After all the heated discussion from all sides in the past few days which often went overly emotional i felt like this post by Grant was a great refreshing change of pace.
So in a previous blog post i wrote about my initial impressions on the iPad, listed a few things i missed but it was obvious that i was overall excited about it.
I totally understand it when not everyone is, but now i see some blog posts by some people that make me seriously wonder what kind of koolaid some people are taking and having written about the topic before i feel obligated to go into more detail on some of those than just writing a comment under some of those blog posts (which i also did in some cases).
So i see some articles like thisone
where the author predicts a dark future of closed system computers being the only existing ones
started by the iPad. Even more funny: What she offers as solution suggestion against that is actually buying the iPad but then hacking it. No no, it doesn´t make sense to instead buy systems you like from companies you like or ones you like the philosophy or approach they have
and actually also buy apps, games, music etc you consume on the platforms you like so people actually keep making content for those platforms. No, sure, you should instead buy the system you “don´t support” and then hack it to i guess install stolen apps so at the end everyone looses.
What nonsense..
Then i see something like this
Here the author puts out something like this:
“The thing that bothers me most about the iPad is this: if I had an iPad rather than a real computer as a kid, I’d never be a programmer today. ”
Sure, will give him buzz among bloggers and on twitter (heck, i´m writing about it, too), that doesn´t make it any less total nonsense though.
That´s as if someone in the early computing days said people wouldn´t get into programming when we now switch to more modern systems.
Or no one learns programming anymore because higher Level languages than Assembler are created.
Like, really, seriously?
Of course people will still be interested in creating things, just probably to a good degree for and on different types of devices in different ways.
The iPhone allows total computer newbies to create photos and videos and upload and publish them on the web with the touch of a finger.
Just like that the iPad will make painting and some other things over time more approachable to many than Photoshop etc.
And who then really has interest in going deeper can then get a mac or pc (if he doesn´t already have one) to create apps and other things for pcs, macs, consoles, iPhone, iPad and whatever.
When one looks at the progress on the iPhone market the impact the device made has lead to way more people becoming programmers, not less people.
Thousands upon thousands suddenly have interest in creating apps in Objective C, C++, C#, Javascript etc (depending on development tools/environment used) for the Iphone and iPod touch.
Whether one likes it or not there are also many script kiddies trying to get known by trying to get the jailbrake for the newest iPhone OS out the door as first one.
And regarding prophecies that the iPad would lead to a future with only closed systems:
Hardware manufacturers make hardware that sells. If a new device type sells well, they will try to add something similar or better to their portfolio, not suddenly drop their entire existing portfolio of other hardware that still sells well.
[addition] On a sidenote when i first started iPhone development i only had a pc and i bought a mac so i could also create mac and iphone content. Then i also got myself an iPod touch and an iPhone for testing. Now i´ll get an iPad next to those. I know many, many developers who do it in similar way. ..[/addition]
As long as people still buy pcs and macs for work they will also still get made.
The iPad is not perfect by any means, its an 1.0 version.
If someone moans about lack of a camera or multitasking or similar things, no matter if one misses those features or not, those are reasonable complaints.
I think its fine the iPad is a closed system, because it is not meant to replace pcs or macs, its meant as the casual device one uses on the couch while relaxing.
Where i see see a main problem with the app store is not that its a closed architecture itself, its that apple regulates which applications can get on there.
It would be much better if only apps would get blocked which are crashing.
At least they should have a grown up or anything goes section where people get notified that its on own decission to download these apps and then that´s that.
So i totally endorse requests for a more open app store approval way.
But blog posts like those i linked to, man..
Agree, disagree, have another interesting thing to add?
My rants are exactly that: rants, with my personal view; always eager to hear what others think on such topics though =)
I think where many articles i´ve seen miss the point is: Sure its not better than any console and won´t replace people´s main console or main portable, at least not initially.
And yes, it is not a full fledged pc with a full fledged pc / mac OS one can connect all sorts of devices to and run any app one wants on.
So its also not intended to replace people´s first/ main pc/mac.
What it can do though is become a device which one gets as second or third semi pc type device one has at home. Let´s say the pc is somewhere and this device is on the living room table.
One just uses it in between, and hey, when one already has it there, one can also play a game in between.
It doesn´t run all pc apps, neither is it best suited for gaming or reading books,
but it can be a great device many get because its overall a good package with many features, which then also gets used for those purposes its not best at. Sounds familar?
I think Apple often finds a good balance of price, feature set, polish and a big focus on usability and this could be the next example for that.
I think the ones first to be scared are Nook and Kindle and well, regarding games maybe something similar happens like on the iPhone: Many don´t see most games as as good as on the ds or psp, but i hear more and more gamers who always have their iPhone or Touch with em and therefore automatically play less ds/ psp games.
I´m not sure if it will be the iPad, but i´m sure a device of a similar form factor will be on the living room table in most households in a few years (if technical evolution continues and we don´t have world war 3 ahead 
).
And yeah, i think as package overall the iPad is a good contender for that spot on the table.
Thanks to Rob i heard of igameswf the other day.
I had known gameswf for quite a while and tried it before, but yeah, it was quite surprising to see their repository now has a igameswf version up there.
A bunch of things don´t work as they should yet, some things don´t perform as one would like but then it also has some features the Adobe solution won´t have.
I´m getting ahead of myself though, let´s go through it one by one:
Its an xcode project which when compiled and installed nicely runs an app with an swf on the iPhone.
That app itself allows to load and run other swfs from the web.
The default swf in the igameswf is basically an input textfield with a flash made keyboard below it so that one can enter an url to load another swf.
One can replace that swf with a different swf which then performs a bit better than when loaded in at runtime into the container.
The default swf in there is a good indicator for strengths and weaknesses though:
The keyboard already wasn´t very responsive on my iphone 3g (noticable delay between pressing a key and it responding) but i´m sure it would be better on 3gs, maybe even smoothly usable there without any delay, dunno.
Overall the performance was nowhere near to something one for example could have made in unity iPhone or Objective C, but it felt pretty comparable to the flash made apps using the Adobe Packager solution i downloaded from the App Store up to now.
Trying out a few more swfs i noticed that quite a bunch of API side things are not fully implemented yet so if one would want to deploy a full game using this solution one would very likely have to focus on simpler things or test and tweak it a good bit to work around current limitations.
I imagine a similar thing should be the case with the Adobe solution though.
Overall its impressive that
1) with the gameswf solution one has support for more Actionscript versions/ target Player version made for flash content, even if not the full flash API is integrated; the Adobe solution only supports AS3 content made with flash CS5 and upwards, deployed directly as ipa app
2) one can load in other swfs at runtime with code execution for them
3) one can in theory use more of the iPhone sdk and that way iPhone features than with the Adobe solution as it is based on an XCode project deploy manner
Still of course this is in early state, right now it would probably be most useful for creating nice flashy menus, but yeah, nice to have options and definately something interesting, i think Adobe would do great in taking note there on a few ends.
How we got to where we are:
There´s a long story regarding Flash on the iphone, or more: that it isn´t there yet:
Adobe had announced a long while ago that they were working on a flash player for iPhone.
Apple blocking the flash player:
Then, after some forth and back, and some silence, News made the round that Apple does not support having flash run in the browser of the iPhone, the reasoning given was that the performance wouldn´t be good enough.
(
Tangent:
My view on flash content running in the browser of mobile devices right now:
I use all sorts of technologies and languages to create my games and apps and next to others i used flash since its first few releases as flash, but yeah, even i have to agree there, flash running in the browser of a mobile device of today just is no good idea.
When some people ask for flash running in the browser of a mobile device its usually thanks to an illusionary expectation that it might perform well while at the same time not affecting the performance of the browser or the whole device.
That just isn´t possible right now because flash mostly runs using the cpu, also for most graphic related things, Adobe just has neglected making propper use of the gpu for all graphics related operations for many years.
That means flash content performs badly and has very high system requirements regarding cpu speed when running comparably simple content that would run much better when done in other technologies.
I´d welcome a browser plugin for mobile devices if and only if Adobe makes propper full on use of the gpu for all graphical operations and that´s not gona happen anytim soon, they are just at the step that with the latest player video playback gets accelerated in some cases
)
So what did Adobe do then?
Adobe working on solution to bring flash to the iPhone as native app:
On their last Adobe products centric conference they announced that the upcoming Flash CS5 ide would allow flash developers to deploy Actionscript 3 driven Flash apps to the iPhone, as native iPhone application.
That way no plugin or standalone player is needed and Flash developers could publish their apps on the app store.
in fact at the same conference Adobe showed a few apps already on the App Store that used an early alpha version of that technology in their creation.
This lead to quite mixed reactions:
On one side it created a big media buzz, on the other side the released apps couldn´t convince many:
They were mostly very basic apps that despite their simple content with not much going on were quite big in filesize and ran at quite stuttering framerate, especially on devices older than the iPhone 3G S.
Progress, the state and where to go from here:
In the coming weeks and months some hyped it up, others, including me, talked in very worried way about the possibly limited functionality and in comparison probably bad performance of the flash made iPhone apps.
Adobe staff members were then always quick to argue that
a) their technology is still in early in development version and would be improved considerably before launch
and
b) one shouldn´t expect performance like on a desktop machine on a mobile device and also that apps not made as native app using objective C would not lead to the same performance.
While i give them a), they will have real trouble with that b) type arguing and attempt to “educate” developers like that to lower their expectations and live with it as if it was no flash/ Adobe specific limitation:
Other technologies like unity3d have prooven time and time again what all can be achieved with third party middleware on an iPhone or iPod touch, with many action intense 2D and 3d games and other apps rushing the app store charts for months and running great even on the oldest devices.
Well, Adobe still has time to deliver, i think they did good in cancelling their public beta cycle to focus on the development to improve it as much as they can before release, even if their given reasoning for that was highly questionable.
Again, i´m not one of the guys with a “flash is all bad” view; i like using every technology for what its good for, but yeah, Adobe has to deliver and they have to surprise everyone who has lost belief in them after several disappointing releases.
Flash is in theory an ideal technology for creation of 2d animation and generally media heavy centric content and it would be great if Adobe could actually make it a good choice regarding it leading to comparably well performing content that can also use the features of the platforms it runs on well.
Sadly it doesn´t look like that right now what with the apps released so far which either perform bad or are very simplicistic; and the workflow required to create the content doesn´t seem ideal at all either, what with the restriction to only support Actionscript 3 content and then also not deploying an xcode project but rather a finished app that is hard to test and impossible to extend further.
(Basically flash developers going for the Adobe solution are restricted to only using those features of the iphone sdk to which Adobe has implemented access via their Actionscript api as one can´t use any of the other features on xcode side as is known by now judging from what Adobe has released as public info so far)
I think for all developers interested in iphone and multi platform content creation in general it would be a good idea to check out the alternatives, and don´t believe too much in any hype no matter if positive or negative, before being able to try the technology or several of the resulting apps first hand.
I´ll write on some of the other options for creating 2D and 3d games and other apps for the iPhone and other platforms as i get to it since with the Adobe solution its a wait and see right now. And well, if and when the Adobe solution is available i´ll write some more on that in between, too =)
My donation ambitions have been severly limited by Apple now 
So basically i wanted to donate something to help organizations doing their job in Haiti and since i´m not exceptionally rich and rely on client work to pay my bills i thought a nice thing to do could be donating my returns of a month for stuntmanbob for the iPhone.
So i bumped up the price a little, wrote a blog post about it and also added a note regarding it in my app description on itunes.
Basically just saying before people get angry about the high price they should consider i want to donate all returns for a month to haiti help organizations and they should read my blog post for more info.
This is how it looked:
i also submitted an update to the game with some new levels hoping that once that got approved the sales would go up some.
Well, then my app update didn´t get approved for a while and then i got informed by Apple that i´d have to change my app description because they “don´t allow donation references in the iTunes description” there.
So yeah, i removed those references now (and the updated description version should be live on the app store soon is on the app store now) and dropped the price down again cause without the explanation that the money will be donated people wouldn´t accept such high prices for most games and write negative reviews.
I understand why Apple does that, they probaby don´t want to deal with donation related stuff or people doing fraud or something, but yeah, its a bummer for people who actually want to donate and well, without being able to say that on the page for the product one can´t really motivate people a lot.
I´ll still donate the returns of the full month, but yeah, its a bummer in a way.
Well, maybe now the update to my app will at least get approved soon.
So by now probably everyone has heard about the very sadening things hapening in Haiti.
Writing my previous blog post, which is one of those typical lighthearted developer blog posts moaning jokingly on high level about this and that in the comfort of his relaxing chair, i suddenly had to think about Haiti again.
That made me think its time for doing something.
You know, when things happen like those in Haiti now i usually always get sad for two reasons:
First and foremost because seeing the suffering people go through is very depressing,
second, because i´m a poor guy and don´t have a lot of power or money to help as much as i would like to.
So i typically don´t and try to ignore it after feeling guilty.
When i see a homeless person on the street i give him an euro or two in between, but besides that and looking after my baby nephew and teaching him new things the amount of really social things i do is kinda quite limited.
On the money side i sorta have to argue it out with myself because my indy stuff doesn´t bring much money yet so i´m still doing one client project after the other to pay the bills and only get to work on my own projects in my spare time, so not much money left to donate propper sums really.
Well, i thought i could maybe do something now though:
I now raised the price of stuntmanbob on the app store and will donate all the money i get from sales of it till end of february to help organizations doing their job in Haiti.
Right now stuntmanbob isn´t selling many copies and probably the price raise will not affect that very positively either, but yeah, i´ve got another update already submitted waiting for approval so that maybe it gets better when that comes out.
At least i feel like i´m doing my part, even if its a small one, so not all bad i hope =)
I´d be glad if you buy stuntmanbob on the app store and help that way, too, or, you know, just look up one of the many donation organizations and donate some money there =)
You can get stuntmanbob on the App Store here
So yeah, there i was praising Apple not long ago because the previous stuntmanbob update was approved so quickly.
That motivated me to work on yet another expansion update right away and release that before client work or something else ”distracts” me again. So i worked on yet another update, improved the menus some, added 10 more levels to kite mode
stuntman bob iPhone kite mode
and more costumes, like this:
stuntman bob swimsuit
(
Tangent:
For those not having played the game yet one first starts out with Bob being in underwear. When releasing one of the earlier versions of the game, which had no option to change costumes yet, so Bob would always be in underwear, one complaining reviewer moaned heavily, saying things in the vein of: “This app should be taken down from the store, its called stuntmanbob but its a baby, not a man because he is in diapers, so the app is about throwing babies around!!”
So yeah, dear misguided reviewer, this is for you and everyone else whos good for a laugh and doesn´t take things too serious =)
Bob doesn´t fit in everyone´s dress code expectations, but he is no baby either =)
)
Ok, so i submitted the update waiting for it to be reviewed and hopping it would go as quickly as with the previous update.
Sadly, no luck so far.
Its still waiting for review after a few days..
Ay, dear Apple people, you so teased me with that ultra quick one day review and approval timespan with the previous update, i so hoped it wasn´t just a temporary state of having caught up on the pile of apps to review during the holidays, but somehow a magical faster automated review process or just way more reviewers working on it, that yes, now waiting for going into review for days again just feels twice as painful..
(Yes, i know, i´m a spoiled brat after working on web content so long where between finishing a project and publishing it to the world its not much longer away than a single mouse click and an upload and yeah, compared to publishing on consoles apple´s way still is way faster, but man, less than one day passing between submitting an app/ update and it going live and that always, wouldn´t it be nice, no awesome?
=)
Wow, Apple is on fire! =)
I just submitted the update to Stuntmanbob the other day and it has already been approved and is live on the App Store, wicked =)
This update is special because i´m trying something new there: It features a preview version of the Cannonball physics editor which is still work in progress. Hence that message shown below which one sees when one uses it =) I thought it´d be cool to get feedback from the players on a feature while i can actually still change it considerably. Let´s see how that goes =)
Here is the App Store link:
