Amazing Aaron

I finally got a chance to watch the iPhone 3.0 SDK presentation over at Apple. I really like the new features, and WOW the iPhone is looking better, and better as a game developing platform. It looks like apple is really trying to make the iPhone a great mobile gaming console. They have added things like, peer-to-peer communication between games (and apps), and voice in game, so you can communicate like on Xbox Live with your friends, while you play a game with them. It seemed like most, if not the majority of updates, and upgrades to the SDK were for gaming (at least it seemed that way to me :P). I would love to make a game for the iPhone/iPod Touch, but I have no experience with Apples core this, and Xcode that programing. They say its easy, but I don't know? I would just like to give it a try, but its $99 to join the developer program, plus the software only runs on a mac! Maybe I could get a Mac Mini, there the cheapest, and pay the $99 to give it a shot. Its still a lot of money, so I will really have to think about this one! Another idea is, you could try and use a Hackintosh to run the SDK software, but I don't know how great that would work, If it would work at all. I don't know if anyone has tried it before. I'll check into it, and let you all know! Apple says theres over 100 new features in the 3.0 update. Here is a least of some of the biggest: Cut, copy and paste- Wow finally, what took them so long! Spotlight searching- This is really timely. I'm starting to have a hard time finding my apps! Plus it searches music, and emails too! Push notifications- Lets apps send notifications to your home screen. Like small text messages, and number badges on there icons. In-App purchasing- This sounds really cool for games! They showed off a Sims 3 demo, that let your purchase extra items from within the game, when they came available from the publisher! MMS- this is something I would never use, but a lot of people ask for in iPhones. For some reason it does not work with the iPhone 2G. They say its because of hardware constraints on the older hardware. I just think there trying to get people to upgrade! Peer-to-Peer connectivity- Again really cool for games. It lets you play ad-hoc like you can on a DS or PSP! Third-party Accessories- This lets accessories makers tie directly into the hardware, and make apps that interact with there products. They showed off a glucose meter that could send the blood test results back to an iPhone app. Turn-by-Turn- This finally lets TomTom (and others) make a turn by turn GPS app for you car. Landscape keyboard- All native apps are now compatible with landscape mode. Which means you can use a full virtual keyboard when typing emails or txt messages. Voice memos- This is a new native app that lets you record messages with he iPhones mic, and then you can send them by MMS. I also think you can send them by email. Stereo Bluetooth- iPhone and iPod touch will now support stereo Bluetooth headsets. All these and more features will be available this summer (sometime). Its a free upgrade for iPhone 2G, and 3G users, and $9.95 for iPod Touch users everywhere. The beta is already available to people in the developer program :(