Gamercyrus’s Blog

POST Excerpt—Usercreatedcontent Blog

OPINION—Apple recently revealed the new 3.0 software update for the iPhone, and with it comes a whole slew of new tools for developer to use with their games and apps, one of those tools being the option to charge for in-app content.

Now don’t get me wrong. I do think that developers/publishers should get paid for the content provided, but some of the demonstrations shown at the iPhone 3.0 press conference suggest the same gouging and ‘testing-grounds’ that gamers experienced with the launch of the Xbox Live for the 360 (then again with Wii and PS3).

Take for example Sims 3 coming soon to the iPhone. Electronic Arts demonstrated the option to purchase in-game furniture for a nominal fee.  EA showed purchasing a stereo set for your sims to enjoy that can play music from your iPhone’s library. Wow! Is this reason enough to charge your consumer? Should be free EA! This instantly struck a chord with me. This is the same kind of crap were seeing in Sony’s social service, Home. In Home, everything is a’la carte shopping. Want a T-Shirt? gonna cost yea. Want to buy some new furniture for your virtual home? Yup! Prepare to dish out the dough. Electronic Arts please don’t follow Home’s lead. Everything in Sims 3 should be free, and then four weeks down the road release an update pack (DONT charge for individual items). The game is not even out yet and EA is already dividing up an unfinished project to be ‘nickeled and dimed’ to death. This is absurd. I hate it when gaming companies take advantage of the consumer and no longer release a complete package.

Tomb Raider Legends and Prince and Persia are two recent games that come to mind that intentionally had content lined-up, more so with Tomb Raider because you’re forced to purchase the DLC to get a fulfilling ending. I can understand partially in this example that levels were cut to make the release date, and it’s still better than buying a lame costume or *cough* horse armor.

Now the news is not entirely troubling.  NgMoco, iPhone developer behind such games as Ronlando, has the right idea of charging for additional levels to their already released games in order extend the life of them. Then again, NgMoco is also considering charging for costumes in their Nintendo Dogs clone game for the iPhone.

Basically what I’m trying to say is I hope DLC for the iPhone doesn’t turn out to be a return to the same stupid decisions developers/publishers made when the DLC started on the current home platforms.

The 3.0 update for the iPhone will bring new features like copy & paste, and picture text messaging to consumers, and new features like, in-app content purchases for developers. So will this update finally be enough to curb people from jailbreak’ing their iPhones? No, but Apple is getting close…

A couple of days ago Apple announced the official 3.0 software update for the iPhone coming this summer. With it brings over 100 new features and more than a 1000 new development-driven software tools. My first opinion on the update is it seems that Apple has taken a lot of the suggestions and criticism with some of the lack features that other Smartphone have, and the feedback they got from the community, because the update addresses many issues that’s been around since day one.

Copy & Paste: First off, I’m amazed that it took this long to get this feature. The demonstration showed that you simply just have to double-tap the text you want to copy and a bubble will appear with the option to cut, copy and paste. Shake the iphone to undo and redo. To copy more text, you take your finger on one of the coordinating pins and drag it over the other text you want selected. Very simple, but I question how easy it will be to accidently copy or cut something you don’t want.

MMS Messaging: The iPhone is very late to implement this since nearly every phone has this option by default.  MSS messaging allows one to send multimedia with text messages such pictures, video, and audio recordings. The update for the iphone will allow iPhone users to send pictures or audio clips with a text message. No support for video because the Apple officially doesn’t allow user to take videos with the iPhone’s camera, one major reason for people to stick to keep their jailbreak iPhones.

Stereo Bluetooth: Okay Sweet!!! This was the one feature I wanted more than anything else. Stereo Bluetooth (A2DP) allows the ability to pair a Bluetooth headset and transmit Stereo audio.  Thus someone could listen to music without the stupid wires (Gah! I hate headphone wires). I actually own an expensive Bluetooth headset, and I’ve been waiting for months to get to use it again.

Push Notifications: Apple’s answer to the not supporting third-party background processes. Great for apps like instant messagers, push notification will alert the user of activity even when the app is exited. For instant massagers, you can now receive messages from your friends anytime. A definite must for the iPhone but it doesn’t mean it’s the answer for no background processes.

Search & Spotlight: This new feature allows you to search from the home screen your music, contacts, mail, apps, and more (very familiar for those who own a Mac). For me, this wasn’t a deal breaker. I basically know where to find what I’m looking for and in the end this feature will just drain the battery and strain the CPU.

Those are some of the  big new features, now let’s look at the features they missed and the reason to keep your iphone jailbreak’ed:

Backgrounder: It became apparent that Apple has no intention of ever bringing the ability to run apps in the background while doing something else. They claim that having this option would literally destroy the iphone’s battery life. That may be so, but if the competition has the feature, then it means that apple will lose out on potential customers. You can run apps in the background when you jailbreak you phone and that means I will never give that option up.

Tethering: I blame the service providers for this one. Tethering allows you to use the iPhone’s 3G connection through a computer or laptop. How awesome is that to have the ability to have Internet anywhere on the go? You can if you jailbreak your phone. But the service providers wont like you when you drain their tower’s bandwidth.

Camcorder: Uh, this is just pure lame, Apple!!! Just about every cellphone can take video… only if you jailbreak can you record with the iPhone.

Catogories/Apps in Folders: How many games do you have on your iphone? Running out of room? I think it would make sense if Apple would allow you to group your apps together. Another win for jailbreak’ers.

All these reasons and more keep me from sticking to the legit firmware. But to Apple’s credit, they did still cover a lot of the holes in the iPhone’s array of features. Knowing Apple they’ll just add these features with a new, more improved model. Until then, I’ll just look forward to this big update.