Game Development On Android

Gamasutra is running an article about the state of game development on Android. The author explains some of the strengths and weaknesses of the platform, and makes comparisons to development on the iPhone. Quoting: "While iPhone apps are written in Objective C, the Android SDK uses relatively more programmer-friendly Java. The iPhone store charges developers $99 a year to distribute their apps, while Android has a one-time $25 fee for developers. And the review process for iPhone apps grows increasingly lengthy — sometimes weeks or more — and it's somewhat arcane. Android apps go live as soon as the developer hits the publish button. Google handles the review process post-hoc, and is much more lax in terms of content. ... For now, if a developer decides to implement a game exclusively for a particular smartphone platform, and the choice is between the iPhone and Android, the tradeoff is between trying to get noticed in an incredibly crowded and competitive market where the potential payoff is huge for those at the top, or entering a market with low barriers, little competition, currently low returns, but the possibility of potential growth."

Comments

opinion

[amnezick]

I think that Android's future depends not on Google but on the devices that run it. Apple has the advantage of controlling both the platform and the device. So you know that whatever you develop for the iPhone it will work. But Android resembles more the PC market where there are different memory capacities, 3d acceleration or not, multi touch or not, keyboard or not, etc. That's why I don't play games on my PC and I bought a separate games console. Because I don't want to care about requirements.

Re:opinion

[sopssa]

It's not really a problem in PC, it can be assumed everyone has atleast keyboard and a mouse and if you're playing games, graphics card too. What it comes down to is if you have enough RAM, CPU and powerful enough graphics card and you can see the requirements from the package (or online).

Phones are different because of the actual hardware differences. Like you said, some phones might have (multi)touch or not, physical keyboard or just software keyboard, 3d acceleration, different types of physical keyboards, different resolutions and so on. Since iPhone is always the same kind, it's easier to develop to it.

However for Windows Mobile and Symbian game developers have usually released different versions for different devices. It might create more barrier for an indie developer to entry the market because they have to test their software on all the supported devices and make adjustments, but for studios it's not so much work. But then again, big studios port their games to all platforms; Symbian, WM, iPhone and Android.

But Java on Android.. meh.

Re:opinion

[Nerdfest]

Of course, your game console has a proper controller.

Re:opinion

[e2d2]

But Java on Android.. meh. One could easily say the same about Objective C on the iPhone. It's no Sunday walk in the park.

Re:opinion

[Wallslide]

In that case, which is the better comparison (with respect to games of course): the difference between PCs and consoles or the difference between Apple computers and the Windows PC ecosystem?
If we compare the iPhone vs. Android situation to PCs versus consoles, then we have an Enthusiast market versus a casual market (where basically different game types work better on either a PC or a console). If we instead make the comparison to Apple versus the PC market, then Apple pretty much lost in that respect, and eventually the iPhone should lose out to the avalanche of rapidly evolving Android devices.

Re:opinion

[amoeba1911]

I completely agree, Apple has the advantage of having all of their hardware being the same, makes development easier, and users don't have to worry about different requirements. Other platforms like Android or Windows forces you think different, not a familiar concept in Apple land despite the fact that it's their main slogan.

Re:opinion

[mdwh2]

Personally I'd rather not return to the bad old days where every phone was incompatible with each other, but:

Apple has the advantage of controlling both the platform and the device. So you know that whatever you develop for the iPhone it will work.

There's nothing stopping you from developing for one specific brand of phones. Indeed, this is precisely why such a comparison is ludicrous - and what about all the other phones out there? Even if you stick to one brand, there are plenty of others, that sell more than Apple (e.g., Nokia, Blackberry).

Re:opinion

[mdwh2]

It might create more barrier for an indie developer to entry the market because they have to test their software on all the supported devices and make adjustments, but for studios it's not so much work.

Indeed, but to add to that, it's far less work that porting to another platform such as the Iphone.

A developer can pick whatever phone they like to develop for. If it turns out that some of those share a common platform (such as Windows, Android, etc) that make it relatively easy to run on other devices, in no way is that a bad thing. It makes it a lot easier to port than it would if you'd picked the Iphone - and even if you don't care about that, you're certainly not worse off...

Once again, Apple fans spin a negative point (every phone being incompatible with it) into somehow being something good.

Re:opinion

[XxtraLarGe]

One could easily say the same about Objective C on the iPhone. It's no Sunday walk in the park.

A programming language is a programming language. They all have features that people like and dislike. With Obj. C 2.0, Apple has made quite a few strides in making Obj. C programming much easier, with things like properties replacing your standard setter/getter methods & allowing for dot notation. The only real pain is that the iPhone doesn't support garbage collection due to performance issues, so you still need to manage your memory. Obj. C is also pretty verbose, but with CodeSense that doesn't matter much. Most people who complain about Obj. C probably haven't spent the week or so it takes to learn all of the nuances. There's even a book out now called Learn Objective-C for Java Developers which helps to bridge the gap.

Re:opinion

[zn0k]

The Blackberry Pearl is completely different from the Storm, and a Nokia 3310 is worlds away from the N95. You'd have to stick to one _model_ of phone, or a very tightly related family of models.

I have no idea how numbers pan out there, but I suspect as a single model the iPhone does fairly good in regards to market share.

Re:opinion

[e2d2]

I should have been more clear, apologies - I know both objective-c and java. I don't really scoff at either one, they both have quarks but also unique advantages. I don't get attached to either one, but if someone dislikes java, I don't understand why they'd favor objective-c over it. Syntax is similar and performance issues are moot these days given the VMs out. To me it's like the old saying goes - six in one hand half a dozen in the other. I'll take either one. My initial comment is just displaying my general "ugh" regarding developing on mobile in general. All those skill sets lost from the yesteryear of PC programming come out to get around the same limitations - not enough CPU, not enough RAM, etc.

Re:opinion

[s73v3r]

I have to ask: I've been programming Objective C off and on for a few years now (around the time they switched to Intel), and while Objective C 2 brought a lot of good stuff with it, is dot notation really that big of a deal?

Re:opinion

[s73v3r]

I don't see how that is a negative point; its the same argument used in favor of the consoles. If I know that everyone has the same stuff, then I know that everyone is going to get the same experience, and that makes it easier on me. While differing phones having a common platform makes it easier for software to be ported between them, don't you still really need access to each phone for testing on each of them?

Re:opinion

[XxtraLarGe]

I have to ask: I've been programming Objective C off and on for a few years now (around the time they switched to Intel), and while Objective C 2 brought a lot of good stuff with it, is dot notation really that big of a deal?

It's not a big deal for most people, but if you're coming from Java or C++, it makes it look slightly less exotic. So instead of having to write

[myThing setThing:5];

You get to write

myThing.setThing = 5;

It turns out to be about the same # of characters, so you don't really gain anything there (unless you don't like using your pinkies :-), but if it helps some people overcome their mental blocks, then it is probably a big deal for them.

Re:opinion

[ivucica]

Company I'm working at is working on ports of our (originally Python-Ogre-based) games to iPhone and we did most of the work in C++ with OpenGL on Windows and GNU/Linux, with ObjC being a tiny wrapper added in Xcode. I did most of the work on one of those ports, and I haven't touched ObjC with a single line of code.

Just sayin'.

Re:opinion

[brantondaveperson]

Yeah I'd say that is kind of a big deal. This whole totally bizarre square bracket notation is weird enough, but for it to exist in a language called Objective C always seemed borderline bloodyminded to me.

Re:opinion

[Anonymous Coward]

I like dot notation because now at least *more* of my code can look "like C".

Re:opinion

[zonker]

That's probably true. Unfortunately most people I know that have an Android phone like the OS but hate the hardware (mostly the G1). Being IT people and a rather vocal group they tend to advise others as far as purchases go. The early Android phones are still lacking, especially in battery life which games will eat up like there is no tomorrow.

Re:opinion

[mattack2]

What is it like posting from 2002? "Think different" hasn't been an Apple slogan since then.

Re:opinion

[drkwatr]

I would have to disagree. Objective-C is more like C's retarded inbred cousin. Holy cow that language is messed up. I wish Apple would have given me the option of just programming in straight assembly. A lot of the problem is the fact that it doesn't catch most errors so things just blow up when you run them. Maybe 2.0 is better, but iphone development doesn't use that. Who releases an environment for an embedded device that uses a high level language that doesn't have garbage collection? Of course most of my problems are more with sporatic signing issues with no actual valid error message to go on, and XCode eating my files every once in a while. I'm making $700/hour on Android stuff so I haven't visited that side in a while, and it might work better now. Still a funky language in my opinion.

Re:opinion

[Anonymous Coward]

I have to ask: I've been programming Objective C off and on for a few years now (around the time they switched to Intel), and while Objective C 2 brought a lot of good stuff with it, is dot notation really that big of a deal?

It's not a big deal for most people, but if you're coming from Java or C++, it makes it look slightly less exotic. So instead of having to write

[myThing setThing:5];

You get to write

myThing.setThing = 5;

It turns out to be about the same # of characters, so you don't really gain anything there (unless you don't like using your pinkies :-), but if it helps some people overcome their mental blocks, then it is probably a big deal for them.

Wouldn't that be

myThing.thing = 5;

Re:opinion

[Dal Platinum]

This is the first first post I've EVER seen on slashdot that is both appropriate, and accurate.

The lack of a physical standard is going to be the biggest problem. Hell, even a choice of 3-4 standards would be better (numpad&no-touch/touch&homebutton/sliderkeyboard/joystick&touch). There are simply too many hardware options, and it's still a new phone, imagine what it will be like in two years, when I'm going to be alooking for a new phone. WinMo has the same problem.

The other problem is the lack of quality control on the store. I could probably knock up an Android app that will upload user contact details to my secret stash, and hide that beneath an app that just downloads pictures of girls in bikinis. Restricting app access to user data is one of the benefits of a locked-down, app-approving environment. Information may want to be free, but when it's MY information, I want that shit locked down.

Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[danaris]

The way the section quoted in the summary plays up the "wide-open field" of Android just strikes me as very silly. If you replaced "Android" with "Mac" and "iPhone" with "Windows," you'd have a pretty good approximation of the marketshare situation in the PC game market...and no one's suggesting that writing games for Mac is smarter than writing games for Windows due to massive overcrowding of the Windows games market.

(Apologies for any incoherence. Please blame posting before fully waking up.)

Dan Aris

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[RedK]

You're being shortsighted though. While your numbers might currently be true, you're not seeing the big picture in all of this. Apple is 2 years old on the market, they are past their initial launch boost and they have exactly 1 product with different capacities.

Android is less than a year old on the market, many of the Android devices are announced and coming this fall/winter. They have many more carrier deals than the iPhone has, and already more devices. Expect the tables to turn in 1-2 years. Apple will become the niche and Android will be everywhere. That is if they manage to supplant Symbian which right now has 3 times more market share than the iPhone and Android put together.

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[sopssa]

They have many more carrier deals than the iPhone has, and already more devices. Expect the tables to turn in 1-2 years. Apple will become the niche and Android will be everywhere.

iPhone and Android are in different kinds of market. iPhone's disadvantage *is not* that it only has one device on the market; it's an advantage for Apple, since it's the exact same phone for the whole platform, while in Android (and Symbian/Windows Mobile and so on) developers have to count all different kinds of devices and make separate apps for every phone. However, for Android it's also their advantage that they will have more models on the market.

They do not necessarily have to fight with each other. Both PC and Consoles have been for long in the same gaming market and both are still doing good. And iPhone and Android are even more far away from each other.

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[kyz]

Twenty years ago, in Europe, the PC was a dull machine that you only ever ran business applications on. Maybe a flight simulator if you're lucky. The Mac was an obscure machine for desktop publishing. If you wanted gaming, you bought an Amiga or Atari ST. Now look where we are.

You're pointing at the entrenched PC games market, where everyone has hugely invested in writing in C++ for the Microsoft Direct3D API.

By comparison, smartphones are relatively new and the investment in Apple's iPhone API is tiny compared to the gigantic Windows-only ecosystem (Windows-only middleware, Windows-only tools, Windows-only 3D programmers, etc.) that keeps gaming chained to PCs.

So, given Android programming is much easier (far more programmers know Java than Objective C), and there's not yet a huge iPhone-only ecosystem in place, switching is still relatively painless. All it would take is one damn good phone running Android to topple Apple off its perch.

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[RedK]

No, they're really not. iPhone and Android compete in the same space, with the same kind of marketing and appeal to the same kind of crowd. They are Internet devices that happen to have phones in them. And Android is pretty device agnostic contrary to Symbian. The Android Market is open to all Android phones and Apps aren't really limited to certain phones yet (the ones on the market all share the same specs under the hood). You can think the iPhone is safe, but Apple has a lot of competition coming in the next few years and they better be ready to fend it off.

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[windwalkr]

It's always interesting to guess at the future, but at my day job (definitely a Windows shop) everyone is buying Apple hardware and nobody even mentions Android. You may be right, but Google has a long march ahead of them.

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[Karlt1]

You're being shortsighted though. While your numbers might currently be true, you're not seeing the big picture in all of this. Apple is 2 years old on the market, they are past their initial launch boost and they have exactly 1 product with different capacities.

Android is less than a year old on the market, many of the Android devices are announced and coming this fall/winter. They have many more carrier deals than the iPhone has, and already more devices. Expect the tables to turn in 1-2 years. Apple will become the niche and Android will be everywhere. That is if they manage to supplant Symbian which right now has 3 times more market share than the iPhone and Android put together.

1. Windows Mobile is on a lot of different devices but according to Canalysis, the iPhone outsold all WM devices combined worldwide last quarter.

2. Rob Glaser, founder and C.E.O. of RealNetworks (circa 2003), ''It's absolutely clear now why five years from now, Apple will have 3 to 5 percent of the player market.'' Plays4Sure devices were suppose to overtake Apple and leave Apple a niche player....

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/30/magazine/30IPOD.html?ei=5007&en=750c9021e58923d5&ex=1386133200&partner=USERLAND&pagewanted=all&position=

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[Anonymous Coward]

All it would take is one damn good phone running Android to topple Apple off its perch.

Only on technical merits, which accounts for nothing. You fail to factor the zealotry and media hype surrounding Apple. It's going to take a very long time for Android to get real traction in this market, assuming we ever get to see a decent piece of hardware with a realistic battery life. Outside the US is a different mindset, open phones are the norm.

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[kyz]

I would definitely include "media hype" as part of any potential iPhone-toppler, not just technical merits.

But, if Android gives you an OS for nothing, you should have plenty left over in your marketing budget for media hype.

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you are underestimating the iPhone ecosystem. It is big, bold and in your face. Even my folks know about the app-store. When the "We've got an app for that" parodies got out there, you know the clock was ticking for Android. The G1's been out for a year, and I don't know anyone with one. All I can say, disappointing...

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[Fross]

I can't agree with this entirely, you're forgetting that there was life (or rather, there were smartphones) before the iPhone. It's not like there was nothing before, but iPhone wiped the floor and really set the standard.

3 years ago, everyone was clamouring over the new motorola, nokia, treo or what have you. The market was segmented, lots of different standards (anyone remember nGage?), OSes, and phone brands. Then all of a sudden comes the iPhone - one phone, one supplier, one app store, one development environment, and bam, completely flattens everything else. The only remaining phones from beforehand are others with strong brands and purpose/identities - namely the Blackberry.

I don't see how a varied approach can beat the iPhone, in the mainstream arena. It's just too complicated for most people to go back down the multiple options route. To usurp the iPhone, something needs a killer device, and a killer app. You're not going to get something as impactful without a joined-up approach.

Having said that, I'm an iPhone user, really looking forward to Android, and may even develop for it (I hated Objective C and in particular XCode), but I'm a techie, not mainstream. I had a treo, lots of palm apps. Most people want a phone that looks cool, plays good games, has good music playing capability and is fun to use. The iPhone does these incredibly well and simply.

Android will hopefully take off and become a really great niche player for those of us into it, but the iPhone has practically defined the market and expectations single-handedly for mainstream smartphones, and it'll take one hell of an effort to beat that.

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[wed128]

well the G1 is kind of a junky phone, not to mention TMobile is kind of a bum carrier.

Android has a lot of potential, and when the Q4 wave of new android phones rolls out in time for the holidays, there may be a diamond in the rough.

only time will tell.

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[craagz]

That is if they manage to supplant Symbian which right now has 3 times more market share than the iPhone and Android put together.

Already, Nokia, the largest pusher of Symbian is looking to move into Linux (Maemo). Looks like Symbian will be dropped somewhere along the way.

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[craagz]

Reading this popped a question into my mind.

With all this PC entrenchment, why did Microsoft launch Xbox?

Someone explain, Please.

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[Mjlner]

The way the section quoted in the summary plays up the "wide-open field" of Android just strikes me as very silly. If you replaced "Android" with "Mac" and "iPhone" with "Windows," you'd have a pretty good approximation of the marketshare situation in the PC game market...and no one's suggesting that writing games for Mac is smarter than writing games for Windows due to massive overcrowding of the Windows games market.

...and no one's suggesting that writing games for the iPhone is dumber, because the market is overcrowded. The quoted section is saying that there's more competition and the competition is strong, whereas the payoff - if you succeed - is huge... which is also true for the Windows game market, of course.

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[Anonymous Coward]

Not everything changes. In Europe the Mac is still an obscure machine for desktop publishing.

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[Rutefoot]

A good phone unlike my HTC Magic that randomly decided yesterday to start vibrating at its highest setting for no reason until I removed the battery?

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[Dog-Cow]

The PC gaming platform does not represent recurring revenue for Microsoft.

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[cabjf]

The shotgun approach to competition isn't guaranteed to work. I highly doubt Apple is just going to sit around and let the competition pass it up. In the end it's going to be about three things: features, marketing/reputation, and app store contents. And right now Apple has an advantage in both marketing and their app store. Feature comparisons change with every new model is more transient than the other two.

Think about it this way. If you need to lubricate something (not like that), what kind of lubricant do you reach for? Most people would say WD-40. Yet WD-40 is general purpose, only sells one type of oil, and really hasn't changed in something like 40 years. Having a good reputation is the key. That gets diminished when you put your platform on different hardware. Why do you think Microsoft decided to produce the Zune as a different device than the PlaysForSure shotgun approach before it? They found that in the handheld gadget arena people stick with brands rather than platforms. So they had to craft their own brand separate from their own existing platform.

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[Zwergin]

I am looking forward to how the Android mobile devices look over the next year, and especially for those including NVidia's Tegra APX chip line. They have been hyping it long enough as already integrated to work with the Android OS, I would hope some mobile device makers have jumped on board.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/product_tegra_apx_us.html

~Zwergin

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[dkf]

In Europe the Mac is still an obscure machine for desktop publishing.

But their laptops are definitely taking over, at least in academic settings.

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[SQLGuru]

Honestly, I think the only reason why the iPhone will be tough to beat (and FWIW, I have Windows Mobile and am considering Android) is iTunes. iTunes is locked to Apple products and is a huge factor in what will make or break a platform. If people can't get their music out of iTunes and on to their phone, the platform won't succeed. If a "better iTunes" came along that wasn't tied to Apple products, you might see people flocking away from the vendor lock in. The App store was initially a key differentiator, but all platforms are getting one (and I'm surprised it took MS this long since WinMo has been around this long). And really, the killer app is still iTunes.

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[Anonymous Coward]

Big vendors, except Palm, Apple, RIM and Nokia, are adopting Android because they need something to fight iPhone since Symbian and Windows Mobile (which were heavily used until now) aren't competitive to the iPhone OS.

Not sure about Blackberry OS, but at least RIM has ability to improve it as they want and need (unlike licensed systems). So far they even managed to beat Apple in the US.

IMHO, what sells phones is aesthetical design + first-time feeling when they use the interface + a brand name (buyer is less suspicious and applies less scrutiny when selecting). Of course, telco advertisements and offerings also play a great deal here.

So, Symbian and Windows mobile sales (until maybe v7 salvages remnants of Microsoft's market share) could face a huge drop when users are confronted with slick UI of Android phones, N900 and maybe Palm Pre(Pixie?), along with already available 3GS. I also expect iPhone sales to get weaker because of competition here in Europe (until now it simply had superior interface so people were falling in love with it on first sight).

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[salesgeek]

Android already has passed up iPhone. Multitasking. Scripting languages. Open application development. All things that Apple has chosen to withhold from the market and all things that will enable users to do more with their android phone. Oh, that and laying the foundation for establishing the standard for open handsets - literally and figuratively.

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[Serious Callers Only]

Already, Nokia, the largest pusher of Symbian is looking to move into Linux (Maemo). Looks like Symbian will be dropped somewhere along the way.

Yes, although they're also pushing QT everywhere (now that they bought Trolltech), which I think is their way of papering over gaps between their Linux based smartphones (which are still a tiny minority of sales), and Symbian based cheaper, normal phones (which have a huge install base and will continue to do so).

All the money in the future (certainly in apps) looks like it'll be on smartphones though.

They might find long term it's easier to move everything to Linux, but Symbian will probably be with us for a while yet, even though it does seem a bit of a dead end, and is probably an albatross around Nokia's neck at this point given the horror stories you hear about development on it.

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[salesgeek]

This was not a problem for personal computers, and will not be for phones. iPhone was a game changer, just like the Apple II, Mac and Newton were in their respective times. Apple has always been the best at making a vision for the future real - but they rarely translate that into a dominant market share (iPod is the exception, but one has to wonder if technology based vendor lock in for music will remain a valid strategy forever).

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[Anonymous Coward]

To take out the market of PS2 and PS3 (and pushing their platform-dependant Direct3D API onto that market as well).

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[WaywardGeek]

All it would take is one damn good phone running Android to topple Apple off its perch.

This is absolutely key, and for some reason, stupid cell-phone marketing guys don't get it. Motorola should recall how the RAZR happened. In short, a brilliant marketing guy at Motorola with the clout to ignore everyone else forced Motorola to build the RAZR.
It turns out that every time a marketing department is allowed to design the next product, they do user forums and talk to the sales team. The one thing that comes back loud and clear is "Make it cheaper!". Thus, we get crap like the new Motorola CLIQ.
It takes a genius like Steve Jobs to understand why we actually want products that are over-priced and beautiful, even when they offer no new functionality: we're stupid and vain. When asked, we all say, "all I care about is functionality... I'm not vain!" Then, at the store, our true nature takes over and we fork over $$ for the pretty objects.
Why can't marketing guys figure this out?
And... I am vain. I've owned an iPhone and currently own a T-Mobile G1. My G1 has some real problems - the camera sucks, the battery is wimpy, it has no built-in flash, it's bigger than an iPhone but has a smaller screen... however, what really pisses me off about it is that it's ugly and clunky! Make a beautiful Android phone, and I will switch carriers, fork over $400, and sign a two year contract!
Marketing morons: I'm your typical user!

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

name a market segment that cares about *any* of that then get back to me.

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[vhogemann]

Objective-C is not all that bad...

I'm a Java Web developer, without any real experience on desktop programming. But recently I was given the chance to do a small iPhone app for one of our clients, so I had to learn Objective-C from scratch to do it.

Objective-C might seem a little weird at first, but when you got used to the sintax the concepts used on the frameworks are not all that different from the Java counterparts. Appkit for example is much more pleasant to work with than Swing, for example.

It took around a week to learn the Objective-C basics, and another week to build a fairly complete prototype of the application.

So while might be a barrier for Java developers, it's not that high.

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[2obvious4u]

The key is the carriers.
Verizon has the largest network and subscriber base, but doesn't have any good smart phones.
T-mobile has the g1, but T-mobile is a horrible company.
AT&T has the iphone but it costs a fortune for service.

The key will be what smart phone takes hold on Verizon; currently it looks like it is going to be an android phone.

Verizon Wireless: 87.7 Million subscribers
AT&T Mobility: 79.6 Million Subscribers
Sprint: 49.3 Million subscribers
T-Mobile: 38.2 million subscribers

Personally I'm waiting for a phone similar to the G1 to be available on the Verizon network.

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[Viol8]

"So while might be a barrier for Java developers, it's not that high."

Only if you don't bother learning the C side of the language and just stick with the high level OO stuff.

Did you learn about pointer arithmetic? Low level memory allocation? Unions? Bitfields? Function pointers? Pre processor macros? Issues with casting on non aligned word boundaries?

No , didn't think so.

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[mdwh2]

They are Internet devices that happen to have phones in them.

These days, that's what a mobile phone is. A phone is an Internet device that happens to have a phone in it. And it was that way for a few years before the Iphone was thought of (2005 at least, and probably several years before that). The only exception is the "dumb" phones at the most low end of the market.

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[mdwh2]

How does it compare to Nokia? Or even Blackberry?

I mean sure, maybe AmigaOS outsells RISC OS, but it wouldn't be much to shout about.

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[atilla filiz]

hackers, hobbyist, mostly power users at first. If they get enough popularity, they will develop more apps for the rest of the users.

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[mdwh2]

Nokia dwarf Apple in the mobile phone market - they don't need anything to compete, and they have more significant companies to worry about than that niche. If they're adopting Android, I suspect it's because they see it as an improvement.

I love how when Apple innovate, it's "Look, only Apple innovates!" but when another company does it, it's "Well they need to to compete with Apple".

Companies moving to open and compatible standards is a good thing - we should be embracing such moves.

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[agnosticnixie]

Unless Verizon switches to its GSM-compatible network quick, it will take some time for an Android-phone maker to give a damn, none of those made to this point are and Verizon is not exactly good phone friendly - even if it had the best CDMA smartphone on the market, it would bungle it and turn it into a piece of shit by blocking functionality.

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[foniksonik]

How many game developers know Java? General purpose developers don't count... sure they could make a simple logic game and add fancy graphics on top but something like Super Monkey Ball?

I don't recall seeing any commercial games written in Java ever. In this scenario, why would a game developer choose to write games in a language completely different from C++ when there is Obj-C which has the similarity right there in the name.. sure it's not C++ but that doesn't seemed to have stopped ALL of the major game dev companies from releasing games for the iPhone and in record time.

Android is really going to have to make major market grabs over the next year in key demographics for the Game publishers to invest in developing for it when it means moving over to a whole new language and new dev environment aka Java.

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[mdwh2]

Sadly this is true. And note the hype is independent of market sales. Worldwide at least, Apple are a niche player, the market being dominated by the likes of Nokia.

But do you remember when there was last a Nokia story on Slashdot?

Instead they spin this tale as if it was dominated by Apple (with daily Iphone stories - sometimes more), with occasional mention of Android or Blackberry to create the false illusion of "Look we do cover other phones, and the Iphone is doing better than them" which conveniently ignores the phones that are actually doing better than all of these.

Even in the UK, and among mainstream media such as the BBC, prominent space is given to Apple, advertising the Iphone, whilst other phones are only occasionally mentioned. I remember when the Iphone 3G came out, it was on the newspaper billboards I saw in London - and there I was, with my cheap 3G phone in my pocket that I'd bought years earlier! Astonishing.

So in other words, the hype precedes any actual success. And my fear is it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. And surely you'd expect Slashdot to be the last place to be supporting single companies becoming dominant, along with closed platforms? So when the hype means that Apple have a monopoly in 10 years' time, people here will only have themselves to blame...

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[OwMyBrain]

The appeal of iPhone/Android development is not about gaining market share against the PC game market. It's that independent developers can make quality apps cheaply.

Developing and publishing a PC game is expensive. Even though digital distribution systems such as Steam are making it cheaper for independent game companies it is still very difficult for an individual to create a PC game that can compete with today's AAAAA titles.

However, no one expects to be playing AAAAA titles on their phone (at least not yet, anyway). That means games for these mobile platforms need not be grandiose explosions of eye candy, simply because the hardware isn't there (yet). That's great news for the Indie developer who could create a fun, lightweight, addictive game, and do it in his spare time.

When the barrier to entry into a market is small like this, we will see a lot of new players, which will lead to new ideas, competition, and true innovation. So yes, the "wide-open field" is terribly accurate. That's what makes this all the more exciting.

For individuals it isn't going to be about market share, because if I can spend $25 bucks and a few weekends to build an app that I make $100 off of, then it's worth it to me. It's a great addition to my resume and some beer money. "Market share" is a term for board members trying to maximize their effectiveness, not developers trying to create something new and interesting.

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[Anonymous Coward]

Hackers and hobbyists can jailbreak and do all that.

He's right you know, nobody gives a shit.

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[Anonymous Coward]

There is, however, an early-adopter market segment that cares about being able to use Google Voice. These users avoid the iPhone. Whether they know it or not, they are choosing platforms with open application development over Apple's closed model.

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

This has been the situation with Palm OS, Windows Mobile and Symbian.

The reason why Apple's selling like gang busters has been usability. Me and my girlfriend figured out the iPhone OS when we first picking the thing up. Android? Not so much. Anecdotes aren't data, but I'm pretty sure the sales figures speak for themselves.

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[Karlt1]

http://www.canalys.com/pr/2009/r2009081.htm

Symbian 50.3%
RIM 20.9%
Apple 13.9%
Android 2.8%

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[Narishma]

That's because you don't actually need to learn Objective C to write iPhone games. You can write them in C or C++ and only use some boiler plate code that you can find easily on the internets to wrap some Cocoa stuff for the UI.

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[pjt33]

I don't recall seeing any commercial games written in Java ever.

Have you never heard of browser games? Mobile phone games? There are thousands of commercial Java games, and some of them have made profits in the hundreds of millions.

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[phantomfive]

Who on earth uses bitfields? Those are the most useless programming constructs ever created. They are non-portable, poorly defined, and not even guaranteed to save space.

As for the other stuff, you don't really need it for Objective-C. You can write essentially any iPhone app without it. The only one of those that you might actually need is low level memory allocation, and that only in rare cases where efficiency is paramount. Most people can go their entire iPhone programming career and never use any of that stuff, because they're just not used (for example, why use a union when you have true inheritance available?).

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[bertoelcon]

Most people want a phone that looks cool, plays good games, has good music playing capability and is fun to use.

Class, notice that people do not want a phone that can make calls. That is why the iPhone does well while its phone capabilities are lacking.

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[brkello]

Why would you compare it to Windows Mobile? This isn't the desktop market so the comparison isn't meaningful. There are 5 major(ish) players right now in the US. Symbian, iPhone OS, Blackberry, WinMo, and Android. If you look at the iPhone compared to the total marketshare, it isn't as impressive (though it has grown amazingly fast). It will probably do better once it isn't exclusive with the crappy AT&T service. But its prices will prevent it from competing in anything other than wealthy countries. It will be niche in that sense but will be a major player for years to come in the first world market. Nokia is probably going to dominate worldwide with the cheap hardware model.

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[brkello]

Android will be difficult because it is so open. It is on different devices with different capabilities and people can be all running their own custom OS. This is a limitation for WinMo as well. It isn't one for the iPhone and that is why it has taken off.

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[GreyWolf3000]

FWIW, bitfields are great for hardware specific device driver code. They let you hit specific hardware registers mapped into memory without having to do any bit level manipulation. There are portability issues, but GCC at least has some techniques you can use to enforce ordering and packing.

I do agree that the parent's argument was stupid; he was just rattling off C keywords hoping to make Obj-C programming for the iphone seem as difficult and obtuse as C can be when you use it for extremely low level code.

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[GreyWolf3000]

"So, given Android programming is much easier (far more programmers know Java than Objective C)"

Yeah, and Windows is easier than Linux because for more people use it.

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[bsDaemon]

I have a Blackberry Storm on Verizon, which is dual-band CDMA/GSM capable. Of course, its CDMA on Verizon, but I could roam in Europe with it via GSM if I were so inclined. I got it last January, and I must say, any problems that I've had with it I am quite sure are not because Verizon has attempted to cripple the device. I can even grab the Google Maps application and use it with the built-in GPS receiver for free instead of paying the $5/month VZ Navigator fee for their service.

After nearly a year, however, I can say I'm not that impressed with the touch screen and sort of wish I had gotten one of the newer Curves or something, but it does its job well enough.

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[agnosticnixie]

I'm rather amazed they actually may have gotten better about it considering it used to be pretty common that they'd disable it. Mod parent informative I guess.

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[phantomfive]

Yeah, if only the C standard had created a reasonable bitfield. Done right it can be such a useful construct.

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[day2day]

It's the fight to own the living room. Lot's of opportunities there. You can already stream Netflix and I'm sure we'll see other direct competition with the cable companies soon.

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[day2day]

Been using Salling Media Sync with my Hero and had no problems at all. Syncs my iTunes playlists and music automatically when plugged. Also read about DoubleTwist the other day but haven't had a chance to try it out.

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[ivucica]

Don't forget you can do much, much work with C++ and OpenGL. ObjC can be a tiny wrapper and OpenGL ES is very very similar to OpenGL (no glBegin()/glEnd() and added fixed-point fractional numbers, that's all I care about, really).

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[despisethesun]

Motorola has a couple of nice Android models due out on Verizon by the end of the year. They're banking on Android saving the company. The Sholes is even supposed to be a Google Experience device, meaning Verizon can't cripple the shit out of it like they usually do.

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[Anonymous Coward]

Do android apps take a lot longer to dev than iPhone apps? If not, why is the android marketplace still so anemic if it is the heaven for devs you make it out to be

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[Mr2001]

My G1 has some real problems - the camera sucks, the battery is wimpy, it has no built-in flash, it's bigger than an iPhone but has a smaller screen...

Thicker, but not bigger. The iPhone 3G is wider, taller, and has a greater volume.

Make a beautiful Android phone, and I will switch carriers, fork over $400, and sign a two year contract!

But you just called the Cliq "crap". Is it not beautiful enough for you?

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[Anonymous Coward]

that's a feature a lot of women would pay for

"OH! OH! OH! DONT STOP!!!!"

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[agnosticnixie]

Ah, then that's probably good news, even if my travelling makes it unlikely I'd ever go with them.

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[mjwx]

No, they're really not. iPhone and Android compete in the same space

Yes and no, but mostly no.

Android competes mainly with Windows Mobile and Symbian for the business/smart phone market, the iphone has little traction here because of how locked down and hostile to business applications it is. Android (WinMo and Symbian) do not have these restrictions.

The iphone is a consumer phone, not a smart phone. the Iphone is competing with in the same space as the Motarola Razr, LG Shine and Nokia "Express Music" type phones. Android has a presence in this market but is not dependent on it like the Iphone. The only Android device that is expressly targeting the consumer market is the Motarola Cliq, which hasn't been released yet.

In other words, Android is competing against the iphone in the same way Isuzu is competing against Honda, there is a a small overlap but mostly they are in their own markets.

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[mjwx]

Twenty years ago, in Europe, the PC was a dull machine that you only ever ran business applications on.

20 years ago in Australia (1989) there was a great deal of cross platform programming in games, retail games were designed to work on DOS and Commodore 64. Fast forward 3 years and we have Windows, this is where the great DOS gaming golden age started. Your Wolfenstiens, Commander Keen's, Duke Nukems, Space/police Quests (I miss the adventure game, well there's always GOG.com). PC gaming was semi-entrenched in 1989 but was firmly entrenched in 1992.

As far as gaming is concerned, Microsoft doesn't need to worry, Mac's will never be good enough for PC games with their fixed and limited hardware spec's. Consoles only need to worry about PC's (if your name is not Nintendo). Only the mobile gaming platforms need to be concerned and Nintendo and Sony are not worried about the iphone, the DS and PSP have a large enough back catalogue that the few ancient PC games that have been hurriedly ported to the iphone do not matter, secondly this platform has not proven profitable yet, thirdly the DS and PSP have been competing with mobile phone games in Japan for years and it hasn't affected their sales one iota. It is Asia where mobile gaming is big and the iphone is only really big in the West where mobile gaming isn't.

So, given Android programming is much easier (far more programmers know Java than Objective C),

I'm a bit of an android fan but this is subjective. Android also supports C in some capacity now as well. As for easier to develop for, the actual coding is easier on iphone but end to end, planning, coding, marketing and releasing is far easier on Android due to Apple's extremist limitations on the iphone. Android has also give greater latitude to developers with what they can do with the device, more access to API's not to mention the OS itself so by the simple fact that you can do more with Android means that development for Android can easily become more difficult. As for coding "hello world" that would depend, as you said on whether your an objective C or Java developer.

All it would take is one damn good phone running Android to topple Apple off its perch.

Or one cheaper "good enough" phone. Every iphone owner who is not a fanboy openly admits that Android is a better operating system and they would have got one if it was the same price as the iphone. Most people dont care about Android or Iphone and will just buy the best phone they can afford, if the HTC magic (myTouch3G for our American friends) had of been $5 cheaper per month then the iphone we'd see a great deal more Android adoption here in Australia.

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[Viol8]

"I do agree that the parent's argument was stupid; he was just rattling off C keywords hoping to make Obj-C programming for the iphone seem as difficult and obtuse as C can be when you use it for extremely low level code."

Jesus, if you think what I listed only applies to extremely low level code then you're a clueless gimp. Stick with your hand holding IDEs and 4GLs mate where you probably feel safe. Btw, you did a nice job yourself of "rattling off" some keywords yourself. "hardware registers" , "ordering and packing" , oooooh , impressive. Ain't wikipedia great?

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[Anonymous Coward]

He was right though. And even better, he didn't come off as a massive douche.

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[Viol8]

He? That would be you you mean. No one else would be reading a thread this deep so long after the original story.

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[danaris]

He? That would be you you mean. No one else would be reading a thread this deep so long after the original story.

I am. And I agree with the AC.

Dan Aris

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[KitsuneSoftware]

No commercial games? How about RuneScape, which has spent the last two years hovering around a million paying subscribers? Almost all of it (client and back end, but not hardware acceleration) is written in Java.

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[Viol8]

Aw bless , he's got one of his little friends to post. How touching.

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[GreyWolf3000]

I have no idea who danaris is. I have no idea who the AC was. Nor do I require any other poster to back me up on anything I say. And if I wanted to call you a "massive douche" I would not do so anonymously, that's just not classy.

At any rate, my explanation of bitfields comes directly from several years of designing and implementing firmware to drive 3-wire serial interfaces, DMA engines, custom FPGAs, and more, as well as a proprietary point-to-multipoint network protocol implementation.

I doubt you'll believe me, and I'm certainly not going to imply anything about you're C skills, but whatever. I think your point was stupid because you listed aspects of C that, as far as I know, are not important aspects of ObjC. The GCC Apple ships has garbage collection for ObjC. Function pointers are useful for things like implementing data structures that can accept callbacks and jumping to a function whose address you don't know until run time. Guess what? ObjC has a runtime library built in to it that handles dynamic binding via message passing. Unions are nice for a few things, but not *required* to implement anything. Pre processor macros can make an existing codebase pretty hard to understand, but we're really talking about people building ObjC/cocoa based iPhone apps vs. Android apps in Java... the list goes on. You did not bring up valid barriers to someone learning to develop iPhone applications.

For the record, I also don't use and IDE for any of my work. Currently I work with Ruby on Rails and use nano inside a screen session. I could be faster with vim or emacs, but I find my text editor isn't slowing me down, and I'm pretty much stuck on the pico style key bindings.

PC vs Console

[Inominate]

This is also why consoles are stuck with the same copy-of-a-copy-of-a-copy games while the real innovation happens on the PC.

Re:PC vs Console

[koolfy]

Could you please explain the link between hardware requirements and game innovations ?

I just don't see it.

Re:PC vs Console

[HaZardman27]

This is also why consoles are stuck with the same copy-of-a-copy-of-a-copy games while the real innovation happens on the PC.

Ohhhh.... so that's what all those junky cookie-cutter FPS and RTS games on the PC are, innovation! All this time I thought they were a quick way to make money by tapping into other games' success.

Re:PC vs Console

[Anonymous Coward]

A variation in hardware requirements creates innovation in 3 ways- overcoming variations in hardware to deliver the same experience, pushing the envelope of more advanced hardware, delivering new experiences to those without advanced hardware.

In the first case, a PC made game is much more likely to be "scalable" in graphics, difficulty, AI, etc. The engines are much more robust because they must deal with many different levels of hardware and still deliver a bare minimum experience to the end user. Bloated code obviously still happens, but when you know that half your potential market may not be able to play your game, you are more likely to optimize. Contrast this to a console where you know exactly what the audience has. You don't bother to innovate in how you compress, store, display, program your code unless you have to. Knowing ahead of time that all hardware is equal, you are less apt to innovate.

PC's traditionally break away from consoles fairly quickly in graphics and computing power each generation. While little is done with all this extra power, a few games per year can be seen pushing the envelope of what can be done with the PC. Similarly, innovation comes not only from graphics but from AI. PC games are more likely to be programed with AI /physics, etc, that once again scale to the user's hardware. While on a console that AI only needs to be stagnant, a PC games AI may be able to react faster, smarter, etc on a more powerful system. Again, not all games do this, but some games are innovative enough to scale with the growth of your own machine, providing a better experience to those who shelled out the money.

Third is the opposite of my second point. Not everyone has an awesome PC. Just as some companies are trying to push the graphics and AI envelope, some companies are trying to appeal to the lower end of the spectrum. Companies may, and have tried to create new types of games or new games that cater to people who can only run the barest of systems.

Good examples of a games that could not exist on a console system are dwarf fortress and battle for westnoth.

The first for it's portability and scaleability. The innovation is that you can play DF anywhere of a thumbdrive, and it will scale to your hardware last time I checked.

Second, games like westnoth rely entirely upon the user community after release. The closest thing on a console is Little Big Planet, but last time I checked you can't package your own artwork, items, models, etc. into the game. Westnoth grows because it is open to the community. This allows it to scale to different hardware very well and at the same time the non-locked-out hardware of the PC allows anyone to create anything they'd like for the game (art, missions, items, characters, cutscenes, UI, etc..)

Re:PC vs Console

[Fross]

Anything from Bloom/HDR to Anisotropic filtering back all the way to 3d textured FPSes. The jump from, say, Doom to Quake was entirely driven by uptake of hardware 3d acceleration.

If you decide to "not see" those as innovation, well, that's your choice. They're certainly innovations in the style of games that can be portrayed. When/if the next change comes to realtime raytracing, that will completely change the way games can be designed (no need to count maximum visible polys, for a start), and that will be hardware-lead, too.

Re:PC vs Console

[SQLGuru]

One could argue the other side and say that by not having to worry about innovating on the tech side to fit a game into an unknown hardware spec, the developers can spend more time innovating on the game play side.

But really, I think the argument is moot. Both PCs and Consoles need each other even if just as an adversary such that there is no stagnation in the industry. Without PCs, Consoles have no reason to go to the next gen. Without Consoles, PCs have no reason to make drastic changes to game play.

Re:PC vs Console

[agnosticnixie]

To be fair, the bar for indy development on PC is much lower - see Penumbra (yes, it's a FPS engine, but it's a First-Person-WHATTHEHELLISTHATRUNAWAYAAAAAGH, and for that it's pretty awesome, even if, yes, horror survival is nothing new). Introversion also has a lot of awesome stuff under their belt in terms of innovative, and there's the "game as art" lot, even if a few of those later had console ports (and of course, there's the game everyone seems to be trying to clone, like Patapon (initially for the PSP), and that seems to spring up on pretty much on anything every once in a while)

Portal was the same, but was first launched on console, while some of the more innovative strategy games (early 4x ers, grand strategy, breaking from tactical leverl gaming) have been on PC, it's a question of interfaces and input, Konami's strategy games were cute (I less-than-threed them a lot), but oh so fucking limited. A lot of Sierra's awesome but slightly broken ideas (Homeworld, Outpost (bug-ridden piece of crap but superb idea)) have yet to have anything on console, or anything retaking their ideas on any platform at all really (okay, not true with Homeworld, Star Wolf did try to bring some of its elements on the table)

But, true, so long as corps like EA, Blizzard or Ubisoft (even if they had a few great things) exist in both fields, there's no way mainstream gaming is innovative anywhere, period. Besides, like in movies, I'm no pedant - I like some arthouse stuff and I like some of the commercial schlock, for different reasons.

Re:PC vs Console

[Tsujiku]

Portal was launched simultaneously on PC and console, but it plays far better with a mouse.

Re:PC vs Console

[ToasterMonkey]

Anything from Bloom/HDR to Anisotropic filtering back all the way to 3d textured FPSes. The jump from, say, Doom to Quake was entirely driven by uptake of hardware 3d acceleration.

Bull. It was (really) 3D and fully software rendered out the box. The 3D part is what drove Quake's success, not hardware. Everything in quake that actually took advantage of 3D hardware was a hack bolted on later. Like transparent water.. hehe.

Re:PC vs Console

[bertoelcon]

Portal was launched simultaneously on PC and console, but it plays far better with a mouse.

That's an opinion I have Portal on PC and on my 360 and its easier with the mouse but it was more fun on a console because it took a little different skills.

Re:PC vs Console

[Mister Whirly]

Well, I can tell you that getting the original Half Life game was the motivation for me to buy my first video card solely with 3D graphics capabilities in mind. The only time I can think of that I upgraded my system specifically for a game. (Well, I upgraded my last system because I really wanted to play Fallout 3, but it wasn't the ONLY reason.) I still remember trying to play Quake 2 on my old S3 with no floating point built into the CPU. It was like watching a very jerky slideshow... Was probably getting like .3-.5 frames per second.

Re:PC vs Console

[Anonymous Coward]

The jump from, say, Doom to Quake was entirely driven by uptake of hardware 3d acceleration. If you decide to "not see" those as innovation, well, that's your choice.

Wrong. Quake was software rendered. Quake II encouraged hardware rendering but was still software rendered for many people (Unreal did the same). It wasn't until the time of Quake 3 that hardware 3d acceleration really took off.

Re:PC vs Console

[s73v3r]

1). I don't really care about innovations done for "scalability" done for PCs. With a console, you know exactly what everyone has, therefore you can optimize your art assets, audio assets, and your engine to run on that specific hardware. With a PC, you're wasting time trying to figure out how to dynamically determine if this player has obscure graphics feature C and dealing with turning it on or off. That's time that could be spent on real innovations, such as gameplay, that the "market" (players) actually care about.

2). Console generations are typically longer, than graphics card generations. This gives the developers more time and experience with the hardware, and the ability to do amazing things on it a few years after its launch that no one thought possible at launch. And these innovations are available to everyone who bought the console, not just those that decided they have the money to spend on 8 nVidia cards running at once.

3). There are plenty of "low-end" systems out there; they are called handhelds, and there is some terrific innovation going on there in trying to get more graphics power from their already limited processors. Take Square-Enix, for example. When they ported Final Fantasy III to the DS, they wanted to include some FMV cutscenes. Unfortunately, the processor for the top screen wasn't powerful enough to draw it alone. So they innovated, and brought in the processor for the bottom screen to help.

First you say that Dwarf Fortress couldn't not exist on a console, then you laud it for its portability. Wouldn't that portability lend itself to being ported to a console?

About the only point that still stands is the modability of PC games, which I will concede. Most developers are quite good at packaging the same tools they used to create the game, and giving them to the community at release or shortly after.

Re:PC vs Console

[Anonymous Coward]

This is also why consoles are stuck with the same copy-of-a-copy-of-a-copy games while the real innovation happens on the PC.

I agree. All those Tycoon games, The Sims games, and the countless other franchise games where they are just cheap regurgitations to make money are truly innovative!

Re:PC vs Console

[DugOut]

The jump from, say, Doom to Quake was entirely driven by uptake of hardware 3d acceleration. If you decide to "not see" those as innovation, well, that's your choice.

Wrong. Quake was software rendered. Quake II encouraged hardware rendering but was still software rendered for many people (Unreal did the same). It wasn't until the time of Quake 3 that hardware 3d acceleration really took off.

Sort of Wrong. Quake was software rendered, but much of what made people want to go out and buy that Voodoo card was GLQuake, which was a hardware accelerated version that id released for download, and Quake II also supported hardware acceleration to the point that it was almost required to play seriously. In addition, Unreal also became a differed game with acceleration. Q3 was just the first version that required a video card with 3d acceleration to play.

Re:PC vs Console

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear Mods,

disagreeing with content does not mean modding down stuff. This is reasonable post presenting certain view point. Controversial statement should be debated, not pushed under carpet.

Dear AC,

I happen to agree with your statements. Innovation could happen regardless of platform - the game is not just an engine running in a specific environment.
However, I also happen to think, that vendor lock-in is likely become less of a problem on consoles - the communities there grow and expand, too. It's just a matter of time before massive jailbreaking occurs at some future generation of consoles.

Regards,
Ruemere

PS. Posted as AC.

Trendy

[Nerdfest]

You can use logic all you want to show the advantages Android phones have, but until the shine wears off for the iPhone fans and people realize just how tied their hands are, it will remain the dominant phone. Really, the average user doesn't even care, although they usually realize later that they should have. The article that predicted 2012 for Android to surpass the iPhone is probably accurate, or perhaps even early.

Re:Trendy

[sopssa]

I do care about the openness of Phone, or so I always think. I love Windows Mobile (and my HTC has better interface than the usual WM one) because theres no restrictions on what apps you can install, like on iPhone and Symbian.

But then again, why? Yes it's great when you want to install certain app and theeres nothing in way of that (as long as theres such app available), but frankly I dont use the phone so much that I really care much. I might sometimes play around with some new fancy app I found, but then it goes back to what phones are made for - calling and sms (and having an easy memo to carry with you, take pictures and listen to music - which I could most likely do with iPhone too).

I can understand really good why "normal people" just dont care about such. They can easily get the apps from the store anyway.

Re:Trendy

[Beyond_GoodandEvil]

You can use logic all you want to show the advantages Android phones have, but until the shine wears off for the iPhone fans and people realize just how tied their hands are, it will remain the dominant phone.
You're half right, the other part of the shine equation is eventually, the air of exclusivity will wear off and apple will become the next burberry and chavs will have them and then no one will want one.

Re:Trendy

[Rakshasa Taisab]

Yeah, cause everyone out there is just waiting for a chance to stick it to the man (or fruit) and rid themselves of the chains of tyranny.

Using, and developing for, an iPod touch (can't afford the iPhone) I fail to see how my hands are 'tied' or how a regular user would ever 'realize their hands are tied'. Dream on Mr. Revolutionary Geek, and make sure you fight the power of sleek designs.

Re:Trendy

[Serious Callers Only]

You're half right, the other part of the shine equation is eventually, the air of exclusivity will wear off and apple will become the next burberry and chavs will have them and then no one will want one.

Don't assume that everyone picks a phone based on who else uses it or whether it is trendy.

Many people pick phones based on how it works and what it does - I certainly chose an iPhone on that basis, because the UI was the first one which felt like it was actually designed with a user in mind. The UI on the iPhone is good in my opinion, much better than what came before. It's quite a good phone (*if* your telephone service is good), the software is updated regularly, and in spite of Apple's control freak tendencies on their store, and the crapflood which is the app store listings, it has a lot of games and a lot of interesting other apps.

Re:Trendy

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

Android phones are a usability mess.

I was out on a smoke break with a friend of mine who owns a G1 a few weeks ago. I was also bashing out some mobile specific web app and wanted to test it with a G1.

Because the fact that /, -, and some other common symbols are hidden in weird places on the keyboard, it took me a bit to get to my own app, even on the soft keyboard.

I don't care what's under the hood, usability is king among consumers. Freedom? That's a huge after thought.

Re:Trendy

[Mr2001]

Because the fact that /, -, and some other common symbols are hidden in weird places on the keyboard, it took me a bit to get to my own app, even on the soft keyboard.

That's just the reality of a 48-key keyboard. The layout is pretty intuitive considering the limitations they were working with - the common symbols are arranged roughly the same way as on a standard keyboard. It might not be obvious the first time you pick it up, but if you're a G1 owner you'll get the hang of it very quickly.

Objective C Java

[Anonymous Coward]

>in Objective C [...] more programmer-friendly Java.

[Arguments needed]

hmmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmm. Long-term investment with the potential for steady, but solid growth? Or the ridiculously slim chance of striking it big in an oversaturated market? As an American, I think I know which way my fellow countrymen will tend to lean.

Tempting

[Canazza]

Android is definitly a tempting choice for development - purely because of the ease in which you can push a product to market. But then again, there's also Symbian, which is used on things like the Nokia N97, which has been around for ages (in various itterations), the latest one is the true smart-phone style thing, but I have a 3 year old phone with an older version of Symbian on it that can still run Java Games, meaning there is already the possibility of a large market for simple apps that can run on older phones as well as the newer smartphones

Java more programmer-friendly than Obj-C?

[kill-1]

That's depends entirely on the taste and skills of the programmer.

Re:Java more programmer-friendly than Obj-C?

[windwalkr]

More importantly perhaps, the iPhone does not actually force you to program in Obj-C. A very thin wrapper can be used to interface native C++ with the hardware. While Java may be friendly to mobile developers, C++ is definitely the language of choice for games developers.

I believe that Android has taken steps in this direction as well, but last I heard there were severe compatibility concerns. Anybody know whether this has gone anywhere useful?

Re:Java more programmer-friendly than Obj-C?

[TheSunborn]

What about applications that are not games. Can you still write them in c++ without wrapping the entire iPhone api?

Re:Java more programmer-friendly than Obj-C?

[Timmmm]

And more to the point, what about garbage collection? Every time the garbage collector kicks in the UI freezes for a short time. You really don't want this in a game (or at all really). In fact can anyone name any popular games written in Java? As far as I know they are nearly all C/C++.

Luckily you can write OpenGL Android games in C++ using the NDK.

Re:Java more programmer-friendly than Obj-C?

[kill-1]

This problem has been solved long ago by incremental garbage collection. Apple's Objective-C 2.0 also has garbage collection BTW.

Re:Java more programmer-friendly than Obj-C?

[Rakshasa Taisab]

You can even write Obj-C++, where you are using Objective C objects and syntax in C++. (Or is it the other way? ^_^)

Only problem I ever had was with the GCC compiler that was included with versions prior to iPhone OS 3.0 SDK, which would spew out warnings for C++ objects with non-trivial ctors embedded in Obj-C objects even though I did explicit calls to ctor/dtor's. Now it's done automatically with the right compiler flag.

Really... Is Java easier to program games with than C++/Obj-C? Making an assumption on behalf of other people on such things means you have a narrow view of the variety of programmers out there.

Re:Java more programmer-friendly than Obj-C?

[Timmmm]

Android doesn't use incremental garbage collection. Or JIT for that matter.

Re:Java more programmer-friendly than Obj-C?

[kyz]

Yes, Android uses a converter that changes java bytecode to a different beast entirely, and performs a large number of global optimisations that decrease size and increase speed - ones that a compliant Java VM isn't allowed to do. So it ends up going about the same speed as JIT, but only needs the power a small phone supplies.

As for garbage collection - Android performs about as well as a C/C++ program filled with malloc()/free() or new/delete. C/C++ games programmers could do that, but they choose not to because they know that avoiding malloc/free/new/delete gives them a performance boost. Android has exactly the same tradeoff - avoid object creation in your code! Create what you need at the start of a level and then don't free it until the end of the level. You'll get good performance. Android has an entire section on how to get good performance, just like C/C++ programmers have plenty of strategies for getting good performance out of any platform.

Re:Java more programmer-friendly than Obj-C?

[Timmmm]

It doesn't convert it to a 'different beast entirely'. It's still bytecode, and slower than native code.

new/delete is still much faster than garbage collection, and doesn't freeze the UI like Android's GC does.

Check out this paper, they found that java with manual free's performs much much better than GC java, especially when memory is limited (as in phones):

http://www-cs.canisius.edu/~hertzm/gcmalloc-oopsla-2005.pdf

Re:Java more programmer-friendly than Obj-C?

[Anonymous Coward]

The young kids who want to go into game programming learned Java in their "Intro to Programming with Java" classes, so if your view of what a "programmer" is has a horizon limited to your classmates in the CS program at Helluva State U, then yes, Java is more programmer friendly.

Re:Java more programmer-friendly than Obj-C?

[Anonymous Coward]

If Android is freezing when switching apps or going to Home or whatever it's most likely because it's having to reload parts of apps from NAND that were dumped from memory, not due to actual Garbage Collection.

Re:Java more programmer-friendly than Obj-C?

[radish]

1) That paper is 5 years old. Things change.
2) They actually say that GC (from 5 years ago) is just as fast as manual malloc/free if you have plenty of RAM. Not true on a cellphone, sure, but true in many cases.
3) They didn't look at the Android GC impl, for obvious reasons.

Re:Java more programmer-friendly than Obj-C?

[radish]

I have no idea about the Android JVM, but in a regular Java JVM object creation is actually significantly faster than malloc. This article is quite old, but shows that even back in 1.4.2 days it was nothing to be scared of.

Re:Java more programmer-friendly than Obj-C?

[drerwk]

Yes, Obj-C now support garbage collenction - but not on the iPhone OS. http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/ObjectiveC/Introduction/introObjectiveC.html

Re:Java more programmer-friendly than Obj-C?

[shutdown -p now]

... peforms a large number of global optimisations that decrease size and increase speed - ones that a compliant Java VM isn't allowed to do.

Can you give (or link to) some specific examples of said optimizations?

So it ends up going about the same speed as JIT, but only needs the power a small phone supplies.

I very much doubt that it would be anywhere near the same speed as JIT, since JIT is not precluded from doing any kinds of optimizations either. And I don't see how interpreted bytecode - of any variety - can be faster than highly optimized native code.

Also, if what you say were true, then Sun JVM would have dropped JIT and went for that magical "super optimized bytecode" a long time ago. But it didn't. Why?

Re:Java more programmer-friendly than Obj-C?

[windwalkr]

This article is specifically about games, but the answer to your question is really "no". You need to use Objective C to access Apple's UI framework, and you'd be pretty silly to write a custom UI system for most non-game apps.

Your core application logic can still be C++ of course, but all of the actual application UI must be Objective C.

That said, I like C++ and dislike being forced to program in either Objective C or Java - but I'm honestly enjoying working in Objective C (and being able to fall back on my C++ ways from time to time where appropriate) rather than being stuck in Java. My only complaint is the difficulty in memory management in Objective C - it's alien enough that a C++ programmer will not automatically get it right, and really needs the garbage collection functionality that Apple added on the MacOS.

Re:Java more programmer-friendly than Obj-C?

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL, you have no clue about Android and Java performance, do you?

Java apps on Android with the current implementation of Dalvik perform at best an order of magnitude slower than native code.

That is not to say that it was a bad decision from Google. It is a worthwhile trade-off.

I simply wanted to clarify the ignorant misinformation you are spewing, which has been moderated "+5 informative."

Re:Java more programmer-friendly than Obj-C?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know where you got this from, because it's almost entirely wrong.

First the DalvikVM bytecode Android uses is about 40-60 percent smaller then Suns and that's about it. In no way is it comparable performance wise to JITed code.

Second as someone who has done game development on C/C++, J2ME and Android I can assure you new() and deleting() objects at runtime in C++ is no problem at all as long as you don't get ridiculous numbers of news and deletes (like several thousand a frame). No sane C++ developer would waste time on optimizing every single sometimes hidden API caused allocation away like you just have to do under Android.

The DalvikVM actually freezes your whole app for about 150-300ms every few hundred allocations. It's several orders of magnitude slower in that regard then manual allocations and one major pain in the ass for Android game developers.

Even compared to Suns current VM is simply performs horrible. One example, do this every frame:

canvas.drawText("Score: " + playerScore, ...);

and with the DalvikVM you got yourselfe a global heap allocation for the temp String object for converting the integer playerScore to a string, causing your game to freeze after a few seconds. I would strongly assume that Suns VM has optimized this away for ages.

Re:Java more programmer-friendly than Obj-C?

[kyz]

Sure: http://www.netmite.com/android/mydroid/dalvik/docs/dexopt.html

• For virtual method calls, replace the method index with a vtable index.
• For instance field get/put, replace the field index with a byte offset. Also, merge the boolean / byte / char / short variants into a single 32-bit form (less code in the interpreter means more room in the CPU I-cache).
• Replace a handful of high-volume calls, like String.length(), with "inline" replacements. This skips the usual method call overhead, directly switching from the interpreter to a native implementation.
• Prune empty methods. The simplest example is Object.<init>, which does nothing, but must be called whenever any object is allocated. The instruction is replaced with a new version that acts as a no-op unless a debugger is attached.
• Append pre-computed data. For example, the VM wants to have a hash table for lookups on class name. Instead of computing this when the DEX file is loaded, we can compute it now, saving heap space and computation time in every VM where the DEX is loaded.

The reason that a compliant JVM can't do this is because it's sold on being a compliant JVM: it has to be able to load class files and jars, from any source, on demand. Dalvik can't do that, it has to have classes converted to .apk/.dex files first. That takes a few seconds on a desktop computer, and would absolutely rape a phone's battery if it had to do that regularly.

I'm not saying that Dalvik is faster than JIT. What I'm saying is that Dalvik is faster than a compliant JVM that doesn't run JIT, and IMHO the cost of doing JIT outweighs the benefits when running on a smartphone.

Instead of doing a whole pile of work just to start an app (reading bytecodes, verifying, converting it to native code), Dalvik can launch apps immediately. That's an astonishing thing for Java, and utterly necessary if you're going to write a full complement of apps and services for a smartphone that can start and stop at any time.

Re:Java more programmer-friendly than Obj-C?

[shutdown -p now]

I'm not saying that Dalvik is faster than JIT.

Well, you did say it's "about the same":

So it ends up going about the same speed as JIT

But thanks for the clarification - it's definitely much clearer what you mean now. At the same time, it's not clear how much the following is true:

IMHO the cost of doing JIT outweighs the benefits when running on a smartphone.

Thing is, we have already been there with J2ME, and later with .NET CE. J2ME started as purely interpreted solution, but pretty much all modern smartphones which support it do JIT on hot paths, and they do it surprisingly well. It may not be worth JITting every single method on first call, but for stuff that is called a lot (as evidenced by the hit counter), it's definitely worth it. .NET CE, if I remember correctly, was always JITted, and seems to work fine, too.

In any case, this design raises some interesting questions. If Dalvik bytecode has instructions that use direct vtable indices and field byte offsets, and you say that they're not verified on load:

Instead of doing a whole pile of work just to start an app (reading bytecodes, verifying, converting it to native code), Dalvik can launch apps immediately.

this would mean that there's no sandbox there whatsoever? If I can use an arbitrary field offset, it is effectively as powerful as unrestricted pointer arithmetic. I don't know enough about Android to say if this is of any concern or not (i.e. does it in any way rely on presence/absence of VM sandbox to divide apps into "safe" and "not quite safe"?), though.

Re:Java more programmer-friendly than Obj-C?

[phred75]

The reason the byte code runs so fast is that ARM cpu's with the Jazelle extension can execute byte code directly on the CPU! Oh and ya very good point about NOT going crazy with malloc/frees in your code... that's just retarded!

Re:Java more programmer-friendly than Obj-C?

[kyz]

Thing is, we have already been there with J2ME, and later with .NET CE. J2ME started as purely interpreted solution, but pretty much all modern smartphones which support it do JIT on hot paths, and they do it surprisingly well.

Well, maybe Dalvik will get JIT in the future. But right now, they solved IMHO the ultimate Java bugs - slow to start and using too much memory for what you get.

If Dalvik bytecode has instructions that use direct vtable indices and field byte offsets, and you say that they're not verified on load:

There's still a verifier in the Dalvik loader, but it skips verifications that are no longer relevant after converting JVM bytecode to Dalvik bytecode. Short answer: you'll still have all your offsets and calls checked for correctness. See here for details.

Objectve-C

[For a Free Internet]

Microsoft and other anti-freedom corporations use corporate languages like Objictive C and Java. Thses languages impede thinking and stifle freedom and creativoite Free Software Developers everywhere use LISP on their telephone.

Re:Objective C Java

[Procasinator]

One argument would be the available tool set and support for Java-based technologies is much larger than that of Objective-C.

Additional, the collective knowledge (and hence publications) for Java, is again, larger.

It Just A Matter of Time

[mattwrock]

Unlike the Mac/Window comparison, Android's market is not purposefully small. Android is currently T-Mo, but will be on other telcos soon. Android is looking to be used in the Netbook space too. While the market share is smaller, Google is actively pushing it grow, and Apple is beginning to look like Microsoft in this area. Given that most games were written in Java before the iPhone, and I bet the port from MIDP to Android SDK is not a big one, I think you will see real competition in the game market. Does this mean we will be seeing the "I'm an Android/ I'm an iPhone" commercials now?

Re:It Just A Matter of Time

[SQLGuru]

Already on Sprint (as of a few days ago) with the chinless Hero. And on Nov. 1st, the Samsung Moment. So, not only does Sprint have Android, but they will have two devices within weeks.

TC

[chiu.au]

What is the utmost important for developers is to get them paid for their hard work. The openness of Android platform is actually hurting developers' profits since it encourages pirate copies of their software freely distributed on the internet. With the tight-control of the distribution and installation of software, iPhone platform seems to provide a stronger incentive to developers to write innovative applications for iPhone. The popularity of the iTunes' App Stores has proved my point.

Re:Objective C Java

[Clarious]

Maybe because there are more Java programmers than Objective C ones?

N97?

[kurt555gs]

First, I have an N95 8GB which is the best "phone" I have ever seen. Symbian is fine as long as there are buttons to push. I mistakenly bought the steaming pile of shit, that Nokia refers to as the N97. Nope, Symbian is not god for, ready for, should be used on, anything with a touch screen. This thing is a disaster. Update the OS, doest it make it any better? Nope. Symbian has hit a brick wall. N95 = good (V3) N97 = not only bad, but embarrassing for Nokia.

I think the reason Nokia is releasing the N900 is because they hit a dead end with Symbian 5 and the N97.

Development? go look at maemo.org. Everything you could want. Apple C or Java, puullleeese, it's Debian Linux with every tool you can think of.

Nokia prolly was reluctant to do this, but with the embarrassing failure of the N97 and Symbian 5, they had no choice. The N900 is light years ahead of the iPhone, or Android, and all the development choices are your. You don't have to pay or ask permission from anyone to develop in Linux.

Re:N97?

[gbjbaanb]

Amen.

iPhone - locked down to what Apple wants you to do.
Android - locked down to what Google wants you to do (ie Java/Dalvik development only with their own version of the app store and installation verification)

Maemo - pure, open, Linux loveliness.

(and then there's WebOS and Moblin too)

ArsTechnica has a little review about Nokia's plans and the N900. Its step 4 on their 5-step Linux/Maemo strategy. Certainly it will set the bar higher for the other players and possibly dominate the smartphone/tablet/MID marketplace just as Symbian did. given you can code any QT/GTK+ based application for Maemo, who'd want to tie themselves in to Android's development mandates?

Nokia wasn't reluctant to do this either, they've just been working on their Linux strategy for a while so probably took their eyes off the Symbian ball once it became apparent the Linux stuff woudl work beautifully.

Oh, and don't forget, while consumers may want iPhones, businesses have traditionally bought Nokia (and Blackberries, but their marketshare will wither once the newer smartphones come with the bells that made Blackberry so popular).

Re:N97?

[RealTime]

Java/Dalvik development only

As has been mentioned in previous posts, native C++ development is available via the Android NDK. Even native access to OpenGL is supported.

with their own version of the app store and installation verification

I guess you never clicked on a URL (in the built-in browser on the phone) that points straight to an Android Package (.apk) file and simply allowed the phone to install it. No "app store" required.

Re:N97?

[RealTime]

with their own version of the app store and installation verification

Or, even better, pointed the built-in camera at a URL barcode displayed on a laptop screen and downloaded the .apk file...

Re:N97?

[Anonymous Coward]

**Android - locked down to what Google wants you to do (ie Java/Dalvik development only with their own version of the app store and installation verification)**

Yeah, sorry that's not accurate. There are already two well known 3rd party markets - and you can install any .apk you wish from ANY source you want. Want to make an app available to be installed through your website? You can do that.

Java??!!??

[PeeShootr]

Oh yes, every game developer would MUCH rather program in Java than in C/C++ (of which Obj-C is a superset). It is soooo much easier to write OpenGL code in Java than in C. What a joke. This article is completely idiotic.

Re:Java??!!??

[TheSunborn]

Obj-c is not a superset of c++

Re:Java??!!??

[Dog-Cow]

Any programmer who prefers Java to Objective C or C is an idiot.

But I say that because I think Java is the worst language to be created since C++.

Re:Java??!!??

[Anonymous Coward]

Your opinion. Others may (and will) disagree.

Re:Java??!!??

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me guess, you've never written a web app. Ever.

Re:Java??!!??

[Anonymous Coward]

[nil setPreferredLanguage: Objective_C]; //OK

I feel sorry for any programmer that have language preferences without taking in account what kind of problems he needs to solve. Go write yourself distributed web application with load-balancing in Ojbective-C.

Cheers.

Re:Java??!!??

[Anonymous Coward]

But I say that because I think Java is the worst language to be created since C++.

Maybe you have to put this in different prospective: e.g. you are the worst Java programmer since Java has been created.

Somewhat backwards logic

[hotzeyboy]

By the logic of this author, it's better to open a store in the middle of nowhere than a shopping center, because the middle of nowhere is not saturated with competitors. The number of applications on the iPhone actually draws in more customers, Apple advertises rather heavily the fact that you can find an app for anything!. It's also been shown that iPhone users are willing to pay money for applications, has the same been shown about android users? Also I question whether Java is more developer friendly than objective - c. The syntax is more familiar ... perhaps, but thats really its only advantage, Objective C also has memory management (if you want it).

Re:Somewhat backwards logic

[Dog-Cow]

Objective C's garbage collection is not available on the iPhone, and hopefully never will be.

Major Problems with Android

[PocariSweat1991]

FTA: "The developer laments issues with the market interface [...] and a lax return policy (24-48 hour returns, no questions asked). But the issue of piracy is also raised, [...] A cursory search of popular torrent sites reveals bundles of Android games for download."

For a prospective developer, those are some serious issues... I was hoping that the second half of the article would mention some changes in the platform that would solve those issues, but the only solution that is offered is to "monetize apps through advertising."

Investing time to master the Android SDK seems exciting because it's a chance for everyone who missed out on the initial iPhone app wave to catch a new wave. However, after reading this article it seems like it would be more advantageous invest time creating an awesome app for the iPhone.

Re:Major Problems with Android

[VMaN]

So you are saying there arent hundreds of games for the iphone on torrent sites?

Re:Objective C Java

[Per Wigren]

That doesn't mean that Java is more programmer-friendly than Objective C.

Re:Objective C Java

[Bakkster]

That doesn't mean that Java is more programmer-friendly than Objective C.

Right, it just means that more programmers are Java-friendly.

Give us C++

[kyashan]

Java may appeal to some, but many of us just want C/C++ (Objective-C, allows that).
Games on consoles and PC are normally not developed in Java for many good reasons. Game developers that want to transition to phones are likely to prefer to stay with C++ where they can use their tools of choice, such as Visual Studio.

In fact, I think that a few people out there already develop C++ on PC and keep the actual iPhone/XCode build on the side. This is a big plus for those that are already making games and would like to try to use their knowledge and tools for a cell phone game..

Re:Give us C++

[ptolemaeus]

Mod parent up.

Re:Give us C++

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing stops you from using C/C++ on Android.

Re:Give us C++

[radish]

Game developers that want to transition to phones are likely to prefer to stay with C++ where they can use their tools of choice, such as Visual Studio.

I can see wanting to stick with C++ because it's what you're used to or what you like. But Visual Studio? Seriously? I have to use that POS every day and to be honest it's only made even remotely usable by adding ReSharper, which gives you some of the features from IntelliJ. The best Java IDEs are leagues ahead of VS.

Re:Give us C++

[kyashan]

I suppose it depends to what you are used to. VS is quite popular in game dev.

Personally I rely on Visual Assist X for refactoring and better code navigation.
Also the debugger is pretty powerful, a lot better than XCode's one in my experience.

Re:Give us C++

[radish]

I can believe it's better than XCode (I've never used it) and I could even believe it's the best overall C/C++ IDE. It's just not very good compared to the Java IDEs - and therefore doesn't make sense to me as a reason to not use Java.

Re:Give us C++

[Hast]

You're welcome. (Android NDK allows for native development.)

You still need a Java wrapper to handle communication with Android (keypresses and such) but the game can be written entirely in C/C++.

I'd say as far as development friendliness you should take into account that you can develop for Android on many platforms. For iPhone you must have OSX.

Re:Give us C++

[kyashan]

Thanks for the pointer.. 8) That's nice indeed.

I looked into the Android SDK once before, but I was quickly put off by the requirement to install Eclipse and some plugins for it.

I think that it's particularly important to keep things easy because most people that look into these SDKs do so as a hobby at first..

Re:Give us C++

[Anonymous Coward]

I use *both* VS and Eclipse everyday, and have suffered through Xcode as well. I can't really comment on recent Java IDEs, but for C++, VS is by far the best of the bunch. Which is to say, unlike the rest, it's not utter crap.

Re:Give us C++

[GooberToo]

Someone please mode this up!

The latest release of the NDK now officially allows OpenGL ES access from C/C++.

Re:Give us C++

[Anonymous Coward]

I never thought I'd say Visual Studio was good, but XCode makes the coders behind VS look like geniuses. It is the biggest piece of crap I've ever had the misfortune to use. XCode is by far the worst editor/IDE I've ever had to use. In fact, I don't use it as an editor, I only use it as a debugger at the moment. And even that is only just passable.

As an aside, 99% of our iPhone codebase is C++ with only the bare minimum written in Obj-C and C. It makes the code much more portable. Our engine supports iPhone, PC, NintendoDS and XBox360.

Re:Give us C++

[phred75]

I'm SO happy about this! Do they allow for ARM assembler code in the NDK as well? That'd be TIGHT!

Re:Give us C++

[GooberToo]

I don't think its necessarily "supported" but you may be able to get code in place via the gcc pragma and stuff.

C/C++ is for games

[ptolemaeus]

C/C++
Counter-Strike
StarCraft / WarCraft
Gears of War
Bioshock
Duke Nukem
Doom 1,2,3
Unreal Tournament
Halo
Oblivion
Eeathworm Jim, Monkey Island, Braid..
Half-Life
--- insert pretty much everything important ever made ---

Java
Some Tetris Clone
???

Quality control

[moankey]

I have to agree to a certain level. Apple has a level of quality control that people tend to forget and think of it more as a proprietary system. Its true Apple does not make sense in their choices most of the time and for some reason it works. A elite cliche type of expression if you own their products.

Whiles others that see room for improvement in their model try the same with looser controls and it never seems to be able to catch that distortion field momentum that Jobs is so good at creating.

Extending your analogy

[Comboman]

However, you aren't forced to buy Windows games only from the Windows Store(TM) where each game must be approved by Microsoft before you can buy it. If that were the case, developing games for Mac would suddenly start to look at lot more appealing, in spite of the smaller installed base.

Java programmer friendly?

[Anonymous Coward]

"While iPhone apps are written in Objective C, the Android SDK uses relatively more programmer-friendly Java."

Javas problems regarding non-deterministic garbage collection and non-existing management of other kind of resources than memory is programmer friendly? Really?

If you have other kind of resources in an object the object can be stuck in the pipeline without being garbage collected for a long time or never for that matter if memory usage isn't high compared to available memory. It's simply broken IMHO.

Personally I think non-deterministic garbage collection, as implemented in Java and C#, is the biggest king-without-clothes in modern history when it comes to programming.

That Java is programmer friendly is subjective at best.

Android not limited to just Java

[Sehnsucht]

But if you want it to be cross (CPU architecture) platform easily, you'll want to stick to it.

You can actually build native code with the Native Development Kit using C/C++/whatever, and so far all the current phones are pretty well compatible as far as native code goes, but if someone rolls out an Android device with a different CPU architecture than the current ARM incarnation, you'd have to rewrite or at least recompile your native code for it, and either distribute multiple versions of the app or include the native code for all versions and dynamically pick the correct one at run time.

opinion piece

[carou]

relatively more programmer-friendly

[citation needed]

Language is not an issue.

[FellowConspirator]

The statement "given Android programming is much easier (far more programmers know Java than Objective C)" is nonsensical. True enough that Java is popular, but Objective-C is trivial to learn. Actually the languages themselves don't have much bearing on the ease of development for the two platforms. It's the APIs. I've recently started messing around with Objective-C and Apple's Cocoa, and the language itself is VERY easy to pick up (and I'm not a professional developer s much as a person that uses programming as part of his job). The Cocoa API, however, is another kettle of fish. Not that Cocoa isn't well designed -- it's astonishingly well designed -- but, it's huge. Java is similar in that the language is relatively simple (on par with Obj-C, more or less), but you've got LOTS of APIs to learn.

I suspect that if you are a game developer, you're probably making little use of most of the APIs, and if you are big enough, I'm sure that you use a toolkit that abstracts-away the underlying platform. In either case, the primary language used probably has little bearing on the ease of development of games on either platform.

More Work?

[BiggoronSword]

FTA:

One advantage of programming for the iPhone is not having to worry (much) about hardware compatibility. This could potentially be a problem for Android game developers as new handsets emerge. The possibility of a backlash exists if users buy a new Android smartphone only to find that the most popular games in the market don't render properly on their screen, or that the control scheme for the game doesn't work. A developer can try to work their way around these issues by designing for multiple screen resolutions and including multiple input methods, but this of course means extra work.

How is this any different from application development on PCs? It's really hard for me as a developer to feel remorse for a mobile application developer when it comes to backwards compatibility.

Clearly define what your hardware requirements are for your application. If the user doesn't comply, it's their own fault. Nothing new here.

Re:More Work?

[Dal Platinum]

PCs have hardware abstraction to cover different video cards, motherboards, etc. etc. There is no hardware abstraction that can make a touch-screen app work on a device without a touch screen.

The biggest drawback to writing apps for Android is the number of different hardware specs.

Does the phone have a trackball? joystick? 4-button d-pad? How many buttons does it have on the face? Does it have any at all? does it have iR? Bluetooth? I'm sure the list goes on. Then you need to make sure it's running a compatible version of Android.

With an iPhone it's more like: Is it an iPhone? Y/N. Is it running the latest patch? Y/N.

The biggest drawback to coding for the iPhone (for me) is that you need a Mac, and I hate the fucking things. As soon as I finish my app, I'm selling mine, and I'll be glad to see the back of it, and it's retarded keyboard layout.

I have an iPhone now, as it was the best phone available at the time. When this runs out, I'll buy whatever is best then. Hopefully two years is enough for another company to work out how to make a half decent, user-friendly UI.

Got my HTC HERO w/Android yesterday

[bmwEnthusiast]

I am in love with my new phone. The Android Marketplace from what I can tell is almost %80 free. I plan to personally download the SDK and Eclipse stuff and make my own apps/games in java. The Hero is a solidly built phone with every feature you could ask for including exchange sync. Love it!

Objective C is not trivial to learn.

[Viol8]

Not if you learn it properly - ie you learn the C side of it. Any idiot can learn the high level fluffy OO stuff. Get the same idiot to learn about pointer arithmetic or functions pointers or pre processor macros or casting issues or 101 other C gotchas and its another story entirely. Its the same story with people who claim to "know" C++ when in actual fact all the know is how to use "new", "delete" and maybe the STL and know jack shit about the in depth complexities of the language.

Has the RDF completely distorted your view?

[mdwh2]

Are you serious?

The Iphone may have a better market share than Android, but this isn't Windows to Mac, it's more like Mac to Linux, or I dunno, AmigaOS to RISC OS.

There are a vast range of companies in the phone market - none of them have a Windows like share, but for the larger companies, look at someone like Nokia.

I'm astonished at the sheer ignorance of the reality of the mobile market here - that people continue to propagate this myth that Apple are not only in the lead, but have a monopoly, when neither is true. Slashdot was once a place to come where people knew about the tech industry - sadly not anymore.

What lockin?

[danaris]

... but one has to wonder if technology based vendor lock in for music will remain a valid strategy forever

Um...what technology based vendor lock in?

You do know that not a single track sold on the iTunes store since April has had FairPlay DRM, don't you?

Dan Aris

Re:What lockin?

[bertoelcon]

A lot of the older music does still have FairPlay and its not like you can redownload everything sans DRM now.

Re:What lockin?

[danaris]

A lot of the older music does still have FairPlay and its not like you can redownload everything sans DRM now.

If by "older music" you mean "music you downloaded before April 2009", then yes, Apple didn't go into your computer and strip the DRM from all the music you previously bought.

However, it is my understanding that you can redownload everything sans DRM, you just can't do so for free.

Either way, it's crystal clear that Apple doesn't think that "technology based vendor lock in for music will remain a valid strategy" at all, since they've eliminated it entirely.

Dan Aris

Re:What lockin?

[salesgeek]

If they truly believed that, then they would allow music owners to replace FairPlay DRM tracks.

Re:What lockin?

[danaris]

If they truly believed that, then they would allow music owners to replace FairPlay DRM tracks.

I'm sorry; are you, again, advocating that Apple go into your computer, delete some of your music, and replace it with something else?

Dan Aris

Re:What lockin?

[salesgeek]

No, just saying if Apple didn't believe DRM was necessary they would replace cusomter's DRMed music with non-DRMed music. Asking the customer permission to do so would be the right thing to do, too.

Friendly is in the libraries...

[SuperKendall]

Java vs. Objective-C is a non-starter compared to what libraries are available to each platform.

Most serious game developers on the iPhone aren't even writing much Objective-C - they often use a framework like Unity, which lets you script in Javascript or C#.

Even those using some of the free frameworks like Cocos2D are spending more time thinking about Cocos objects than they are about Objective-C syntax, which is pretty easy to pick up. Syntax is only a tiny part of any modern platform, it's all about libraries... and even for application development the iPhone has a richer set of libraries than does Android (though Android is pretty close).

iPhone supports C++ just fine

[drerwk]

I wrote the iPhone version of Repton primarily in C++. It is easy to mix Obj-C and C++, and I prefer C++ for OpenGL usage. A few UI items I implemented using the Cocoa Obj-C interfaces because Interface Builder is so pleasant to use.
Any one suggesting iPhone development is limited to Obj-C is inexperience in iPhone development. Any one suggesting Obj-C is hard to use compared to Java may have a point, but primarily because the Java IDEs are so good compared to XCode. As far a game dev goes, I prefer C++ to Java especially the OpenGL bindings, and I think game dev benefits from new/delete control one has in C++.

Not innovation, but development

[SuperKendall]

The biggest strength the iPhone platform has is that the screen sizes are all the same, which makes game development much easier. You can optimize for that resolution and the standard set of inputs, instead of having to accommodate some people without multi-touch, some people with a keyboard and some without, all with different screen sizes that may affect the playing field.

The iPhone game developer does have the same issues as far as 3D power though, because the 3Gs and newer Touch devices support a more advanced version of OpenGL than does the original 3G platform (and remember, those are still being sold new!). So you have to decide if you want to support just one platform or program to allow for downgraded capability on some devices (which Apple makes about as easy as it can be I think, but it's still some work).

Google is the new Microsoft, but Apple is the same

[Fdisk81]

Once again, Apple shoots itself in the foot with their closed architecture and rigurous standards. With Tegra and Snapdragon coming to Android devices Apple is going to lose the hardware edge it has right now on Android devices and be left with no edge other than the "cool" factor; I'm not claiming the iPhone is going down in flames, it'll still do well. However, in terms of market share it will definitely go down to 3rd or 4th place in the market. I'm not an Apple hater, their products are solid, albeit overpriced. I am a proud Android user, I had the choice between the two devices and I went with a G1 over an iPhone because I saw its potential to become the top dog in the mobile market. Is Apple wrong to stick to its mentality? I wouldn't say that necessarily, they've enjoyed the No. 2 spot and laughed themselves to the bank every year while enjoying consumer popularity as opposed to the usual Microsoft hatefest.

The iPhone market is open to all game developers

[SuperKendall]

The Android Market is open to all

But remember we are talking about games here.

We are not talking about Flash players or Google Voice or apps that skin the home screen.

For game developers, there has basically almost never been a problem with rejections outside QA issues (like crashing). So how is the iPhone market really less open for them? You can market your game any way you like to take users into the app store, and many more people are likely to see your game on the iPhone just browsing for games.

I'm sure the Android game market will improve with a lot of new devices going out, but you'd have to be mad at this point to not put a game on the iPhone first, and then decide if you would see enough return to port to Android.

Programming language and game development

[UseCase]

If you are making your platform choice based solely on the primary development language of the platform then you might not be ready for game development. The knowledge and understanding necessary for making something as complicated as a video game transcends programming language.

Wow....

[sbeckstead]

but the possibility of potential growth
Don't step in all that potential.

The stats say it all

[Lysol]

While 90k+ apps & over 2bln downloads makes it harder to get noticed, those numbers say it all.

I've used a few Android phones and I like them. But the thing that makes the iPhone great to develop for (after you get past obj-c hurdle, the api's are actually really good) is that it's *standard*. One form factor, end of story. I can't help but think Android is gonna fall into the same hole that J2ME did when it tried to support everything. Already developers are maintaining separate branches for separate devices for Android. I've developed J2ME apps before and they are a f-ing nightmare. That platform never took off for a reason, because there's *too much* choice and diversity. Everything to all people; good luck.

There are also no where near as many Android users as iPhone and so developing for that platform with the intent to make some money on your app is not very plausible at this point. Maybe in a few years, maybe not. (Plus I hate Eclipse, so much unnecessary bloat, just like Java. I want tools that are fast and that don't require 5mil downloads of some frameworks I'll never use. But the Eclipse thing is only my hang up and I'm sure most Android devs won't care.)

So as a developer what makes more sense? 5 code bases for 5 Android phones - all with different form factors / features - and relatively little money for all your toil? Or one platform and the chance to hit it big? It's the same argument on a PC; develop for the huge Windows market, or everyone else?

Re:The stats say it all

[zuperduperman]

> But the thing that makes the iPhone great to develop for ... is that it's *standard*

That's a temporary advantage. Already it's fragmenting and it's going to continue to fragment every time Apple releases new and improved devices.

To be honest, I don't see apps as the key strategic advantage that is going to make Android successful. I think Android will eventually win because the carriers see it as a less bad outcome than handing over control of their mobile platforms to Apple, and thus while they will certainly stock the iPhone to meet consumer demand, they'll fill their store fronts with phones running Android and the default for anyone who walks in off the street and just asks for a phone is going to be Android.

Re:The stats say it all

[MemoryDragon]

Actually Android is not as bad as J2ME the main problem with J2ME was simply you had a very small API and almost no support for extended feates, heck even only a handful of UI input fields.
Android is way more extensive and a full os instead of a vm with a dozend or so apis (the important ones always came from the vendors)
So far the Android mobiles perform quite nicely regarding compatibility, all programs so far run on all android mobiles unmodified.
Just because the underlying language in both systems is java does not mean that both systems are comparable, Java is after all just a language nothing more.

Seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

"relatively more programmer-friendly Java" -- LOL!

Re:Objective C Java

[phred75]

Objective C is the retarded inbred child of C and C++ after that one night they hit the sake and redbull!

Re:Objective C Java

[Per Wigren]

No, it's actually the purely object oriented, dynamically typed, late bound, garbage collected, message passing, compiled-to-machine-code child of C and Smalltalk.

Re:Objective C Java

[phred75]

With C++ filming it all....