Obligatory iPhone 4 Thread...

[Pressure]

Saw an iP4 ad on a Swedish website today and clicked it just for the heck of it. The details aren't really important except for the small print, which stated 4 weeks delivery time!

/facepalm...

The danish Apple Store still has a 3 weeks delivery time, so not really that different.

 

[Grall]

Just to pour salt in my wounds, I saw a 11-12ish y/o brat on the bus today gaming on an iP4 as he and some dude wearing fashionably ripped jeans headed towards what probably was Torslanda (upper-class housing district). Gah...

 

[London Geezer]

Just to pour salt in my wounds, I saw a 11-12ish y/o brat on the bus today gaming on an iP4 as he and some dude wearing fashionably ripped jeans headed towards what probably was Torslanda (upper-class housing district). Gah...

Stop bitching and get one from here or the US!

 

[Arun]

Or just wait for the new iPod Touch, attach a mini-mic, buy a MiFi hotspot-like product and a cheap data plan (cheaper than an iPhone plan), and finally use a free Skype forward service such as Ring2Skype. But then again, maybe there is such a thing as optimising your purchase decisions too much and ultimately failing horribly at the whole thing (apparently some people are claiming Skype on the iTouch doesn't ring when off-screen?!). So, err, I'll let you know just how epic my embarrassment turns out to be!

 

[wco81]

I heard there are Android phones in the UK around the price of a Mifi. There is Android software to tether the 3G connection via Wifi?

 

[London Geezer]

Android?? You do want a healthy sex life, don't you??

 

[Arun]

I heard there are Android phones in the UK around the price of a Mifi. There is Android software to tether the 3G connection via Wifi?

Yeah, I actually got a mostly unused HTC G1 that I could mod to OpenEclair or the like to use as a 3G router. The overall G1 performance is disappointing though, so I can't see myself using it much if at all. And I'm not convinced I like the OS enough that it's worth buying another one in addition to an iPod Touch.

And more importantly: even the smallest Android handset is bulkier than a MiFi-like product, and they very rarely have receive diversity so average bandwidth/coverage would be worse too. Now if only I could get an Icera-based MiFi-like product I'd be very happy, but the only one I'm aware of is not battery-powered. Bah!

 

[wco81]

Supposedly, Android 2.2 improves performance on the same hardware. But not all Android phones may be able to upgrade to 2.2.

To bring this to B3D a bit, I heard the runtime and SDK in Android isn't as conducive to gaming as iOS.

Not that that would affect future market share but it seems a lot of people do pay more for a smart phone and one of their prime uses is gaming.

 

[Arun]

Supposedly, Android 2.2 improves performance on the same hardware. But not all Android phones may be able to upgrade to 2.2.

The G1 doesn't upgrade farther than 1.5 officially iirc, the 2.1 unofficial updates seem very attractive though. The 2.2 ones I've seen so far are much more immature, and I'm not sure they ever will become 'good enough' in my mind. The G1 was the most widely modded Android phone for obvious reasons, but its time is ending. Doesn't seem to me many other handsets will ever get that level of unofficial support either, although I suspect quite a lot of the newer ones will be officially updated all the way to 3.0 eventually.

To bring this to B3D a bit, I heard the runtime and SDK in Android isn't as conducive to gaming as iOS.

Well, the very early gaming stuff was Java-only, and was frankly a joke. Since, iirc, 1.5 (or was it 1.3?) they introduced a native C SDK for games and the like. It seemed decent when I looked at it, although I'd naively assume it indeed doesn't have the same level of polish as Apple's dev environment - and certainly not the same amount of momentum, that goes without saying!

One thing I find particularly amusing is that this completely breaks the 'Android is good for x86' - yes, with the small little problem that only the Java apps work, and all the C-based applications, including any interesting game, would have to be recompiled - which it nearly certainly would not be unless Intel achieved sufficient momentum. Awesome...

 

[flynn]

The G1 doesn't upgrade farther than 1.5 officially iirc, the 2.1 unofficial updates seem very attractive though. The 2.2 ones I've seen so far are much more immature, and I'm not sure they ever will become 'good enough' in my mind.

I would not recommend using 2.2 on the G1 hardware. The benefits are very small and, in my experience, the resulting system is hardly what I would call stable. But for all intents and purposes the G1 is EOL'd anyway as it was just version 1.0 hardware.

One thing I find particularly amusing is that this completely breaks the 'Android is good for x86' - yes, with the small little problem that only the Java apps work, and all the C-based applications, including any interesting game, would have to be recompiled - which it nearly certainly would not be unless Intel achieved sufficient momentum. Awesome...

I've always thought that the Dalvik VM was a very silly idea. Either you do Java properly or you don't. A Java-like VM without JIT running on an already performance-limited CPU didn't sound very smart to me. And then they came up with the NDK like you said which effectively renders the whole "portable apps" thing irrelevant. I guess they just realised what a joke performance was and found a reasonable solution.

To this day I still prefer either XCode or the Maemo SDK much more than the Android one, but it's a personal preference.

 

[vshade]

The 2.2 update gave the Dalvik the JIT, which in some codes supposedly give 400% boost in performance.
The iPhone 4 is to be released next month in my country, so I´m waiting to see if I go with it or with a high end android to replace my old symbian.

 

[Rys]

Anecdotal, but a friend with a G1 says 2.2 is much more responsive than 2.1.

 

[wco81]

Well it seems graphics performance isn't the key driving force of iPhone games. Angry Birds has physics but doesn't even have to be 3D.

Maybe just as well with soft controls not to push twitch games on the platform.

MS could push gaming on WP7 but will they? Seems like they're more into the social networking hub thing.

 

[ltcommander.data]

http://kotaku.com/5611523/id-unleashes-rage-on-the-iphone

Well, John Carmack demoed Rage/id Tech 5 on the iPhone 4 running at 60fps and claiming a superior experience to "anything" on the PS2 and original XBox. The environment certainly looks impressive although the characters could use some work, but that's probably because they didn't devote much time on detailed animations. Interestingly, in the video Carmack said it runs well on an iPhone 2G too so presumably id Tech 5 will have fixed function OpenGL ES 1.1 fallbacks unlike the UE3 demo where they are only supporting third-gen devices and newer. I wonder how this iPhone 4 result will compare to what can be achieved on the 3DS?

 

[RudeCurve]

http://kotaku.com/5611523/id-unleashes-rage-on-the-iphone

Well, John Carmack demoed Rage/id Tech 5 on the iPhone 4 running at 60fps and claiming a superior experience to "anything" on the PS2 and original XBox. The environment certainly looks impressive although the characters could use some work, but that's probably because they didn't devote much time on detailed animations. Interestingly, in the video Carmack said it runs well on an iPhone 2G too so presumably id Tech 5 will have fixed function OpenGL ES 1.1 fallbacks unlike the UE3 demo where they are only supporting third-gen devices and newer. I wonder how this iPhone 4 result will compare to what can be achieved on the 3DS?

Wow just wow....that is amazing running on iPhone4...haha JC is right...I'm thinking huh? what? how?

 

[London Geezer]

http://kotaku.com/5611523/id-unleashes-rage-on-the-iphone

Well, John Carmack demoed Rage/id Tech 5 on the iPhone 4 running at 60fps and claiming a superior experience to "anything" on the PS2 and original XBox. The environment certainly looks impressive although the characters could use some work, but that's probably because they didn't devote much time on detailed animations. Interestingly, in the video Carmack said it runs well on an iPhone 2G too so presumably id Tech 5 will have fixed function OpenGL ES 1.1 fallbacks unlike the UE3 demo where they are only supporting third-gen devices and newer. I wonder how this iPhone 4 result will compare to what can be achieved on the 3DS?

woah... not sure about the PS2/Xbox claim, but dah-yum...

 

[Squilliam]

When considering market share, is iTouch and iPad relevant when discussing iPhone sales in comparison to Android? They are both applicable to the same application market are they not?

BTW: Does anyone know if the apps bought on your iPad for instance are free to download and install if you were to get an iTouch or iPhone?

 

[wco81]

Some apps. are universal, some are only for iPhone/iPod Touch or iPad.

The latter would not instlal on iPhone, I would think.

The universal apps. obviously could be installed in any class of device.

 

[ltcommander.data]

When considering market share, is iTouch and iPad relevant when discussing iPhone sales in comparison to Android? They are both applicable to the same application market are they not?

BTW: Does anyone know if the apps bought on your iPad for instance are free to download and install if you were to get an iTouch or iPhone?

I thought the iPhone/iPod Touch installed base share was something like 60% iPhone and 40% iPod Touch, now with a sprinkling of iPads in there. Combined iOS devices is now over 100 million I believe. So iPod Touch and iPads are very relevant when discussing the iOS ecosystem, which is probably why Apple isn't immediately worried about Android's strong smartphone growth.

And all iPhone/iPod Touch applications should be able to work on the iPad. That was one of the main selling points of the iPad, that there is an existing ecosystem in place. iPhone/iPod Touch apps can run at the original 480x320 resolution, taking up a fraction of the iPad screen or can run pixel doubled to pretty much fill the screen although most apps don't look good at all in this mode. There are then Universal apps that run at native resolution on both iPhone/iPod Touch and iPads, and then there are some iPad exclusive titles.

 

[Squilliam]

And all iPhone/iPod Touch applications should be able to work on the iPad. That was one of the main selling points of the iPad, that there is an existing ecosystem in place. iPhone/iPod Touch apps can run at the original 480x320 resolution, taking up a fraction of the iPad screen or can run pixel doubled to pretty much fill the screen although most apps don't look good at all in this mode. There are then Universal apps that run at native resolution on both iPhone/iPod Touch and iPads, and then there are some iPad exclusive titles.

What I mean is say you've got one iPad and one iPhone. If you bought say a $6.95 fart application on the iPad, and that application also works on the iPhone does the DRM let you also install it there at no extra cost, I.E. pay just once for an application for both devices?