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iPhone devsugar: Unit testing for iPhone view controllers

Erica Sadun — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 21:30:00 +0000

Filed under: Apple

Unit testing refers to a software validation methodology that allows programmers to test individual program units for correctness. It's been an ongoing question in the iPhone developer community as to whether the iPhone's view controller class is testable or not.

In response to these discussions, iPhone developer Jonah Williams has written up a view controller unit testing how-to over at the Carbon Five web blog. His write-up offers examples that show how to incorporate some best practices into your code.

Williams points out how broken NIB bindings are a common problem for iPhone OS applications. To address these issues, he regularly adds simple assertions that test that each IB outlet and action are set properly from inside his view controller class implementations. These assertions check that IBOutlet instance variables are not set to nil and that IBAction targets have been assigned, adding a layer of protection against broken bindings.

Another typical view controller issue involves responding to application memory warnings. To respond, he adds tests that ensure that each view-dependent property gets correctly released and re-created as views unload and then later reload. By building these into test methods, he can execute this behavior on demand, and ensure that the sequence will execute flawlessly in real world conditions.

Finally, Williams discusses view controller interdependencies. Often instances are tightly intertwined, with objects acting as clients for each other. For example, a simple table view controller, living within a navigation controller, might present a detail view via yet another view controller when a row is selected. That's three separate controllers to account for, when you really only want to test one at a time. Williams suggests isolating these view controllers away from their interdependencies to test each component separately and provides examples of how you can do so.

What made Williams' approach pop for me is how he carefully exposes and isolates dependencies for testing. These are features that can otherwise be hard to inspect and validate in the normal course of programming. His write-up is well worth reading through, and provides an excellent jumping off point for investigating view controller unit testing.

TUAW iPhone devsugar: Unit testing for iPhone view controllers originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 10 Mar 2010 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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New iPad SDK Adds Gesture Tools, Removes Video Chat Icons

MacRumors : Mac News and Rumors — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 21:14:20 +0000

Apple yesterday released the fourth beta version of the SDK for iPad developers, and observers have started to find a few differences popping up in the latest update.

9 to 5 Mac reports that Apple has added support for "3Tap" a...

GDC 2010: Interview with Street Fighter IV producer Takeshi Tazuka

Mike Schramm — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 21:00:00 +0000

Filed under: Gaming, Developer, iPhone, App Store, iPad

We stopped by the Capcom Fight Club party here at GDC 2010 last night, and in addition to playing the new game, we also got to talk to producer Takeshi Tazuka. Actually, we got to talk to his translator -- Tazuka only speaks Japanese, and I only speak English, so the interview was done with a middleman in between.

But even with the language barrier, we did get some good chat in about the new game, Capcom's future plans for the iPhone, and what Tazuka thinks about making a game like this for the iPad. Read on for more.

Thank you for speaking with us, I appreciate it. So, a fighting game on the iPhone -- how did you approach that?

I used to create arcade games, and the equipment is kind of similar to the iPhone.

It's similar? But there's no buttons on it.

It is different. The device is completely different. But the behavior for game users is very similar. When you go to game centers, you want to jump in and play a game spontaneously. And the iPhone is the same thing -- it's like an arcade experience.

What did you think of developing games on the iPhone as a platform? Was it easy, hard?

It's really interesting as a platform because people that play games on the iPhone usually don't have a game console at home. I am interested to see how people react to playing video games on their handheld, not on a full console. It's very interesting. Music fans, and other application fans, they play video games on the iPhone. It's very interesting to see those people playing the games on the iPhone.

Are there other iPhone games that you like?

[Laughs] Except Capcom games?

Right, besides Capcom games of course.

I really like Homerun Battle 3D, it's by this company called Com2us. [Pulls out his iPhone and shows us the Japanese version.]

Have you looked at the iPad at all? Are you interested in developing a game like Street Fighter for the iPad?

I'm very interested.

What would be different than the iPhone game?

The iPad is obviously heavier, so the user experience would be very different. [Motions with thumbs, has trouble holding a bigger device the same way.] Different than using iPhone.

On this game, how did you work on developing the interface to make it easier to use?

There's actually a mode called dojo mode, it's a tutorial or training mode, where you can learn how to improve your technique, brush up your technique, and learn to fight against really hardcore players as well. It doesn't only teach you how to play, it teaches you how to do super combos, hadoken, and how Ryu fights against Ryu, how Guile fights against Ryu. It's learning, dojo style. With this game, the major segment that we're targeting is late 30s. Those people who used to play Street Fighter II big time. So that's why it's a little easier for those people to pick up and play.

Was there anything that you wanted to do that you couldn't do because of the smaller platform?

Because of the memory capacity, we couldn't implement any more than eight characters total. We would have liked to put more characters in there, but the memory is limited.

A lot of people wouldn't have expected Street Fighter to become an iPhone game. Are there any other Capcom games that you'd like to put on the iPhone that people might not expect?

We have a lot of plans. But we can't tell you anything right now. We will try our best to do more than you expect.

Great, we're excited. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

TUAW GDC 2010: Interview with Street Fighter IV producer Takeshi Tazuka originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 10 Mar 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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GDC 2010: Interview with Street Fighter IV producer Takeshi Tazuka

Mike Schramm — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 21:00:00 +0000

Filed under: Gaming, Developer, iPhone, App Store, iPad

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Flash, HTML5 comparison finds neither has performance advantage

AppleInsider — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 20:45:00 +0000

A comparison of streaming video via the Adobe Flash and HTML5 formats with numerous different browsers on both Mac and Windows produced wildly different results based on the operating system and browser, making neither a clear winner.

MacHeist nano bundle adds Tweetie for final day

Michael Rose — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 20:30:00 +0000

Filed under: Deals

The ever-popular MacHeist bundle, offering eight Mac apps for $20 total, closes out at midnight Pacific Time tonight. If you've been on the fence so far about whether or not to buy in this year, two bits of news may push you over the brink.

First, all the initial applications have been unlocked; both Tales of Monkey Island and RapidWeaver are fully present and accounted for. Second, there's been a last-minute addition to the roster; Tweetie for Mac (normally $20 on its own) is now part of the bundle.

If you're Macheisting this year, let us know what you think of the app selection; if not, share your reasons why. (We will accept "I'm saving up for tickets to Tron Legacy" as a valid reason.)

TUAW MacHeist nano bundle adds Tweetie for final day originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 10 Mar 2010 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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GDC 2010: Ngmoco justifies the freemium model

Mike Schramm — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 20:00:00 +0000

Filed under: Gaming, Software, Developer, iPhone, App Store

As popular as Ngmoco and its games are, whenever we seem to post about them, the subject of their business model seems to rise to the top again. While they have emerged as one of the iPhone's top original developers, they've also lost a lot of fans by sticking with a model they call "freemium," even to the detriment of some of their most popular games. They release games for free, and then monetize the games by using microtransactions, selling both virtual items and virtual currency for real money.

We have a lot of questions for the company, and we'll be asking even more of them coming later this week. But first things first: we cornered Ngmoco producer Allen Ma here in their suite at GDC 2010 and asked him to try and tell us why Ngmoco is so insistent on "freemium," and how they feel about some of the adverse customer reactions to their model. Read on to hear why free-to-play, pay-to-play-more is the model that they're betting their business on.

When we post about Ngmoco, the first comment on the post is often "Here's Ngmoco trying to steal our money again." What do you think when you see a reaction like that?

It's very, very odd because it's strange to see those moments when our goal as a company is that we want to give you a full game experience for free. That's really what Eliminate is. You can log into Eliminate any time you want, and play the game against anyone else, for free. And it's Quake 3 on the iPhone! So it's very interesting when people go oh they're scamming us because they want us to pay ten to twenty dollars to play through a game experience. That really is not true. Because you can never pay for the game and get the same exact experience.

Well, it's not the same exact experience.

It is, it just takes longer to get there.

That in itself makes it not the same.

Well does it or doesn't it, right? Because I feel like there's a lot of games out there where you're paying to do something faster than someone else. There's a whole black market that exists in World of Warcraft where you can buy a level 80 character for hundreds of dollars. There's this market where people are willing to do that. We're just doing that in a way where it's legitimate and fair to everyone.

Well, but a lot of players frown on that even in World of Warcraft. A lot of players say if you buy a level 80, that's cheating, because the game is designed to be played the other way.

And in Eliminate, we would never let you buy a fully maxed out character, right? In Eliminate specifically, what we're allowing you to do, we're still allowing you to play the game, but we allow you to earn credits at a higher frequency than other people. You still have to play the same amount of games, you can't cheat your way to max level, but in actual total number of days to get there, you're lowering it.

I think another reason that people have an issue with this is that you guys, Ngmoco, have said that you're not even bothering with paid apps. There are some people who are willing to pay for a good experience, they're even willing to pay ten dollars for a solid, worthwhile, whole unlocked version of the game. And Ngmoco is saying we're not doing that, it's all freemium or nothing. What would you say to that?

We're just finding that, with paid, you can't make any money. There's only a handful of companies that are able to charge more than three dollars for a game. Gameloft, EA, Square Enix. Anyone else, they charge more than two bucks, no one's even going to look at their game. There's no way that we could have built Eliminate, for the cost per install or cost per SKU that we would have sold, to actually be able to make back that money in the timeframe that we wanted to. It's funny, because people are saying that they're willing to pay, but when push comes to shove, they're actually not willing to pay. That person that says they're willing to pay $10, they'll probably wait for it to drop to 99 cents before they actually purchase it. What they really want is a $10 game for 99 cents. What we're giving them is a $50 game for free. That's really our stance right now.

When you set out to make these games, even a game like We Rule, are you still thinking about it in the old model of, the premium experience for this is $50, or the premium experience is $10? Is there a "right amount" of money to spend to get the full game, or are you just saying the sky's the limit on the amount of money you should pay?

I think what freemium allows us to do is continually make the game better. So instead of going, OK, you as the user have to take a gamble to see if this game is worth x amount of dollars to you; instead, why don't you come in and try the game. If you like it, throw us a couple of bucks. When you do that, we know that you like that piece of the game, and we'll give you more of that, so that if you continue to like it, we'll keep designing these things, right? The ones that you don't like, we'll stop doing. For example in Eliminate, people really wanted co-op. So we're going to give them co-op, because they're going to keep playing the game. Some of them will continue to keep paying to play the game, and that's encouraging as a developer to keep making it better and better. And this is why World of Warcraft works, right, because users are willing to continue to pay to play the game. Unfortunately, not every game can be as excellent as World of Warcraft where everyone in the world is willing to pay for it. I could point you to a game like Dungeons and Dragons Online, which used to be a regular MMO and now is a free-to-play MMO, and they're saying that they're making like 60-80% more revenue as a free-to-play game than when it was paid. And they're now updating the game way more frequently than they did when it was paid.

So it sounds like you're not even thinking in the old model of, "here's this experience for this amount of money." You're thinking of it as a dialogue, where you pay us for what you like, and we'll return more content. You're not just investing two bucks to speed up your game, you're investing two bucks in the game and in future content.

Yeah. You're paying to support the game, and you're paying to support all of the free players that weren't willing to pay for the game. So when you think about it that way, you're paying so that we can maintain the servers that allow all of the people to play. So again, going back to Eliminate, our game that's working right now, you're paying for the game, so that you can continue to own people that don't pay for the game.

Great, thanks very much.

TUAW GDC 2010: Ngmoco justifies the freemium model originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 10 Mar 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Microsoft working on ‘Zune HD2′ powered by Windows Phone 7

AppleInsider — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 19:10:00 +0000

Similar to how Apple's iPod touch came from the development of the iPhone, Microsoft reportedly plans to base the follow-up to its Zune HD media player on the Windows Phone 7 Series mobile operating system.

EyeTV Hybrid shrinks down, gains Win7 compatibility

Michael Rose — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 19:00:00 +0000

Filed under: Hardware

Same price, same features (mostly) but a sleek and slender new look: yesterday Elgato introduced the latest revamp of its EyeTV Hybrid USB tuner for high-definition digital television. The US$150 widget gives you the option of watching over-the-air digital television in full HD glory, and can also tune in unencrypted (Clear QAM) and analog cable TV signals. If you've got an analog source like a VCR or videogame console, you can also route those signals through the EyeTV Hybrid to watch or play on your Mac (for those who don't need the analog option, Elgato also sells the HD tuner-only EyeTV One for $120).

The tuner ships with the EyeTV 3 software, enabling live TV, DVR functionality and shared recordings for your iPhone and iPod touch. With every new EyeTV Hybrid you get a one-year subscription to the TV Guide data feed, which provides full listings and enables the Smart Series recording feature; the software also can detect and display the embedded ATSC schedule information for broadcast shows. After the first year, re-upping with TV Guide will cost you $20.

Other than the slimmer profile, the major new feature on this model is the addition of driver support for Windows 7's Windows Media Center. Mac users may not care much, but this does let you use the same tuner if you're using Boot Camp, or you can loan it out to Windows-centric friends -- if you trust them to give it back.

You can check out our previous coverage and reviews of the EyeTV Hybrid for more.

TUAW EyeTV Hybrid shrinks down, gains Win7 compatibility originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 10 Mar 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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GDC 2010: Ngmoco previews We Rule and GodFinger

Mike Schramm — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 18:00:00 +0000

Filed under: Gaming, Freeware, Developer, iPhone

We stopped by Ngmoco's suite at GDC 2010 on the afternoon of the first day of the show, and got a chance to preview two upcoming titles they're working on testing and releasing soon. Both of the games follow Ngmoco's popular (and yet much-maligned) "freemium" model, in which you download the game for free with the option to buy in-game items or currency that can change up or speed your gameplay. Still, while the model might turn some players off, the games we saw were the kinds of games Ngmoco is slowly becoming known for: polished casual experiences that bring an established genre squarely into their business model.

The first game we saw was called We Rule -- it's currently "beta testing" in the Canadian App Store and will be available to users in other App Stores soon. It was described to us as "Farmville meets Age of Empires," but what we saw was much more like Farmville rather than the more combat-based RTS title. The game opens on a screen full of "realms," each one developed and grown by one of your Ngmoco Plus+ friends, and you can zoom into your own to start building it up.

It plays a lot like Farmville, which is a gigantic Facebook game in which you grow crops and cultivate plants of all kinds. Ngmoco's version is slightly different, but only slightly: you're still laying down crops, waiting for them to grow (30 seconds for the cheapest and easiest crops, and up to days for the rarer and higher-level items), and then harvesting them for in-game currency that lets you grow more and build more, and so on. It's not strictly a competition (you don't track totals with friends or score points for what you grow), but the game is very social, with push messages notifying you when crops are done or when your friends have done something spectacular or worthwhile. There's a big focus on customization as well -- you can build things like mailboxes or signs that make your realm very different from anyone else's.

So where's the "premium"? Every time you grow or build something, there is a little button marked "mojo," and "mojo" is a type of magical in-game currency that can be used to speed up whatever you're growing. Mojo can be earned slowly in the game, but if you want to use a lot of it, you can pay real money via in-app purchase to get more. Thus, if you want to grow the game quickly and don't want to wait to earn more mojo, you can start putting real money in.

Ngmoco did say that they'd "learned" from their previous games, and that they wanted to make sure that even the free game was a full experience. But that mojo button was awfully big and purple, and combined with the fact that there were also in-game ads all over the build we saw (when we asked if there would be a way to turn them off, even with real money, we were told that they haven't decided yet), it certainly seems like Ngmoco will do their best to get you to invest in the game.

The other game they are showing off this week is called GodFinger, and if We Rule is based on Farmville, GodFinger is Farmville mixed with Pocket God. The game is centered around a planet that you can rotate around with your finger, and the planet is populated by "followers" that offer you, as a God, all sorts of prayers and wishes. Granting those wishes (like adding rain to crops or sunlight to people who need their day brightened) will grant you "awe," which is another currency that you can use to upgrade your planet however you see fit, by terraforming the ground or building various structures and upgrades.

GodFinger is also very social -- you can actually "assign" one of your friends on Plus+ to a certain follower (as in, you can name a follower after your friend Katie), and then we were told that your friend will get push notifications and even benefits in their game depending on what you do to them. For example, if your follower Katie asks for sunlight and you grant the wish, your friend Katie will get a message that you granted her virtual wish, and even get a bonus of some kind in her GodFinger games.

We didn't see ads on the game, but of course being as this is Ngmoco, there is a "freemium" plan in there. You can purchase "awe" with real money, and that will let you use your god powers even more per day than usual, kind of like Eliminate's energy currency. GodFinger definitely seemed like it was a little less "pushy" than We Rule, in terms of asking you to spend real money, but of course, if you're playing the real game, there will presumably come a time when the game will tell you to stop playing for the day or pay up. It's still in development, of course, so even Ngmoco isn't 100% sure

Both games are definitely polished and well designed -- they ran great on the iPhone 3GS, and the graphics were colorful and easy to understand. But Ngmoco's main obstacle will be to keep their business plan from getting in the way of their game experiences. They say their main goal is making fun games, and it'll be up to these two games to prove it.

TUAW GDC 2010: Ngmoco previews We Rule and GodFinger originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 10 Mar 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Six Months Later: ‘iTunes LP’ Format Performance Remains Lackluster

MacRumors : Mac News and Rumors — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 17:19:42 +0000

GigaOM provides an interesting reexamination of Apple's "iTunes LP" format for enhanced album content six months after the format's debut. While iTunes LPs were touted at its launch as a means to reignite sales of albums as opposed to indivi...

Apple iPhone targeted in patent lawsuit over sync, Bluetooth

AppleInsider — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 17:05:00 +0000

Apple -- along with AT&T, Research in Motion and a number of other mobile companies -- is the defendant in a new patent suit that covers a broad range of smartphone related technologies, including e-mail syncing and Bluetooth connectivity.

Verizon Viewing iPad as Opportunity to Push MiFi Service

MacRumors : Mac News and Rumors — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 15:13:16 +0000

Engadget reports on a leaked internal memo from Verizon to its staff members promoting Apple's iPad as an "opportunity" to sell its data plans, seeking to encourage customers to purchase a Wi-Fi iPad model and pair it with Verizon services su...

HP attacks Apple iPad over Flash, ARM expects 50 new tablets in 2010

AppleInsider — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 15:00:00 +0000

As HP attempts to push its own Flash-playing slate PC over the Apple iPad, one ARM executive said he expects more than 50 tablet-style devices to be introduced this year alone.

GDC 2010: Real Racing and Flight Control on the iPad with Firemint

Mike Schramm — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 14:00:00 +0000

Filed under: Gaming, Software, Freeware, App Store, iPad

We got to sit down with Australian developer Firemint here at the Game Developers Conference 2010 in San Francisco -- it's a mobile game developer who hit it big last year with the very popular iPhone game Flight Control, and while it used to make mobile games for just a handful of larger game publishers like EA, the company is now trying to cement a reputation for making a smaller stable of high quality App Store games. "We like to joke that we went from ten customers to ten million," community manager Alexandra Peters told us.

She also showed us their second game, Real Racing, which has been winning all kinds of awards even in the crowded accelerometer racing game genre, and talked with us both about Flight Control HD (their upcoming "soon after launch" title for the iPad) as well as what's next for the company.

Real Racing was impressive for an iPhone racing game. While the accelerometer-as-steering is basically a cliche in iPhone games at this point, Real Racing pulls it off pretty well by focusing on that -- depending on the settings, you can simply let the car accelerate and even break on its own, and just focus on hitting the curves while driving 48 different cars around the game's 12 tracks, or actually jump in and control the car yourself.

We only got to drive a few laps, but the game's crystal-clear presentation got us interested enough to want to play more. The game is currently $4.99 in the App Store, but there is an interesting lite version to try as well -- Volkswagen actually approached Firemint after the success of the game and commissioned an "adverware" version to release on the App Store. It's there to try -- unfortunately, the content is a little light for a game with so many ads, but it's one of the better integration models for in-game ads I've ever seen, and the extra commission for Firemint certainly help offset the costs of development for a free game.

Firemint also told us about the version of Flight Control they're working on for the iPad. It will be called Flight Control HD, and of course it'll make use of the bigger touchscreen, but like most developers, Firemint hasn't had an actual iPad dev device to work with -- they've only got the game running in the iPad SDK simulation. Peters said the iPad makes for a "very personal and very immersive experience," so they're hoping to take advantage of that with Flight Control HD -- they've even set up a Wacom tablet to test the larger control scheme out. And they're hoping the game comes out soon after the iPad's launch on April 3rd, so look for it then.

Other than that, Firemint also has two other games in development, still under wraps. The first will be coming out later this year, and the other one is definitely the biggest iPhone project they've ever done (we got the impression that it would be a larger, 3D action project) that will be out sometime in 2011. We asked them if those games were planned for the iPhone or the iPad, and they told us while they were currently working on both of them for the iPhone, "we'll have to wait and see" on the iPad.

All in all, Firemint seems to be a company that has really taken advantage of the opportunities in the App Store, and grown both their reputation and their repetoire thanks to Apple's platform. Flight Control and Real Racing have both been excellent examples of their "just a few good games" philosophy, and we can't wait to see what they do with other titles and the iPad.

TUAW GDC 2010: Real Racing and Flight Control on the iPad with Firemint originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 10 Mar 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Game developers eye the Mac after Steam’s jump to Apple

AppleInsider — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 13:25:00 +0000

The announcement that the Steam gaming service and Valve's line of games -- including Half-Life 2 and Left 4 Dead 2 -- are being ported to the Mac has convinced major developers like DICE and Gas Powered Games to consider the jump as well.

“Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” uses Macs to solve mysteries

Victor Agreda, Jr. — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 13:00:00 +0000

Filed under: Cult of Mac

If you happen to have gotten caught up in the phenomenon known as the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, then you know that the computer of choice for these world-class computer genius hackers is made by Apple. I screened the film version of the story, and MacBook Pros are visible throughout as the the tool used to solve mysteries. It's a good film as well, as far as taut thrillers from Sweden go. In fact, I found it a refreshing take on the thriller (with a little social commentary thrown in) and was unsurprised to find it was based on a highly-regarded novel.

The lead character, Lisbeth Salander, actually uses her MacBook Pro to hack into all manner of places, just as Macs have managed to appear in all sorts of movies. There's even a Flickr group dedicated to chronicling the appearance of them in film and TV. If you got a kick out of Hackers back in the day, Lisbeth will be a little familiar, but she's a nice modern spin on the "cool hacker" type.

TUAW is part of a "blog hunt" for clues to win prizes for the movie, and you can find out more on the next page...
Join the Dragon Tattoo Blog HUNT -- an Internet-wide scavenger hunt tied to the feature film launch of the bestselling book The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Win great prizes: free movie tickets, books, the movie soundtrack, posters and more. To join the contest, start at the beginning of the HUNT by visiting the contest page for full details and the first clue. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is in theaters near you starting March 19th.

The next clue:
No 9 to 5'ing for this guy. Just like Lisbeth and Mikael, this renegade, Jonathan Fields, made his own way (he even wrote a book about it) and he helps people find the career that lets them do what they love to do.

TUAW "Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" uses Macs to solve mysteries originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 10 Mar 2010 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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GDC 2010: Street Fighter IV for the iPhone out now

Mike Schramm — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 07:30:00 +0000

Filed under: Gaming, Software, iPhone, App Store

Tonight at GDC 2010, I went out and stopped by the Capcom Fight Club party here in San Francisco, and while there, Capcom projected the actual App Store interface for sending their Street Fighter IV app to the App Store on various screens around the room. We actually got to see them press the button on the release live and in person, and sure enough, the game is in the App Store right now for $9.99.

Before you go press buy, though, I'll also tell you that I got a chance to play the game, and while it is about as faithful a Street Fighter IV game as you can get on the iPhone, playing a fighting game without actual buttons is not really an ideal experience. While I was able to pull off a Hadoken and almost all of the other old moves after a few tries, the highest levels of competition in a fighting game require precision and subtlety, and this control scheme has neither of those. If you just want to play Street Fighter on an iPhone, sure -- be an early adopter, pick up the game, and enjoy a few rounds of Guile vs. Ryu. But if you're looking for the kind of in-depth fighting experience that Street Fighter IV on consoles and in the arcades offered, you probably won't find it here -- the controls are a little too inconsistent to really dig into the deep counter and powerup systems on display.

The game does have a lot of extras and addons, including a dojo mode for training and Bluetooth multiplayer. And while the game's eight characters offers up a pretty slim selection compared to the current console titles, these are definitely classic Capcom characters, and all of the old moves you'll remember still work. Save for the controls, nothing about this game is half-done -- it's definitely a premium port of a premium game. But as a true fighting game experience, this one comes up short. Buy it if you want, to see the spectacle of Street Fighter squeezed into Apple's touchscreen, an achievement in and of itself. But don't buy it expecting an ideal Capcom-style showdown that you'll be able to pull up time and time again -- for that, save your quarters for the arcades.

Stay tuned -- we did get to talk with the Japanese producer of the game about what he thinks of the iPhone, the iPad, and the challenges he had to overcome by squeezing this one on to Apple's handheld. That interview is coming up later today right here on TUAW.

TUAW GDC 2010: Street Fighter IV for the iPhone out now originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 10 Mar 2010 02:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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GDC 2010: Street Fighter IV for the iPhone out now

Mike Schramm — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 07:30:00 +0000

Filed under: Gaming, Software, iPhone, App Store

TUAW GDC 2010: Street Fighter IV for the iPhone out now originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 10 Mar 2010 02:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Verizon sees Wi-Fi-only iPad as opportunity to sell 3G data plans

AppleInsider — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 02:15:00 +0000

Though the iPad is only compatible with AT&T's 3G network in the U.S., that hasn't stopped Verizon from telling its employees to pitch its own data plans, shared via Wi-Fi, to prospective buyers of Apple's new hardware.