Serious gaming coming to iPhone, iPod touch

Along with faster internet, likely GPS and some other features, the new 3G iPhones are going to have another big usage. Gaming.

The SDK release announcement featured two gaming companies who had two developers work for two weeks on their product. The results were pretty impressive.

Now that developers have had a few months, they are bound to come up with some more very exciting applications. Is this a port of Quake 3 being played over a network on two iPod Touches? If so...wow!

Game developers not only have access to a great screen and user interface, graphics hardware acceleration, 8-32GB's of storage and 3 axis accelerometers - but also location data that is built into the SDK.

iPods can be used like a portable Wii (accelerometers) but it trumps other gaming platforms, portable and otherwise, because it is also location aware (reality-based gaming). Read Apple's patent filing for more interesting gaming information.

So, to review, Apple's iPhone is now a:

• Mobile Phone
• GPS/Mapping application
• Photo Album viewer
• MP3 Music Player
• Video Player (both YouTube and saved MP4s)
• Camera (room for improvement here)
• Alarm Clock/Stopwatch/World Clock
• Stocks and weather finder
• Email/Calendar/Addressbook (Enterprise too)
• Calculator/Notepad
• Best Mobile Internet Browser
• Guitar/Drums/Piano (with hacks)
• Ebook reader (with hack)
• Internet Radio (with hack)
• Other crazy stuff
• (and now) Video Game platform

A true all-in-one device in a very svelte package, the only things Apple can't replace in your pockets are your wallet and keys...yet.

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