How Apple makes it easy.
I am in no way, shape, or form a gamer. I don’t own any consoles and I don’t plan to anytime soon. It’s just not my thing.
However, Apple is making it extremely easy for me to casually game without stepping out of my “not a gamer” zone.
For my birthday, my girlfriend bought me an 8gb iPod touch. Although the device has many short-comings, it’s a very solid device. It’s my mobile computer when I leave my laptop at home. I have my instant message client, my email, a full web browser, blogging software, software for sending tweets, and what I really didn’t plan to utilize - games.
Since the 2.0 software for the iPod touch was released, I’ve been downloading and experimenting with games that I would have never even bothered with had I not had this device. I’m currently addicted to Cannon Challenge - a game that was developed by The Discovery Channel for the iPod touch/iPhone platform. It’s amazing, and it’s free. Check it out.
The latest game I purchased from Apple’s App Store is Spore Origins. It’s a mini version of the popular game Spore which was released on September 7, 2008. Spore Origins cost me $10 and my first impressions of the game are very good. The graphics hardware in the iPod is very impressive for a device of it’s size.
What’s so compelling about running Spore Origins, and the countless other free and pay-for games is that 6 months ago I couldn’t have pictured myself playing video games. Apple has made it so incredibly easy for me to click one button and have a full feature-rich, graphically stunning game in my pocket without thinking about it. As well as all of the the other utilities that are available in the App Store, the iPod is shaping up to be what the PDA wanted to be 10 years ago.
Although I’m not a huge fan of locked down devices that don’t give you options outside of their “walled garden”, I think that’s the formula the iPod needs to succeed. When Google’s Android OS for phones begins to ship with the idea of “open” in mind from the get-go, I imagine a device that will out-perform the iPod/iPhone on every level. By giving developers root access into a device rather than just simple API calls, you’re opening the gate for an entire new ecosystem for mobile devices.
These are exciting times.
