“Remember how, this summer, people began speculating wildly that Apple would develop a games platform? The company was hiring a games development head, the company’s stock as a consumer electronics developer was better than ever — and then Apple rolled out some pretty lame games for the iPod,” Pete Mortensen blogs for Wired. “End of story, right? Not so fast. The iPhone’s multi-touch interface changes everything. In fact, it has the potential to be the best portable game system on the market not named ‘Nintendo DS.'”
iPhone’s “multi-touch in iPhone is significantly more flexible [than Nintendo DS or Sony PSP] it’s made to interpret complex gestures with more than one point of input,” Mortensen writes.
Mortensen writes, “The iPhone and its interface are extremely high-end today. By the end of the year, Apple could replace its traditional high-end iPod with one driven by the new iPhone interface and screen and offer it for the same price those iPods sell for today — and even boost the hard drive size, too. Suddenly, you have the world’s premiere media player and rising games star in a $250 package.”
“As the iPhone seizes the high-end of Apple’s consumer electronics products, the iPod becomes the ultimate PSP-killer, with an interface the DS can’t quite match without the need for a stylus. Tell me you wouldn’t buy that. I dare you,” Mortensen writes.
Full article here.
Related article:
The only thing really wrong with Apple’s iPhone is its name – January 09, 2007
first again!
I’m on a roll aren’t I???
Playing games on a full-touchscreen will never work. Nintendo DS is the best design for a handheld game.
I’m not buying it until I see the games; because the iPod games kinda suck.
I think PSP already killed itself with UMD (anything-but-Universal Media Disc)… does this little bug really need some iPod clobbering?
Uhhhm, yeah. So does anyone else see the potential for Multi-Touch in gaming? Along the lines of the Wii, for instance?
I am certainly not that impressed with the Nintendo DS design, but okay, whatever. It seems that Apple could do gestures and motion-sensing at least as good as the Wii.
Nice prediction, it is extremly possible, remember, this is a Mac OS X powered device with phone capabilities, lets not forget the other players…..Apple TV…imagine using your touch screen iPhone as a controller for a game being beamed to your Apple TV to play on your tv…and of course as a portable gaming device on the go, the possibilites are endless with multi-touch.
I forsee a 24″ touch screen iMac in the very near future and even a touch screen laptop soon after???
How friggin’ cool would they be? Don’t answer that you know the answer already!
The new iPods will just be fantastic touch screen experiences. just wait and see.
funny, I thought the Nintendo DS was the real PSP killer.
You heard it here first… there’s a 30″ iPhone coming.
The silence over leopard’s secret features is thunderous.
I guarantee a touch interface to new iMacs or a new (non-tablet!) form factor. Keyboard-less iMac?
I’ll take 3.
I can’t see a touch screen laptop. As a designer, I need absolute piwel accuracy, and often pressure sensitivity. Even older Wacom tablets don’t cut it.
But then again, you could always use a Bluetooth mouse with it, right?
Right?
Oops. I meant “pixel”
touch screen keyboards. You figure it out.
touch screens are not great for normal data input–it is missing the tactile feedback needed for character input. However, that doesn’t mean that there are plenty of specialized apps that could benefit from a touch screen such as the one demo’d.
See this video:
http://cs.nyu.edu/~jhan/ftirtouch/
Very cool potential.
Spark, I saw that video months ago and was thinking of its potential…seems like it’s NASA research. Do you think Apple contacted them?
And the magic sauce powering all of these possibilities is OS X. Every one who buys these new iPhones or coming wide screen iPod family of products is actually buying a Mac, learning to use OS X and thus, if he/she is a Windows user, becomes a very likely switcher. This is the halo effect on steroids.
Don’t know if it is originally from NASA. These videos are from NYU. They call it FTIR and show a simple diagram of its design at:
http://cs.nyu.edu/~jhan/ftirsense/
Apple says they have patents, so I assume that they’ve got a different method. But I’ve got to believe that this research certainly provided ideas to Apple engineers.
iPhone will spawn iTablet
dee-oh, read the Time article. According to the writer, the iTablet inspired the phone. They started off working on a tablet and steve applied what they created to the phone – since clearly the tablet pc is a bust.
Oh yeah, I remember that video now!
Yep you’re looking at a prototype of the next MacOS. Of course you’ll have to go buy a new Mac to use it that way.
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The multi-touch screen changes everything, as Steve said when you want to add stuff you can’t when you have physical buttons. This new screen allows the “iPhone” (what a limiting name for such a powerful device) to be ANYTHING you want it to be. The potential is unbelievable!
podster,
If you think I’m gonna type a 2000 word essay, or whatever, with my arms out stretched horizontal to the desk typing on a screen your mad. However, I do see potential for something like this in a flat panel keybord , where whatever application is open the controls would cover the entire keyboard. Say in iTunes for eg, ther’d be reverse, play and forward buttons. Wouldn’t work for ‘work’ apps but for iLife stuff it’d work. Maybe it could double as a tablet.
Spark,
apple engineers? Can we email these guys? I’m sure we all have a few great ideas we could give them. Or dreams at least. I can see Chameleon creeping into this. The whole phone flashing whatever color you choose.
Interactive porn anyone? See the way Steve stroked that baby to unlock it…
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Seriously, Multitouch patents may be the biggest earner for Apple yet.
Bleh if you don’t have the backing of the major game publishers forget it. Look at Nokia’s attempt that cost them millions $$$! If Apple can afford to buy developers like Micro$oft did then maybe. Mortensen can eat his words–Apple can’t make a dent on portable gaming market. My 2 cents.