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360iDev: Hands-on with Freeverse's Warpgate HD and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
We got to play two of Freeverse's current and future offerings this past week at 360iDev. Warpgate HD was the first -- it's out now on the App Store, and is due out for the iPhone and iPod touch. It was originally designed for the iPhone, but it ended up being a good fit for the larger device, so they readied it for a launch release. It's a fun title, although it doesn't quite take full advantage of the bigger hardware yet; as you play the space trading simulation, you get the feeling that there could probably be a little more to it on the iPad. It's still a fun title, though. We also got to play their upcoming Pride and Prejudice and Zombies iPhone game adaptation, and being that we've been buddies with Freeverse ever since they were developing games for the Mac, we talked a little bit with them about their heritage and how their recent merger with Ngmoco has affected their outlook. Read on for more.
360iDev: Game Jam creations
Tuesday night at the 360iDev conference in San Jose, around 60 developers gathered in a room on the eBay campus around 8pm as security locked them in for the night (one developer joined the group via Skype -- that's him on the big screen above). Their goal? A game jam. Before 8am the next day, they would put together working prototypes of games, either based on their own ideas, or revolving around the night's theme of "Tiny." Not all developers were there to make new games -- a few were there to work on current projects or offer up their help to others. But up until 2am and beyond (that's about when I chickened out and let them work), the room was full of developers punching away on their keyboards, writing code, designing art, and, well, developing. I originally thought that it was just a lark; a fun project that gave everyone an excuse to spend the night on the eBay campus. But no, this was serious stuff -- apparently at least one App Store game has its origins in past game jams at these conferences. So while developers were just testing their skills at putting their ideas into motion, it's possible that we may see some of these prototypes show up on the App Store eventually as working products. After the break, we'll provide a look at what a few developers were up to at Tuesday's game jam.
360iDev: Mike Lee on changing the world with engineering
Former Delicious Monster and Tapulous developer Mike Lee (who now works for the mothership at Apple) took the stage to start off the last day of 360iDev in San Jose. He gave a wildly rambling speech about what it means to be an engineer and why programmers should not only make the best programs they can, but actually commit to changing the world for the better. Lee's speech was probably the most broad, and least technical, of the whole conference. While other speakers had covered using Core Data in apps or how to make the most money on the App Store, Lee spoke about his work with the Terrorist Watch List, the beauty and insanity of Van Gogh's Starry Night, and why he has to convince himself that he is really as cool as everyone says. As you can probably tell already, it was a heck of a thing to see. About halfway through the speech, summarized as best it can be below, Lee stopped flipping slides and just talked candidly and from the heart about his apps, his work, and his life. Read on for more.
360iDev: The future of Jason Citron's OpenFeint
OpenFeint's VP of Engineering, Jakob Wilkerson, took the stage here at 360iDev in San Jose to talk about something most people might not have expected: Game Center. Ever since Apple's official social gaming network was announced last week, the question's been in the air about what will happen to all of those unofficial gaming networks, of which OpenFeint is the largest. Wilkerson took the news in stride, however. As CEO Jason Citron told us last week, OpenFeint isn't going anywhere, and as you can see from their chart above, OpenFeint still believes that they can build more social game services, in the form of OpenFeint X, on top of Apple's official offerings. Wilkerson talked about Game Center in terms of potential; he used examples from OpenFeint to explain how implementing leaderboards and friends lists in the right ways can really open up player interest in a game. OpenFeint often talks internally about bringing, both, hardcore and casual game players into the fold, and their different online features target those various audiences. We also got a chance to talk to Citron again regarding his thinking about OpenFeint so far, and what the company plans to do when Apple unveils its official plan. Read on for more.
360iDev: Ansca Mobile's Corona SDK
There are always a few SDK vendors lurking around any developer convention, and 360iDev is no different. However, unlike a lot of programs that work as a go-between for the iPhone Software Development Kit and some other language ("middleware," in developer-speak), Ansca Mobile isn't worried about their SDK at all. While there was a bit of a scare about non-Apple development kits earlier this week, Ansca assured us that Corona SDK is good to go; it allows a developer to write up an application directly in Corona with Lua (which is very similar to ActionScript), and then the app will deliver an iPhone, iPad, or even an Android application that is ready to go on the App Store. What does this mean for us gamers? It doesn't mean much -- there's not a lot of difference between a game written in Flash and ported across (like TapDots, out on the App Store right now) and a game written natively in Apple's Xcode, according to the Ansca folks (who actually worked as engineers on the original Flash Mobile implementation). The difference is much bigger for developers, though; they basically have to write just one app, and they can then port it across to another platform in just a scant few hours.
360iDev: Marketing and promotion on the App Store
To start off day 2 of 360iDev here in San Jose, California, Henry Balanon hosted a panel to discuss the marketing and promotion of iPhone and iPad apps. Panelists Brian Chen of Wired, Rana Sobhany (author of "Marketing iPhone Apps" from O'Reilly), Doodle Jump creator Igor Pusenjak, and Playhaven's Raymond Lau held court and spoke to developers about how to promote and market their apps, both, with the press and on the App Store. The suggestions ranged from the broad ("have a good idea") to the specific ("Use the What's New section in the App Store to promote your other apps"), but over the hour or so, the panelists came up with a lot of solid advice for developers looking to get the word out about their App Store offerings.
360iDev: Saurik on the mobile application market
Jay "Saurik" Freeman took the stage here at 360iDev last night to explain the mobile application marketplace. The entire mobile application marketplace, that is. Most people wrongly perceive the App Store to be a simple user-and-developer relationship, but in reality, it's a much more complicated place, with lots of inputs and outputs for time, money, and work. You can see the big picture of his chart above -- the "user" is the faceless woman near the middle, and the "developer" is the bearded man to her left. But everything else is a company or a connection that Saurik spoke about. Saurik runs the jailbreak app store Cydia (which has over 10,000 packages available, hundreds of which for a fee, on which they've pulled in over $1.3 million so far), and so he's closely interested in almost all facets of this relationship chart, and how money can flow from users of all kinds to developers across the world. In an entertaining and very insightful presentation, he basically walked the audience through his chart and, piece by piece, gave a wide-reaching overview of how the mobile app marketplace works today.
360iDev: Interview with keynote speaker David Whatley of Critical Thought Games
David Whatley gave the keynote yesterday at the opening of 360iDev here in San Jose, CA. (a conference for iPhone and iPad developers that is taking place in the first half of this week). He's a developer himself (his company, Critical Thought Games, has released two games (Update: Three -- we forgot geoSpark) in the App Store so far, and he's got plans for more), but he's also become a sort of guru for iPhone devs, giving guidance in terms of how to get noticed and sell apps in the App Store, and on the tactical and motivational fronts as well. Here at 360iDev, he gave a rousing speech about how self-made developers need to put together vision, a commitment, and lots and lots of persistence in order to get their apps just right, and out on Apple's platform. After the talk (which included anecdotes about Coca Cola founder John Pemberton's original vision to mix wine and cocaine, and how Whatley's own experiences with a pickup artist taught him that it's OK to fail), we got a chance to sit down with Whatley and talk about who iPhone developers are, his plans for the iPad, and his first reaction to last week's iPhone 4.0 announcements.
360iDev: Brent Simmons on NetNewsWire for iPad and iPhone OS 4.0
The iPhone is home to a lot of great new developers, but it's also the new home for a lot of old-school Mac guys as well; Brent Simmons is of the second kind. His NetNewsWire is a classic Mac app that's been remade for the iPhone, and now the iPad, with the clean, quick simplicity that Simmons' work is known for. We caught up with him right after his "Best Practices for Content Apps" talk here at 360iDev in San Jose, CA this week, and had a quick chat about how the iPad version of NetNewsWire is doing. Jenny Blumberg of NewsGator's developer support team also joined us. Simmons told us both how the iPad version of his app has made more money than you'd expect, and what he's most excited about from Apple's iPhone OS 4.0 announcement last week. Read on for more.
360iDev: The AppStar awards
Appsfire has just announced the winners of their App Star Awards contest at 360iDev here in San Jose -- they had an "uber-jury" go through 30-second pitch videos from 33 different unreleased iPhone and iPad apps, and narrowed down their favorites to six different apps in three categories, Games, Utility and Entertainment. Click on the Read More link below to see the list of winners as announced at the conference. Each one of these apps will get a free promotional campaign, an iPad to play with, and a subscription to Animoto, all to start off their App Store experience.
