I'm already disturbingly used to doubletapping the space bar to make a period.

[Monroe]

Originally Posted By: Win Friends and Terrify People

The games would be painful to play without a keyboard

I disagree with this much, at least. The only keys I can think of that I use in Spiderweb games are the inventory keys, and I feel like if you could touch the inventory button on the screen with your finger, it might even be more efficient than using a keyboard.

Originally Posted By: Poached Salmon

just who do you think would want to spend hours staring at a stupid iphone screen when they could just use their computer instead?

Portability. I thought that was pretty obvious, actually. If you were being sarcastic, I apologize.

[Swimmin' Salmon]

seriously? i mean, i know this is the company forum, but i think even Jeff would agree that it's okay to take a break from playing computer games.

[Niemand]

In the Avernum games, {1,2,3,BoA}, I tend to use the keyboard almost exclusively: arrow keys for motion, letters for rapid spell casting, and numbers for interacting with dialogs. The last wouldn't be bad to handle on a touch screen, while the first two I don't think I would like having to do without a keyboard at all. I only use the mouse/trackpad for handling items, and I loathe having to do so, although this might be an area in which a touchscreen would preform better than the alternatives. It seems to me that reworking the interface to the games to work passably well would be no simple task for Jeff to undertake.

[Monroe]

Right, I figured we were talking more about newer games where you can click where to walk. Really, though, I feel like Jeff's interface, with it's big, colorful, very clickable buttons would be perfect for a touch screen. There are even those quickcast spell slots for easy spell casting. The newer games would probably be perfect for an iPad, if you think about it. As far as the older games, though, you are correct.

[keira]

Well, let's think about how much time this would waste Jeff when he could be working on that shiney new game. The SDK is $99, not that much I guess. But then he has to learn Objective-C (if he doesn't know it already) and then port the games. That takes a while to do. Then there's getting it to sell on the App Store. Let's face it, $6.99 is pretty much the ceiling for feasibly selling a product there. Looking at the site, SW is currently selling at $25 a game. According to a couple sites I googled, Apple takes a 30% cut.

 

Unless this idea becomes a lot more lucrative in the future, I wouldn't expect any SW apps.

[Ephesos]

Well, I wouldn't put it that way. More like we shouldn't expect any of the $25 games to become $6 apps.

[Dintiradan]

This is what Glorious Leader has to say.

 

I'm sure there's a niche for the iPad, but general purpose computing isn't it, as JV said in his post and comments. I find my netbook fits my needs pretty well. It's smaller than a normal laptop, and thus a bit more portable. It's bigger than a PDA, and thus is more powerful and has more screen space (plus, y'know, a reasonable sized keyboard). It makes a decent 'eBook Reader' for on the bus as well.

 

What's the appeal behind touchscreen technology anyway? It can't just be ease of use. Is it because it looks neat? Is the trend of having flashy

to do simple tasks going to continue?

 

Or is it because we always see touchscreen technology in

(take a step back and really look at it; imagine training someone to use that thing)?

 

--------------------

"Wall mounted keyboards? It must be... the future!"

[Rowen]

I think of Minority Report when I think of touch screen technology. What we have is not quite like in the movie but it seems to be getting closer.

[jlsgaladriel]

Actually, I'm not sure I agree with Jeff on Apple's decision not to include flash.

 

There's an excellent article at daringFireball which does a pretty good job of weighing the pros and cons.

[Randomizer]

Apple wants to restrict what can be done on the iPad until they can control the results. They will upgrade the software when they have the Apple store up to compete with the others.

[Swimmin' Salmon]

Originally Posted By: Randomizer

Steve Jobs doesn't think he's richer than God, yet, so he's sucking up as much money as possible while he still has time.

FYT.

[Khoth]

The Daring Fireball article comes across as more excuses than explanation, but I think they do manage to hit on the real explanation - Apple wants it to be impossible to run programs on the iPod/Phone/Pad that they haven't approved. If Flash was around, then people can use it to make "apps" without going through Apple and the App Store.

 

As for the other reasons they cite:

 

Crashing - Daring Fireball claims Apple solved this for Snow Leopard by putting it in another process so the crash doesn't take down the browser. There's no reason that could work in the iPad too.

 

Flash being 32bit - so what? The iPod and iPhone were 32 bit, and there's no reason for the iPad to be any different. Anyhow, the iPad almost certainly uses an ARM CPU, which Flash can run on.

 

Flash being proprietary - Pot, meet kettle.

 

Flash performance - this one's actually plausible. But on the other hand, you can easily have CPU-munching apps and javascript.

[Student of Trinity]

The iPad uses a homemade Apple chip, presumably the fruit of Apple's 2008 acquisition of PA Semiconductor. The iPad doesn't multi-task; doesn't this mean it only runs one process at a time?

 

But yeah, Apple wants control. Apple is all about having control of the whole thing; they've been in the business of making both hardware and software since long before Microsoft decided it could build Xboxes and Zunes. Their claim is that they know what people want better than people do themselves.

 

I generally find I can work with that. I spend an awful lot of time with computers, so I'm willing to pay a premium for nice ones, but I don't actually have much interest in making them nice for myself. I'm planning on getting an iPad sometime this year, for reading books, papers, and my own lecture notes in class. It will beat standing there at the chalkboard with a laptop balanced on one hand, and chalk in the other, trying to read and write without dropping the laptop.

[Khoth]

The homemade chip is almost certainly an ARM (ARM doesn't actually make chips, they just sell designs that other companies include in theirs). It can run more than one process at a time, but only Apple has access to this (eg on an iPod you can have music playing while another app is running).

 

I hope the iPad is chalkproof.

[Lilith]

Mmmmm, apple chips.

[Student of Trinity]

Yeah, I do tend to come out of the lecture hall with a lot of chalk around, somehow. At least in Germany we clean boards with wet sponges and wipers, instead of dusters. This spatters chalkstains on your shoes, but keeps down the airborne dust.

[Randomizer]

Originally Posted By: Student of Trinity

Yeah, I do tend to come out of the lecture hall with a lot of chalk around, somehow. At least in Germany we clean boards with wet sponges and wipers, instead of dusters. This spatters chalkstains on your shoes, but keeps down the airborne dust.

You haven't switched over to white boards and colored markers so you can color code important information? The problems is after you use up the dark colors you are left with the near invisible yellow until you open the next marker package.

Originally Posted By: Student of Trinity

The iPad uses a homemade Apple chip, presumably the fruit of Apple's 2008 acquisition of PA Semiconductor. The iPad doesn't multi-task; doesn't this mean it only runs one process at a time?

This is a major flaw at the moment when you want to cut and paste content from one source into another. The word processor is supposed to have a quick restart to where you left off so you can transfer content.

[Swimmin' Salmon]

Early adopters beware. Remember the iphone.

[jlsgaladriel]

Quote:

The iPad doesn't multi-task; doesn't this mean it only runs one process at a time?

I'm assuming that it multitasks in the same way the iPhone does: apple apps multitask with each other and with third-party apps; third party apps don't provide full multitasking capabilities with each other.

[The Mystic]

Originally Posted By: Dintiradan

What's the appeal behind touchscreen technology anyway? It can't just be ease of use. Is it because it looks neat? Is the trend of having flashy

to do simple tasks going to continue?

Or is it because we always see touchscreen technology in

(take a step back and really look at it; imagine training someone to use that thing)?

I actually hate touchscreens. With a passion. You breathe too hard anywhere near one of those (insert your choice of expletives here) pieces of (add another expletive or three for good measure), and it crashes from too many "buttons" being pressed, or deletes whatever you're working on, or causes any extension of Murphy's Law that can be applied to a computing device.

[Student of Trinity]

Have you tried an iPhone or iPod touch? I'm asking, not arguing. I've only ever played around very briefly with one in a store, but the claim is that Apple has figured this thing out and made it work and that makes all the difference. Dunno if it's really true, and I'd like to know.

 

I did find that the response of the pictures on that iPod touch in the store was so fast and smooth, it gave the strong illusion that they were physically there inside the screen, and I was directly pushing them around with my fingers. That was pretty intuitive.

 

They'd have had me, except that I concluded the screen was just too small to use for reading lecture notes, so I would wait for an iPad. That was two years ago. Now in just a few short months my wait will be over dun dun dun ... well, we'll see.

[Alorael at Large]

The iPod/Phone/Pad touchscreen works quite well, actually. The size is a problem, especially if you don't have delicately tapered fingers, but the controls work fine. I think it helps that they respond to capacitance changes (your fingers), not to resistance (pressure in general), and that it's capable of recognizing more than one point of contact and responding appropriately.

 

—Alorael, who still isn't sold on the iPad. Fortunately, he doesn't have to be, since he really isn't Apple's core constituency here. He still hasn't even bought an iPod.

[Swimmin' Salmon]

Steve Colbert did a passable job at selling the iPad last night. Too bad his monologue was stilted and ... not really stupid enough for his audience.

[The Ratt]

Wait, the iPad isn't just a larger version of the iPod Touch?

[A less presumptuous name.]

Yes. Except it has a book reader, better battery, and better (due to the size) interface.

[The Mystic]

Originally Posted By: Student of Trinity

Have you tried an iPhone or iPod touch? I'm asking, not arguing.

No I haven't, nor do I really intend to. Most touchscreen devices have never really had much appeal to me, and I have no use for one. About the only touchscreen device I use is my Palm Tungsten, and then only to play a few freeware games.

[The Knight Who Said Ni]

The thing with all of Apple touchscreen products is... they all get tons of fingerprints and they all essentially do the same things.

[The Ratt]

Use a screen protector if you don't like fingerprints. My screen protector works fine.

[Alorael at Large]

Laptops and desktops also do essentially the same thing, as do laptops and those touchscreen devices, except the laptops do them better. Yet they still sell. Odd, that.

 

—Alorael, who suspects this is because the same function in slightly different forms is actually something you can get people to pay money for.

[The Ratt]

Notice the price and size difference between touchscreen devices and laptops (ignore most tablets, they're weird). I'm not sure when the last time you tried to slip a laptop into your front pocket, but the last time I tried it didn't work.

 

Edit: Man I'm cynical tonight.

[Swimmin' Salmon]

I'm willing to bet your front pocket experienced a lot more catastrophic failure than the laptop.

[Student of Trinity]

This is why the iPhone has failed to take off in the kangaroo market, though.

[Nasarius]

Originally Posted By: The Mystic

I actually hate touchscreens. With a passion. You breathe too hard anywhere near one of those (insert your choice of expletives here) pieces of (add another expletive or three for good measure), and it crashes from too many "buttons" being pressed, or deletes whatever you're working on, or causes any extension of Murphy's Law that can be applied to a computing device.

Anyone who's actually used an iPod touch or an iPhone or a Nexus One will find these comments utterly incoherent.

Multitouch is really, really neat. Interacting with a map with pinch zooming is simply a better experience than even the full mouse and keyboard. It's particularly appropriate for Google Earth. Apple has made all the touch interactions ridiculously smooth, and reports indicate the iPad is even faster.

[keira]

Agreed, but the keyboard is still a pain in the arse. That's why I'm hoping the ipad hardware keyboard will work on the 'touch.

[Ephesos]

...see, and again, I find myself thinking "If what you want is a computer, get a computer."

 

This thing, whatever it is, is not a computer. It's a toy. A fancy toy, but basically a toy.

[Student of Trinity]

So computing = typing?

[Rowen]

I wish the ipad could be used for note taking. I want to take notes on the pad by writing with a stylus and have what I write converted into a text format that is compatible with Word. If it could do that I would buy one and be the happiest note taker.