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iPhone covered front to back with camera-related rumors
Well, here's a nice bit of symmetry to emerge from the Apple rumor mill in recent days -- some new purported details on both the rear and front-facing camera on the next-generation iPhone. The first, and more straightforward of the two, comes courtesy of The Chosum Ilbo, which is reporting that the next iPhone will pack a 5-megapixel camera supplied by LG Innotek. Details on it are otherwise pretty light, but the site says that LG has already started producing the "sophisticated cameras" at its plant in Gumi this month, with mass production supposedly set to begin in the second half of this year. The second rumor concerns the iPhone's front-facing camera, and comes after a bit of digging in the latest iPhone 4 SDK beta. According to MacRumors, the SDK not only includes an unfortunate bit of code that suggests video calls will be WiFi-only, but evidence that video chat will be integrated into Apple's Game Center as well -- exactly how remains unclear, although there's certainly no shortage of possibilities. Dive into the links below for the complete details.
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.
OpenFeint's Jason Citron talks Game Center and Aurora Feint 3
The first thought on everyone's minds as we heard during the event yesterday that Apple would be forming their own social gaming network on the iPhone called Game Center, was probably, "What about OpenFeint?" Since almost the very beginning of the App Store, OpenFeint founder Jason Citron has been working hard to provide developers with a free and easy solution for implementing a social network and social features on their iPhone apps, and with one small announcement, Apple appeared to make all of that work obsolete. Quite a few unofficial social networks have spawned on the iPhone (OpenFeint is one of the first and definitely the biggest, with over 12 million users at last count), and with one fell swoop, it appeared that Apple's new official network would make them all unnecessary. Not so, Citron told us in a quick interview today. Yesterday, he confirmed in a statement that OpenFeint would still do their best to sit on top of any official network that Apple would build, and today he talked a little more with us about the future of OpenFeint, his worries about Game Center, and how the company's first iPad title, Aurora Feint 3, is doing.
Game Center sparks light reactions from competing iPhone social network devs
Yesterday, Apple announced Game Center, a social gaming service for iPhone. Pretty much everyone with an iPhone has reason to be delighted with this development, except for companies like OpenFeint and ngmoco, which already operate social network gaming services for iPhone in OpenFeint and Plus+, respectively. Are both companies freaking out? Not in public. In a statement, OpenFeint positioned the OpenFeint X service, which allows iPhone devs to sell virtual goods, as the next step for its business. "OpenFeint X is currently built on top of OpenFeint and in the future it will also sit on Apple's Game Center social graph, achievements and leaderboards so developers and gamers don't miss a step," said OpenFeint CEO Jason Citron. "Apple is a key partner and we are delighted that they have validated the first half of the OpenFeint vision and we can now fulfill the second half: OpenFeint X and Virtual Goods based Social Games." Citron also promised to "continue to invest in OpenFeint" for the benefit of the games using the platform now and in the process of adding it. ngmoco's Simon Jeffery released a statement indicating that Plus+ is also already moving in a similar direction. "ngmoco has anticipated this move from Apple for some time, and is happy to see a cleaner developer and consumer experience on the horizon," he said. "As we demonstrated at GDC 2010, Plus+ took a strategic shift in direction a few months ago toward being a service, and less about being a set of social gaming features." Plus+ is now focusing on "empowering monetisation and discoverability mechanisms for the development community," as evident in the service's support for player-created virtual item stores in We Rule. If both OpenFeint and ngmoco are to become virtual goods platforms, they stand to benefit from Game Center -- in essence, they can allow Apple to handle all the matchmaking and friend list stuff, while they focus on building marketplaces to interact with Game Center. At least until iPhone OS 5 introduces a virtual goods marketplace. [Via TUAW]
Current game network developers comment on Apple's Game Center
Way back in February at Macworld, one of my questions to Eros Remini of OpenFeint was pretty blunt: "Why," I asked a representative from the biggest third-party social gaming network on the iPhone, "haven't we seen an official platform-wide network?" Remini didn't have a good answer for Apple, but he did say that OpenFeint was happy to step up and fill the void. Apple answered for themselves this morning: They announced Game Center, which will be an official social gaming network for the iPhone and iPad, complete with friend lists, leaderboards, achievements, and everything else that third-party providers like OpenFeint have set up already. So what does OpenFeint think of Game Center? We contacted it for a statement and we are told that OpenFeint is welcoming Apple's Game Center. The company has recently released a virtual goods marketplace called OpenFeint X, and their statement about Game Center says that there's still a place for OpenFeint on top of Apple's official service. "OpenFeint X is currently built on top of OpenFeint and in the future it will also sit on Apple's Game Center social graph, achievements and leaderboards so developers and gamers don't miss a step," Jason Citron, CEO of Aurora Feint says. Current OpenFeint players (of which there are 19 million at last count) will automatically become OpenFeint X members, and it sounds like OpenFeint plans to move on to the virtual goods market, leaving their old social gaming realm behind for Apple. There were a few other reactions from various developers and publishers about the Game Center news -- read more information from PopCap and Ngmoco after the link below.
iPhone OS 4.0: Apple announces Game Center, a social gaming network for the iPhone
This is huge -- Apple has announced Game Center, an official social gaming network for the iPhone, coming to the device along with OS 4.0 this summer. So far, there have been a few social networks vying for an audience in the form of OpenFeint and Ngmoco's Plus+ system, but Apple's going official, bringing in friends lists, leaderboards, achievements, matchmaking, and so on all to the iPhone themselves. Jobs said on stage in Cupertino that they will combine GameCenter with the App Store's over 50,000 games and entertainment titles. It'll be extremely interesting to see how Apple's network interacts with App Store titles, and it looks like OpenFeint and the like have some serious first-party competition.
Game Center is basically Xbox Live for your iPhone
We knew Apple was serious about treating the iPhone and iPod Touch as gaming devices, but at its iPhone OS 4 event (liveblog here) it just dropped the gauntlet: Game Center. "Gaming is extremely popular on the iPhone and iPod touch. We have 50,000 games," Apple's Scott Forstall trumpeted. "Let's compare that to the competition ... the PSP and DS ... we blow them out of the water." While we're not going to start pointing out relative quality differences here, we will say that iPhone now has one very powerful differentiator that neither the PSP nor DS have: "a social gaming network." Forstall unveiled Game Center, which he said will make "gaming even better on the iPhone." With matchmaking, game invites, leaderboards and achievements, this is pretty much a carbon copy of Xbox Live, but on your phone (Windows Phone 7, beat to the punch!). This is a "dev preview for OS 4," which will be available today for you devs out there. Everyone else, you've gotta wait until "summer."
iPhone OS 4 unveiled, adds multitasking, shipping this summer
Just a bit more than a year after we first laid eyes on iPhone OS 3.0, Apple is back with the latest big revision of the OS that powers the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. iPhone OS 4 is shipping this summer (iPad in the fall), and the developer preview will be out today. iPhone 3GS and new-gen iPod touch will get all the features, but some features won't make it to the iPhone 3G, original iPhone, and older iPod touches. The biggest new feature is multitasking, which Apple says is going to be the "best" implementation in the smartphone space, though it's obviously not the first. App switching is activated by double tapping the home button, which pulls up a "dock" of currently running apps, and Apple claims it can do this without hurting battery life or performance for the front app. Unfortunately, this multitasking won't be available for devices older than the 3GS and new iPod touch. Multitasking is just one of seven different new "tentpole" features, including Game Center, enhanced Mail, and more... Notable new features for users ("tentpoles" are in bold): Multitasking. Spell check (like on the iPad). Bluetooth keyboard support (again, on the iPad). User-defined wallpaper (a jailbreak favorite). Tap to focus when recording video, just like with photos, and a 5x digital zoom for the camera. Playlist creation and nested playlists. App folders for sorting apps! You can even put an app folder in the dock. Enhanced Mail! You can have a merged inbox view, switch between inboxes quickly, and sync to more than one Exchange account. There's also threaded messaging (at last!) and in-app attachment viewing. iBooks, just like on iPad, only smaller. You can wirelessly sync books between platforms, a la Kindle. Enterprise features, including remote device management and wireless app distribution. Game Center. It's like Xbox Live, but for iPhone games. Includes achievements, leaderboards, and match making. It will be available as a "developer preview," and out for consumers later this year. Developers are getting plenty of new tricks too: New SDK, available today. 1,500 new APIs. Background audio (think Pandora). Background VoIP (think Skype). Background location data, both with live GPS for backgrounded turn-by-turn, and cell tower-based for lower power draw. Local notifications. Like push notifications, but sends a notification straight from the app without needing a push notification server, perfect for an alarm, for instance. Fast app switching. Saves the state of an app and resumes it from where you left off, without dwelling in memory. iAd. Apple says it's for keeping "free apps free." The ads keep you in the app, while also taking over the screen and adding interactivity -- using HTML 5 for video -- up to simple gaming in-ad. Apple will offer a 60 / 40 split on revenue, and users can even buy apps straight from an ad. In-app SMS. Map overlays. Quick look for previewing documents. Photo Library access. Calendar access. Full access to the camera. Video playback and capture. Date and address "data detectors." Automated testing and performance / power analysis (the same tools Apple uses). %Gallery-90056% %Gallery-90057% %Gallery-90058% Make sure to check out the iPhone OS 4.0 liveblog to see how it all went down!
Apple previews Game Center social gaming platform for iPhone OS
Apple just announced Game Center, which is a social gaming network for the iPhone -- it sounds a lot like Xbox Live, actually. It's has a friend system, leaderboards, and achievements -- and we're guessing it'll blow up out of the gate, given how many games are on the platform. It's being previewed in iPhone OS 4 right now, and it'll launch later this summer. We're hunting for more info, we'll let you know! %Gallery-90058% Make sure to check out the ongoing iPhone OS 4.0 liveblog!
Wil Wheaton on the death of the arcade
Wil Wheaton (yes, that kid from Star Trek) has a touching column on the slow death of the arcade over at Suicide Girls, of all places (page is safe for work, but links to NSFW content). Wheaton lays out some interesting historical analysis on what actually caused the game center's slow decline (endless fighting game clones might be as culpable as powerful home systems), but just as interesting are Wheaton's carefully laid out sensory memories from the gaming rooms of his youth. More than the games themselves, the pizza-stained, Mountain Dew-infused social atmosphere of the old arcades are what give them a special place in many an old fogey gamer's heart. These young whippersnappers don't know what they're missing with their online deathmatches and Xbox Live Arcade downloads and what-not. In my day, we played standing up at a wooden cabinet in a dimly lit room... and we liked it, dagnabbit!
