Games and the iPhone

Two quick thoughts on the iPhone announcement today:

First, an open question: does this mean the only way you can do over-the-air syncing of calendar events and contacts (a feature I really, really want) is by connecting to an Exchange server? That would be pretty intense if Apple limited a crucial feature exclusively to users of a Microsoft product. Shouldn't iCal and Google Calendar users be first in line?

Second, I think by far the most important news today came in the form of those game demos. We knew the SDK was coming; we knew that some kind of enterprise support was coming. But you watched those games -- particularly with the accelerometer support -- and it was suddenly clear that the iPhone platform is potentially a serious competitor to the DS and the PSP. That's a whole new industry that Apple has NEVER seriously tried to be competitive in, but the touch and accelerometer hardware/software built into the iPhone means that they are -- literally overnight -- the Wii of the handheld gaming market: a platform where the controller innovation changes all the rules.

Comments

[Tom Ross]

I believe the Wii of the handheld market is called the Nintendo DS. The DS doesn't have accelerometers, but its touchscreen allows precise stylus input, it still has all the hardware buttons of a traditional video game system and it's durable enough for the most intense gaming sessions. That's why it sells at a pace of 30 million units per year.

I've learned one thing from the iPhone keyboard debate. iPhone is built as a mobile reader/player first and for interaction second. The DS is specifically built for gaming, which requires a lot of user interaction and therefore will always have the better games.

That being said, the Touch platform games will be way above any other phone's games and will certainly shave off a few percent of DS customers (and even more so Sony PSP customers).

[akatsuki]

I would think .Mac would get this syncing... But they probably won't for a while, which is typical of the .Mac service.

[ben]

This has been obvious to me since the day I first showed another person the Labyrinth game on my iPhone (http://labyrinth.codify.se/ with video demo here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KymENgK15ms) and watched them stare fixedly for a good 20 minutes before leaving and wanting it on theirs badly.

[Russell]

So I guess you could say that the SDK is *game* changing.

sigh... why do I do that?

[Dr. Kev]

hello everyone! Just finished Everything Bad is Good for you and LOVED IT...brilliant..

the premise on the implicit opposable thumb and evolutionary progress of media hit home for me as a renegade shrink struggling with uncovering the secrets of human behavior change. As a neuropsychologist turned coach, i share many of the insights of Steven in the power of the meta-level of thinking that really is at play underneath things we write off as mindless like games and tv. It hit me reading his book that therapy--where us shrinks try to deal with the aftereffects of alignment/misalignment with pop culture---has not kept up with the "multithreaded lines" of the Seinfelds, Sopranos, etc of the world. We still carry the Starsky and Hutch linguistic tools..and are gravely ill prepared to transform human beings, their brains, their hearts. That is, much of my work dives in to the realm where change really happens ---the meta level of thinking....

My latest ideas developed after reading your book, Mr. Johnson, prompted me to scribble out some ideas for a possible partnering book for us---"The Lying Couch: What Shrinks Dont Say and Why That Matters to Happiness"...

what do ya say? email me....kevin@effectiveexecutivecoaching.com
Dr. Kev
www.DrKevinFleming.com

[MK]

Isn't the key issue presence of a server for calendar syncing? For gCal and iCal that people use without any enterprise servers (w/o CalDAV), how would the iPhone sync?

Currently, .Mac provides Apple server-based syncing, Spanning Sync provides a third-party server-based calendar syncing and BusySync provides client-to-client syncing in various permutations (incorporating gCal, .Mac, LAN and WAN). Apple should buy out BusyMac to enable over-the-air iPhone syncing...

[sapporo]

It seems that Microsoft Exchange is not the only implementation of Exchange ActiveSync on the server side: It's supported by both Scalix and Zimbra (I don't know to what extent though), and there's an open source implementation called Z-Push.

On the client side, most major cellphone manufacturers have a license. Apple just made it a lot harder to argue against the iPhone.

[JHill]

Zimbra supports ActiveSync for calendaring and contacts. It's the only thing I miss from the Treo I gave up when I got an iphone.

[cgrin]

I would think they would add CalDAV and .mac support first. Except that .mac has been way behind the times for quite some time now. I'm beginning to think my $100/year is going to waste, especially if they're not improving it.

[Jeremy Baker]

Kerio Mail also supports ActiveSync on the server-side. So it *should* enable push email to iPhones using KerioMail.

[Andy]

I imagine there's a much higher correlation between early adopters with iPhones and Google Calendar accounts than the mass audience with Exchange calendars. Exchange is dominant in the enterprise space whereas Google is still an emerging player.

Now, if they were to add CalDAV support to .Mac Calendars + iPhone alongside a contact sync protocol, you'd have a pretty nice consumer story for iPhone users that was entirely owned by Apple. If I were Apple, there's no way I'd concede these users to Google. Apple wouldn't want to give away a key piece when they know long-term trends is increasingly towards web-based apps. Mail is a lost cause due to standards long ago commoditizing that space... but calendars and contacts lack any largely adopted sync protocol for consumers.

[Andy]

To be clear--the correlation is important because it implies the growth is with Exchange and enterprise, not early adopters with Google Calendars.

[giromide]

The post has two great points.

Part of me wants to believe that Apple knew all along that the iPhone could become a premiere gaming platform, something on par with the PSP and DS, but Apple's odd history with gaming, including the recent uneven handling of iPod games, makes me think it's complete happenstance. I must wonder what the next generations of iPhones could give nascent game designers assuming pressure sensitivity and tactile feedback become features.

As far as Mail and syncing are concerned, I think Apple is testing the waters. They know that ActiveSync will bring in many reluctant would-be adopters, and the iPhone is the product they want to push the most right now. If anything, this will give them more weight when they have to renegotiate with the carriers.

Perhaps what happens on the iPhone will inform changes to Mac OS X proper. I would not be surprised if an advanced form of Mail.app appears in iWork in the next year or so as Apple tries to transform that suite into a serious competitor to Office.

[Ted T.]

I was shocked from day one that Apple wasn't offering push email through .Mac -- it is crazy that to treat your paying customers as second class citizens.

The other thing is -- if Apple can license MS Exchange sync for the iPhone, then they should license it for Mac OS X Mail.

[Bill Gates]

Why do I need ActiveSync for Mail? Mac OS X has an Exchange client already... the iPhone did not. Push email on a computer is unnecessary. Not to mention, this is designed to get MORE Windows users to buy iPhones, and nothing else, it's not an endorsement of Exchange by Apple. Tell your over paid and over certified Exchange server administrators to support Macs on the network and you'll be all set. There's no magic necessary to access Exchange servers with a Mac on the same network.

[Lorin Rivers]

I find it shocking that the iPhone doesn't sync APPLE'S to-do items.

And, while thankfully I no longer have to use Exchange, it's also amazing that a third-party developer can sell a an Exchange task syncing for $30, MS can't deliver it on the Mac.

[DWesnor]

"That would be pretty intense if Apple limited a crucial feature exclusively to users of a Microsoft product."

Not that it's crucial, but it's always been easier to dig around in iTunes from another app via MS's COM than it has been on a Mac using Cocoa via AppleScript. And the iTunes COM interface is still easier to use than Scripting Bridge. I always thought that was weird, especially given that COM is, well, universally hated.