Our thoughts on the iPad for gaming, a mobile replacement and a paradigm shift in computing.
Alex: Man, I’m a pessimistic bastard. iPad looks great, it really does. I’m sure it’ll sell at $499 (no UK price yet) and developers will lap up it’s screen estate. But I have some issues:
Where is Mac gaming these days? The platform has grown a second, mutated head for new lifestyle devices like the iPhone and iPad. This isn’t bad. But the Mac gaming market - for computers like the iMac, Mac Pro, Macbooks - has not exploded like the iPhone. There’s still development and some awesome games coming out, but the focus is not on the Mac. And I wonder, what should we cover at TMG? iPhone and iPad games where the innovation and mass appeal is? Is the iPad another nail in the coffin for Mac gaming or have we merely to shift our perception of what Mac gaming is and what it is becoming?
The Apple iPad video with it’s generic hand model, well spoken execs and rather breathless, evocative feel, you get the impression that this thing is going to end world poverty or bring back the recently deceased. I understand the need to advertise, but the video made me laugh. At it. Over the top!
Opinion on the iPad seems mixed. Lack of camera, pathetic storage on the $499 model and a gigantic bezel have repelled some. Likely this is the hype of the device giving way to reality, sadly where we’re bound by physics and sellotape.
Jeff Vogel quotes the lack of Flash on the iPad as a killer. If recent rumoured Apple comments are to be believed, Apple’s lack of Flash is to do with performance and anticipation of future standards adoption:
“Apple does not support Flash because it is so buggy, he says. Whenever a Mac crashes more often than not it?s because of Flash. No one will be using Flash, he says. The world is moving to HTML5.”
I wonder if Flash hasn’t been included to prevent developers bypassing the App Store? There are countless Flash games out there, many free. If devs could write their own sites and games tailored to the iPhone they could bypass Apple’s red tape. Likely, it’s the issue of stability that’s preventing Flash development, but it’s an interesting thought.
Russell: I’m moderately excited about the iPad. My wife and I are in the market for a reader, and if the iPad reads well, and if its ancillary functions warrant the added cost, I could see myself purchasing one, perhaps.
All of the above are true but beside the point: Apple have created a third operating system. They snuck it in using the iPhone as Trojan Horse. Millions of people started using the iPhone OS and eventually, as the updates trickled in, started to rave about it as a revolutionary OS. It is, but it has been an evolutionary revolution. That’s how Apple does it. Inches at a time. On Jan 27th, by announcing the iPad, Apple has signaled what I believe to be it’s intention to make the iPhone OS the operating system for this decade. By showing it can scale to a larger device and creating iPad specific versions of iWorks Apple is betting that the tightly integrated and controlled system will create a paradigm shift in the way technology plays in people’s lives.
While watching the requisite video of Mr. Ives gushing about the iPad one line stuck out: ”I don’t have to change myself to fit the product…it fits me.” (The line is accompanied by a smirk and a dramatic pause in the music) Apple has created a massive economy around the iPhone OS. Thousands of apps, an easy, perhaps too tightly controlled, distribution method, and an OS that for the most part doesn’t require phone calls to my parents to explain why they can’t empty the Trash can. It works with a shallower learning curve than any other OS on the market.
But this is a Mac gaming site, and the more relevant question for us is, what is Mac gaming? I have been responsible for ushering in some iPhone game reviews to TMG and I do so because on some level I feel they are part of Mac gaming whilst at the same time understanding that playing a game on a phone is no comparison to a full gaming experience on a Mac.
But games on the iPhone OS just got a little bit harder to ignore. As more and more App Store devs develop games for the iPad’s 9.7″ screen I think we’ll start seeing a level of complexity on par with the best Mac games. That’ll will be a bittersweet moment for this Mac Gamer. I desperately want Apple to embrace its Mac OS with the same fervor as the iPhone OS. I want an App Store for my Mac, trade-offs and all. I want it because I think we need it. It is one hell of an irony that there are now companies for whom iPhone game development is a priority and Mac development a distant afterthought.
Ultimately Apple needs to bridge the gap and create an iMac/Macbook which uses the iPhone OS without any of the trade-offs the iPad currently makes. For the time being I’ll be purchasing an iPad instead of a MacBook for all my portable computing needs and you can bet I’ll be trumpeting a great many games for it as well.
“And I wonder, what should we cover at TMG? iPhone and iPad games where the innovation and mass appeal is?” I would certainly hope not, at least in the case of the iPhone. Mac gaming has been eclipsed of late by the iPhone to the extent that one has to dig, hard, through a site’s review or news archive in order to find coverage of less than portable games such as Bioshock, a market that hasn’t shrunk, but simply failed to grow exponentially. Although I feel that the iPad should be covered on The Mac Gamer, as it would appear to have more overlap, the iPhone needs to be largely excluded. There’s more than adequate coverage for that as it is.