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The Mixed Outlook for iPhone Gaming
With everyone talking about Apple's big announcement, it's unsurprising that commentators are discussing the possibilities of gaming on the iPhone. The DS and the PSP are both on N'Gai Croal's list of who is afraid of the iPhone, and with good reason. Touchscreen gaming on a high-resolution screen? Sounds like fun. TIME's lengthy run-down on the iPhone even mentions the possibilities of games on the small screen. Just the same, it's not all roses: Kotaku talks about the developer unfriendly nature of the platform, and how that could throw up barriers to the first game on the handheld.
If it already uses widgets, couldn't you just write the games in Javascript? That doesn't sound that developer unfriendly to me. Also, what about web games that use Flash. You're going to be able to play those under Safari already, right? I'm sure many developers will design Flash games specifically tailored to the iPhone.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
When did jobs say users couldn't install software on the iPhone? If you people RTFA, jobs said that they will not allow users to install random software on the phone, however I see no reason they won't have it open to developers, and after extensive testing of the device, allow users to buy the software on iTunes or something. It would seem perfectly natural to me. Jobs point of not allowing all software to run on it is to avoid the issues that plague computers and such when users install a ton of crap on their machines and wonder why things aren't working right. Limiting what can run on a device that has real time constraints and primary functionality that MUST always work is a perfectly logical idea. Especially considering the thought of iPhone viruses that could spread through bluetooth or something if it was allowed.
Phil