Apple’s new Sprite Kit framework targets gaming on iOS 7, OS X Mavericks and – shh! – maybe even Apple TV

13 years ago

“Apple’s new Sprite Kit development framework aims to make it easier to create 2D arcade style games for both iOS 7 mobile devices and the Mac desktop, and hints at a future strategy for games on Apple TV,” Daniel Eran Dilger reports for AppleInsider.

“In addition to animating sprites (which can include other media elements such text and video) within a scene, Sprite Kit also simulates realistic physics to depict the force of gravity and inertia (such as in the swinging, weighted candy in Cut the Rope or the motion of balls bouncing off the banks of a billiard table) and can, like Motion, generate particle effects (such as clouds of fog or the flames erupting from a rocket’s thrusters),” Dilger reports. “This puts Sprite Kit on a similar level to Core Animation, a framework Apple introduced with the iPhone to enable app developers to build smooth transitions and other graphic effects without needing to master the complexities and specialized GPU programming involved with coding raw OpenGL.”

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Dilger reports, “Apple has increasingly moved away from depending upon third parties to supply strategic components of its platform, whenever possible. From developing its own Safari web browser to writing its own implementation of SMB to declaring its independence from Adobe Flash, Apple is working to avoid having its platforms hijacked in the pattern of Office, Adobe apps or Google Maps… Apple can maintain very similar versions of its Sprite Kit for both iOS and OS X, and even deliver an Apple TV version the moment it decides to opening up an HDTV App Store.”

Read more in the full article here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dan K.” for the heads up.]