Is there a remote possibility that our existing apps would work on the upcoming iSlate? I guess the graphics would fall apart after being enlarged six times. Just dreaming out loud!
Well, I'm sure there is a remote possibility of it being allowed. For example, Trenches would go PERFECTLY for the iSlate. So we are optimistic.
I am interested if it would be technically possible? Any limitations besides stretching the life out of the graphics?
I'm almost certain the device will let you run regular iPhone apps in 320x480 windows. It'd be basically just like running the iPhone simulator. Why not?
Apple will give devs a few months to make sure that their apps are compatible with the RAT. I think you'll be able to have several iPhone screen sized apps open at once, sorta like moving around your different windows on a mac. That's how I think multi-tasking is going to work.
I tend to believe the rumours that Apple will release a new SDK (4.0 beta?) shortly after announcing the device and this will feature support for multiple screen resolutions. It will also feature a simulator that will run at iSlate resolution. If this does happen they will probably support scaling a 480x320 screen to full screen for pre 4.0 apps but who knows, they may not bother. They could release the new SDK and a lot of devs could add iSlate support and rev their apps before the hardware is even released. It would cost Apple many lost sales if the iSlate only had hundreds of recently revved apps rather than 100,000 blurred, legacy apps on the day of release. I would expect to be able to add support for multiple resolutions to Ground Effect in a few days, possibly even a few hours. Developers with Graphic engines that scale to exploit the 3gs graphics hardware will be very well placed to exploit the extra power of the iSlate. Just my guess/
"Extra power of the iSlate" is a really uncertain expectation at this point. Until the hardware has been confirmed, it's too soon to make any assumptions about the performance of the graphics. It's entirely possible for a tablet to be slower than 3GS in graphic operations: for example, if it has similar hardware, four times the pixels but only twice the clock speed, fill-rate limited games may even struggle to run smoothly.
I wouldn't mind having my screensaver on the iSlate as TanZen and Zentomino at their native resolutions next to each other. Puzzle-game goodness.
If all developers do to take advantage of the iSlate is enlarge all their graphics I'm gonna be pissed. I want everything the same size but with a bigger playing area. Imagine a TD game with hundreds of turrets or Flight Control with an entire airport.
I agree fully. I don't think apple is going to do anything like allowing iphone apps to run scaled to the islate screen. I'm thinking the islate is going to have it's own section of the appstore. It's possible all the talk we heard of a "premium" appstore is actually this islate version where you can buy apps that are made specifically for it's screen, processing power, and whatever other goodies apple may add to it.
Apple wanted the apps to allow for larger resolution screens. For Ravensword that would mean it takes up the whole screen, and the controls are moved out to the corners. I'm pretty excited about it - I'll buy one as soon as it comes out. 2.2ghz is probably a stretch though - for a 7" tablet
Imagine a portable device designed for web browsing and video playback choking from unreasonable expectations
I can still dream until it's official! Most of the guesses regarding specs on the forum seem to put the iSlate higher up than my laptop, and I can run some pretty hardcore TD games on here
Well, here's my guess, if such a device is coming: - Since it's a portable device, slim and elegant, intended for 5h or longer battery life, it's probably derivative of iPhone hardware, not a laptop. So the CPU is maybe ARM Cortex A8 at ~1GHz. - Since apps are expected to be sold through the App Store, it's probably not running an open OS, but instead a derivative from the iPhone. This also means it's closed hardware, and it's unlikely that it's multitasking, just like the iPhone. - For web, video and light 3D, you don't really need anything beyond the feature-set or performance of the 3GS GPU, so something from the PowerVR SGX family makes sense. - I don't expect to see SD Card slots, ethernet connectors or any similar connectivity. WLAN only for networking, and an iPod connector or mini-USB for syncing with iTunes. - Because this is probably more a web and media device and not a game console (with battery life being a limiting factor), I expect to see proportionally weaker graphics performance compared to an iPhone 3GS. It's unlikely that the graphics performance would scale perfectly with the screen resolution when Apple is most likely concerned with battery life and retail price. - If the iSlate is indeed announced together with a new iPhone SDK that provides compatibility with both devices, it loosely supports the notion that the two devices share hardware and OS. This is certainly not conclusive So in summary my bet is that it's probably going to be a very nice web browsing and finger painting device which can be used to watch a film or two on an intercontinental flight. For games it can most likely run 2D games with comparable performance, but 3D games that take advantage of OpenGL ES 2.0 must make some visual sacrifices from the iPhone version to run at smooth framerates. If I'm totally mistaken and it's an Nvidia&Intel-based tablet laptop running full OSX, it would certainly be nice, but wouldn't that mean that iTunes would essentially be a Mac software portal? I just don't see that happening.
If these predictions turn into reality the baby boomers are going to gobble up these devices. Hopefully the user friendliness of the iSlate device will attract a new audience that is new to computers. This group and the baby boomers will be inclined to play simpler puzzles to stay sharp. Str8ts, Sudoku, Crossword Puzzles, Word find etc. Simplicity will win this group over! Great news. This group will open up a new market and the flood of puzzle games should pick up some desperately needed speed. (I think the device will be really cool and Apple will be pleasantly surprised that their target market might turn out to be more main stream. The availability of the apps on iSlate will drive everyone to buy this device. Imagine playing your favourite games at 6 x the size) Apps + iSlate = main stream audience + ( more)baby boomers iSlate with no Apps = baby boomers
I'll be content if it: Plays iPhone/iPod Touch apps well ("well" as in not stretching the resolution unnaturally, etc.) Has a good UI Has a processor speed of over 1GHz Has 1GB or more of RAM
The biggest concern to me is the price. If it's $1000+ I don't see that many buying it to be honest if you already have a MacBook and an iPhone. I hope I'm wrong of course, and I'm wrong very often. It would be great to play Touchgrind or Labyrinth 2 on it for sure.
the iPhone currently uses an ARM11 family CPU (ARMv6KZ) clocked around 600Mhz - to maintain binary compatibility; and without having to provide different binaries or an emulation environment the natural selection of CPU for a possible iSlate will be a ARM Cortex CPU. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_architecture as for compatibility; the biggest issue i see or envision is the resolution of the screen. there have been rumors that apple has contacted select developers (we are not one of them) to provide higher resolution support - but most developers have designed and coded their games to support the 320x480 resolution. what they could do and this is based on many years of experience from working with mobile platforms and having platforms change resolutions; is introduce an SDK API that allows the application to set META data about the application; namely something that says "yes, i support variable resolutions". for applications that do not set this property they could perform auto-scaling of the application (keeping aspect ratio's in tact etc) to the native resolution of the device. Windows Mobile did this when it moved from 240x320 (QVGA) to 480x640 (VGA) displays; utilizing simple pixel doubling; it didn't affect the graphics much; as the screen size was relatively the same; just a higher DPI. this would maintain backward compatibility with existing applications - yet allow iSlate users to actually use software that has been designed for the iPhone/iPod Touch. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb416287.aspx as a developer; if we had to recompile to support such a device; we would probably do the scaling ourselves - since you use openGL surfaces; you can simply do it there as well. just my 2c right now it is just a rumor - but we'll see how things progress. pricing will be important as well.
Contrary to Frand, I think multitasking is a must. And here's how I think it's going to work, presuming it's a 10 inch screen: I haven't given much thought as to what the background UI is going to be like, so I left it as default.
