Hi people, do you guys port your apps over to other handsets? Like Blackberry, Android Nokia or Palm Pre? What are your expierences with the other stores? Do you think its worth a look? I am looking the whole day, but i cannot find some good statistics about the other shops. best. r.
The problem I see with other devices is that they never standardized the unit like Apple has with the iPod Touch and iPhone. Ok, Palm may be standardized at the moment with the Pre, but I don't see their platform as worthwhile yet. Take a look at all the flavors of Windows Mobile, with different screen resolutions, input methods (number pad? keyboard? touch? a combo?), different memory, different processors types and different speeds, etc. Its a support nightmare! Blackberry is in the same boat, fragmenting their product line up into handsets with different capabilities. Even Android has this problem. All for the sake of "open-ness". If a developer can't count on a specific feature being present in any significant majority of your product line, he/she probably won't bother writing programs for it The best thing Apple did was to make all their devices essentially the same. Same input methods, screen resolution, etc. Granted there are some CPU speed differences (and other minor stuff) now, but thats peanuts compared to the other guys. In a nutshell, I've looked at it on several occasions, and have not deemed it worth my time yet. There was an article about the Android store that told of a developer with an app in the top five of it's category, and it made about $68 a day. A top five spot on any chart in Apple's store is worth so much more it's not funny! My view may change in the future, but for now I'll take on more consulting work or start working on another iPhone game before I bother trying to port to another platform
Developing for mobile phones has always been a lot of hell. The iPhone was unique in that it's such a closed system it has made development easy to developers. Blackberries and Android phones are still caught in the old multiple-device-configurations dilemma. Things are slightly better for Android, but if I was looking for another device, I'd actually look at the PSP. Its consistent hardware specifications, coupled with Sony's push toward online purchases, makes it the most comparable eco-system to the iPhone. They also have a lot of devices out there (quite close to the number of idevices), and digital games will work with both old and new PSPs. Biggest problem I see is Sony's dev kit fee, which I believe is 100x more than the Apple $99 fee, although this does have the advantage of discouraging shovelware, so you should hopefully end up with less competition.
that was true of the iphone/touch, but not so much anymore, since the differences between the 3rd generation touch and 2nd, and 3gs and 3g, are hardly 'minor stuff'. there differences are VERY noticeable. so devs will be somewhat caught in a bind to do more work and offer more optional features for those devices that support it, or risk not standing out enough from the 'normal' apps.
Compared to completely different CPU architectures, different input methods, different resolutions, and so forth on all other device families... I definitely call the bump in processor speed and RAM between the generations of iPhone and iPod Touch very minor from a programmer's point of view. Even the new OpenGL ES 2.0 support isn't that big a deal, as long as you plan to degrade gracefully to 1.1 features for older devices. Contrast this with the other guys: do I have a 176x256 screen, or 320x240, or 720x480, or any one of several dozen combinations? Do I have touch screen capability? Is it capacitive multi-touch, or resistive single touch? Do I have accelerated 2D/3D graphics of any kind, or will all that be handled in software with the CPU? Is there an accelerometer present or not? Is there WiFi on board? What non-upgradable OS is installed? I could go on and on, every single one of their various handsets is different. You cannot rely on any standard features except that *there are no standard features*! It boggles the mind... And makes it virtually impossible that any sort of decent game could be made for the other platforms that supports their entire product line. This task is still very easy with the iPhone and iPod Touch...
I wish there was a way to target 2.2.1 devices and 3.0 and up with a single build. Would be awesome if I could detect 3.0 OS and then make use of 3.0 features, but fall back to 2.2.1 when those are not present.
Wow! Ask and ye shall receive! I will definitely give that a closer look tonight! Thanks! ps! I think I need more exclamation marks!!!!!
Haha if only everything we asked for came so easily! Note that I am yet to try this out for myself but I have seen the same or similar method outlined elsewhere too so hopefully it's solid
Not sure if it adds any help, but I recently read this article that seems to go into a bit more depth on this methodÂ… http://gamesfromwithin.com/targeting-2-x-with-3-0-features-trouble-ahead
Yep. Check this: Device screen resolutions iTunes App Store: 320x480 (iPhone and iPod touch) Google Android Marketplace: 8 resolutions from 240x320 to 480x854 Palm App Catalog: 320x480 (pre) and 320x400 (Pixi) Nokia Ovi: Multiple resolutions from 176x208 to 360x640 BlackBerry App World: Multiple resolutions from 240x260 to 360x480 Windows Mobile Marketplace: 17 resolutions from 176x220 to 800x480 PlayStation Store: 480x272 (PlayStation Portable devices) Windows Mobile's 17 resolutions sounds like HELL. Completely agree. Developer fee iTunes App Store: USD$99 per year with unlimited submissions Google Android Marketplace: USD$25 initial sign up Palm App Catalog: USD$99 per year, then USD$50 per app Nokia Ovi: €50 initial sign up BlackBerry App World: USD$200 per 10 submissions (updates count as a submission) Windows Mobile Marketplace: USD$99 per year for 5 apps, then USD$99 per app PlayStation Store: PSP development kit is USD$1500 (comes with hardware) I was actually thinking about the same topic and I couldn't find a good resource online that compared all the stores, so I created one. Mobile and portable app store round-up If you notice any errors, please let me know.
Multiple resolutions are not very important if you're doing a 3D game (multiple aspect ratios are more problematic although still dealt with relatively easily with some planning), but all the other variations still make most other platforms a major pain. It's not for no reason that Apple owns the mobile app market right now. I agree that the PSP looks like it could end up being an interesting market. --Eric
how many other devices support OpenGL ES? before we did iPhone development - we were developing in the other mobile markets (Palm, Windows Mobile, Symbian et al). in fact, we still have apps in those markets. the differences between the platforms isn't an issue for us - we build a cross platform SDK that works wonders. all our iphone games we can recompile for any platform if we provide the right resolution graphics. no other changes are needed. however, the question is distribution. apple has setup the app store and they take 30% and put the applications in the hands of the users. if you want to sell on Palm, Windows Mobile or Symbian - you used to have to go through a portal like Handango, PocketGear et al ; which, would take up to 70% of the sale and give you only 30%. talk about getting ripped off - and they wouldn't do any marketing for you. you normally have to provide your own store front (esellerate.net) and hope people can find you. it is changing now that there are app stores being created (Ovi, Market Place et al) - but, it'll be a long time before there is the same effect that the iTunes market place has on the other platforms. iPhone / iPod Touch represents a HUGE portion of mobile sales - the other platforms are not even close, and don't expect the same return. Mobile 1UP has been developing for mobile platforms for 11 years - we know what we do and we have experience with over 10 mobile device types (psp, gizmondo et al).. we are ready to sell cross platform - just waiting for the market place. we have a dev kit called SHARK; which you can see some code for how it works here: http://www.mobilewizardry.com/multi-platform/ http://www.mobile1up.com/effektz/ we use it mainly internally - but, if someone was interested - we could discuss the options of licensing it to external parties.
