An improved Mail is welcome, and a nice addition, but the key changes are simply threaded message views and a unified inbox. The latter of course being a feature users have been begging for. All nice stuff, but nothing worth devoting a whole post to. Do you look forward to a unified inbox for all of your e-mail accounts like most of us do? Well good, you're getting it. Next!
iBooks on iPhone and iPod touch devices is cool, and should relieve many people who worried it was an iPad-only feature. I don't really know how popular it will be, as the reason it's such a big deal on the iPad is the bigger screen that's better suited to reading for long periods. The syncing between all your devices is a nice touch though, and clearly a "yeah, we can do that too" message to Amazon.
The new Enterprise features seem nice, but are completely meaningless to me personally.
What this means is that I could turn this into a four part series and appear a liar for promising seven. Instead, I've decided to stick to seven, but I'll branch out into some of those 100 minor features, instead of stopping at the major ones.
Long preface aside, let's continue with the next tentpole feature I am going to discuss, Game Center, and what it means for both users and developers.
As soon as the App Store launched, it was clear that gaming was going to be a large portion of its catalog. The iPhone as a platform was so far beyond everything else on the market (and still is, though the margin has gotten smaller in the last year or so), there was an amazing amount of potential as a mobile gaming device. Games that weren't quite on par with grade-A DS or PSP titles, but were light years ahead of the sub-sub-par "games" one usually associated with a mobile phone.
It wasn't long before we had the kinds of games that would benefit from a platform similar to Microsoft's Xbox Live or Sony's PlayStation Network. Or Nintendo's... Oh right, still waiting on that. Xbox Live in particular has proven itself to be a fantastic model for a social gaming network. For whatever it's worth, I think it's the most well-designed product ever to come out of Microsoft. For online gaming, comparing scores with friends and the world, and so much more, these services play a huge part in how people interact with each other and their games.
Back to the iPhone. While Apple didn't build such a structure into the iPhone OS, several developers saw fit to collaborate on a few of these systems themselves, the most notable being OpenFeint, Plus+, and Crystal. OpenFeint is the one I have the most experience with myself, and is generally a pretty consistent experience from game to game. It's a great system offering leaderboards, achievements, social features and so on. I'm sure all of the others are just as good as well, but the simple fact that there are multiple systems/networks on he platform underlines is a potential hinderance to the platform.
The Case for One Social Gaming Network
Users have wanted one official, built-in social gaming network for a long time, even if you don't hear about it as much as in the pre-OpenFeint days. One problem is that there's no telling which games will use which network, since devs are free to use any of several options. It fragments the market, and potentially confuses users. You can, for example, see what other games your friends are playing, but only if said games happen to be on that network. Not to mention the need to sign up and manage friend lists on each. What if I want to see ALL the games my friends play? Or see when they're online and send them an invite?
One of my favorite little puzzle games for the iPhone is Piyo Blocks by Big Pixel Studios. As a match-3 puzzler, it's perfect for integrating a social gaming network, most notably for scoring purposes. The game uses OpenFeint, which was nice since I was already using it. I don't know the details behind it, but when Piyo Blocks 2 came to the iPad, Chillingo took up the publishing reigns, and the game therefore uses their own Crystal network. So now I have two games in the same series using two different networks. I don't actually feel like setting up a Crystal profile/account just for one game, and really found myself wanting this mythical "One Network" solution. While this is just one example, I'm sure I'm not alone.
I was both surprised and relieved when Apple revealed Game Center. It was them embracing gaming like never before, even more than when they shifted their entire marketing program behind the iPod touch to focus on games. It promises to be a big win for gamers, finally offering one official network backed by a company with endless resources. For end users, there's really no drawback here: The other networks should still be around, as developers aren't required to use Apple's system, so there will be plenty of choices. Right?
Obsolete?
One of my favorite little puzzle games for the iPhone is Piyo Blocks by Big Pixel Studios. As a match-3 puzzler, it's perfect for integrating a social gaming network, most notably for scoring purposes. The game uses OpenFeint, which was nice since I was already using it. I don't know the details behind it, but when Piyo Blocks 2 came to the iPad, Chillingo took up the publishing reigns, and the game therefore uses their own Crystal network. So now I have two games in the same series using two different networks. I don't actually feel like setting up a Crystal profile/account just for one game, and really found myself wanting this mythical "One Network" solution. While this is just one example, I'm sure I'm not alone.
I was both surprised and relieved when Apple revealed Game Center. It was them embracing gaming like never before, even more than when they shifted their entire marketing program behind the iPod touch to focus on games. It promises to be a big win for gamers, finally offering one official network backed by a company with endless resources. For end users, there's really no drawback here: The other networks should still be around, as developers aren't required to use Apple's system, so there will be plenty of choices. Right?
Obsolete?
Game Center's announcement was a big shock to all developers, and certainly those behind OpenFeint and other existing services. Did Apple just make all of these obsolete? That's the question on a lot of people's minds, though I'd say that's not the case. There's already talk of methods that will help people migrate their stuff to Game Center - by choice, of course. Does this mean that developers will be able to support both Apple and third-party services in a single app? If that's the case, it's going to make things interesting, and not as dire as some fear.
Besides that, having a new service out there is already inspiring devs to plan new features that will go beyond what Game Center will provide, to give both other developers and users incentive to continue using a third-party solution. Competition is good, right?
All in all, I think Game Center is a win for everyone. It gives the platform the dedicated, integrated social gaming network it so desperately needs, but without obliterating the existing ones. We won't see Game Center in full until later this year - I'm guessing the fall, but it's going to be interesting to see what happens.
Besides that, having a new service out there is already inspiring devs to plan new features that will go beyond what Game Center will provide, to give both other developers and users incentive to continue using a third-party solution. Competition is good, right?
All in all, I think Game Center is a win for everyone. It gives the platform the dedicated, integrated social gaming network it so desperately needs, but without obliterating the existing ones. We won't see Game Center in full until later this year - I'm guessing the fall, but it's going to be interesting to see what happens.
Posts
Thanks a bunch for sharing this with all of us you really recognise what you’re talking approximately! Bookmarked. Kindly also discuss with my website =). We could have a hyperlink exchange agreement among us!
ReplyDeleteScreen Protectors