With Windows-based tablets and cell phones becoming more popular over time(also Android and Linux-based gaming system like Steam Machines), do you see a bright future for iOS gaming? Once I thought Appstore would be a major player, however Apple management issues and the race to the bottom pricing changed my view on that. At the moment, you can find almost all worthwhile games on Steam and is more unlikely that a minor system update break that many games as we see happening on iOS. I think iOS will become less and less relevant, which is a shame.
From what i see, the race to the bottom pricing is actually what made iOS gaming the major monster (it isnt just player) it is now. On another note, if more mainstream games become available to the windows and linux based tablets, that will eventually spiral down to yet another race to the bottom pricing. At this point then, the platform will stagnate where only a few are worth having, JUST LIKE ON iOS NOW. The real issue then would be between iOS's version updates that break older (and not so old) titles, versus an easily hacked OS that has good backwards compatibility access. So IMO, things wont change much as they are now... Unless something else shakes Apple's foundations. I like the sound of a Nintendo Phone actually.
Android: No. Would take too long to explain everything I think is wrong with Android devices. So I'll just pick the biggest problem and won't go into detail: lack of OS updates for devices, caused by manufacturers delaying, having to add their customisation and test it, and outright expecting to buy a new thingie when you want a new Android version. Windows tablets: Maybe. Will see what the future brings. If they can release a model that is at least as good as an iPad Air2, I might consider buying one. Here's a review of the new Surface Pro 4 (warning, has sound play right away): http://www.cnet.com/products/microsoft-surface-pro-4/ Not convincing to me. Not to mention the price point. I guess a version similar to an Air2 with 64GB will be around 1000 Euros here, clearly aiming at the professional market. Air2 Wifi 64GB runs 550-650 Euros. iOS: Well, with my rather specialised tastes (mainly RPGs and Strategy/Tactics games), I cannot complain at all. My backlog is still growing continuously. And I don't expect this to change for the next few years.
You have good points. What makes me wonder is that it seems that Apple forcing frequent updates is sacrificing the user experience of the ecosystem as a whole. The updates are being delivered just for the sake of upgrading, but making things worse and seeming half finished. Maybe they are loosing the "touch". Or I might be biased.
Thanks! Don't forget that Apple is *huge*. A company that size is bound to make mistakes. I work for a software development company myself, admittedly much smaller than Apple. But I can still tell you from first-hand experience that maintaining and developing any even half-way complex software product is a nightmare. Could Apple catch problems like Gamecenter breaking with iOS 9? Absolutely. Will problems like this be missed by the QA testers? Absolutely. Might problems like this be complicated to fix? Will a fix be delayed for a later version? Absolutely. Will they make "wrong" decisions that are a step back for the end user? Absolutely. On the plus side, they keep adding a lot of great functionality and stuff that works: Metal, running apps side-by-side, MFi controller support, AppleTV, etc. Because Apple controls the whole ecosystem, you get hold of updates easily and frequently. And they keep providing updates for older devices. This simply doesn't happen on the Android side. I can't find the statistics right now; if you want to see a source, let me know and I'll dig. Anyways, I recall that the average time from release of a new Android version to devices actually getting it is ~6 months. And that's if you get an update at all. Quite a few Android manufacturers do not update their "older" devices - or any, for that matter - at all.
My problem with iOS is the locked filesystem.. Been using iPhone since iPhone 4, but moved to android when they locked access to documents folder on iOS 8.2... Games are better on iOS for sure (transistor, MHFU, and many more) but their locking the access to documents removes the ability to manually backing up game saves which is essential for me.. I really love my android though.. Playing my old psp, gba, and nds games are really good, and they have some good games too on play store like Chaos Rings 3 and KOTOR (of course iOS have them too). lack of updates never worries me since I can customize what I want my device to look and do.. When I buy a new device every 2 years they'll have all the new features.. Anyways, if apple implement a feature to backing up a single app data, maybe I'll consider moving back to iOS..
Fully agree. However, I don't know how much of that is Apple, and how much the game developers. I have seen an export function via iTunes on PC for savegames at least once. That's been a good while ago though, no idea if that is still possible. But when it was possible, only one or two games made use of it, which clearly put(s) the ball into the devs' field. At least for tablets we reached the point that upgrading every year or two is no longer needed with the iPad Air on the iOS side. Another 2 years maybe, and we might be at the same point PCs are now: that your current hardware lasts you for 3+ years, as long as you don't want the newest high-end stuff. Example: Unless you shell out a thousand bucks for the latest monster graphics card, anything decent you can buy now will last you for at least 2 years, and at a much lower price point. In this scenario, Apple clearly takes the cake from Android manufacturers. The oldest devices that you can (which does not mean you should, mostly due to performance and memory concerns) update to iOS9 are the iPhone 4s and iPad2, ~4 years old. See here, all the way at the bottom: http://www.apple.com/ios/whats-new/. Pretty good job in my book. Would like to see that too. Just don't think it's going to happen. iCloud is their way to handle this, for good or bad.
I really don't know what to think now that we can't back-up ipas with iOS 9. I don't see myself going back to Android, but I think Apple's going waaaaaaaaaaay overboard with the limitations.
Icloud is decent, but like the itunes file sharing, the dev need to implement it on their app.. ifunbox or iexploler doesn't need any implementation for it to work.. for me, the one and only game that holding me back from switching to android was MHFU, but now it lost savedata backup (no icloud and no itunes file sharing) and it's broken on iOS9..
