Crosspost from http://www.gamedevuniverse.com/blog/2011/03/ios-43-the-future-has-landed.html
That iOS 4.3 and a new iPad 2, if it then were to happen, would happen at the same time was expected, but what not everybody (non beta users) would potentially not have expected is how it landed.
The all new development IDE
With the iOS 4.3 SDK, Apple officially pushed XCode 4 onto the big stage, pushing back XCoode 3.2.x one which was used as the XCode version for the iOS SDK on any previous build.
XCode 4, which has been available as public preview and beta for many months now, adds a few very usefull features for productivity enhancements, if you happen to develop native applications with Object C and C++, as the integrated interface builder, the much better integrated SCM support and what Apple likely would call a simpler, cleaner, more productive interface and out of my view as user of Visual Studio who never understood how Apple can still be stuck in developers stoneage: XCode 4 finally does realtime code checking that goes through the real compile process behind the scene basically instead of good guessing by an artificial checking which had a tendency to end on code that seemed right until the compiler or linker touched it.
As usually with Apple, this all new great world that we have entered comes at the price of basically relearning all we knew, because XCode 4 really deserves its new major number, nearly nothing is where it used to be, some things are not even available anymore.
Along XCode 4, iOS 4.3 officially favors now the LLVM 2 based GCC instead of GCC 4.2 which was previously the standard one.
I would recommend anyone who has no good reason against this compiler to use it, your compile time and performance will thank you for doing so!
Dropping out the the "old devices"
The second big thing about future that landed is that iOS 4.3 unlike many know from its presentation, not only supports the today released iPad2. In addition, iOS 4.3 also removed support for any of the ARMV6 based devices (iPhone 2G, iPhone 3G, iPod Touch 1st and 2nd Generation), which for Apple likely is a first timer, that they did a major hardware cutoff on a software / OS midway the same major version. We have seen feature limitations already along iOS 4, so the shock is not that large but the impact is still not to underestimate as the consequences on ARMV6 supporting builds done with the 4.3 SDK are not known yet, there are reports of strange performance problems with iOS 4.3 SDK based builds and alike though.
For end users that are on the 3rd generation or newer this naturally is great news, not only because there are a host of new nice features, but it also means that the start to focus stronger on ARMV8 devices happens ealier than the expected iOS5, which will benefit 2/3+ of all currently still in use iOS devices, resulting in either better battery runtime or smoother experiences performance wise.
This is all an interesting development out of my view for us developers that work for or against iOS to achieve their target, as we can work productively now and soon without having to fight the very slow, OpenGL ES 1.1 only, low RAM devices that pestered us long enough if you ask me.
Friday, March 11, 2011
Saturday, March 5, 2011
The iPad 2 and its impact for developers
So for a day, the cat is now officially out of the bag.
We have seen what Apple has been working on to fight the Android 3.0 hype, where they listened to their users and especially devs and how far Apple is willing to drag the fight.
But what do this things mean to me, to you, to probably all developers working on iOS and Android?
First off I've to say that I am pretty happy with what we've seen.
The rumors previously indicated, that Apple might not upgrade the graphics chip in the iPad reasonably, after already the original iPad suffered reasonably from it on the gaming end, but the claims they put out indicated that they did not only upgrade the SGX535 to an SGX543 but even to an SGX543MP2 or MP4 gpu (as in Samsungs Enyxos 4210 also used in the Galaxy S II and Galaxy Tab 10.1), while at the same time keeping the screen resolution on the same 1024x768 level the previous iPad had, which would be massive leap ahead.
With power like that, the 2 tech demos Epic put on the AppStore (Citadel and Infinity Blade) will look like last generation games. Still good but they won't compare to the high profile games that we will likely see happening.
The first impact of the iPad 2 is pretty clear, with the additional power, the camera, Verizon, the same prices and battery lifetime as the original iPad andstarting on a massive collection of applications right from day 0 on all on native resolution we are talking about a power horse here which Motorola surely didn't want and expect to see that fast when they brought the Xoom to market.
I already considered the original iPad as a rather solid replacement for most tasks I had a netbook, but the new iPad 2 (as the Tegra 2 / Enyxos 4210 Android 3 tablets) make netbooks obsolete if you hook them up to bluetooth input devices at home.
The second impact the iPad 2 will have for us developers is that the competition on the Android side will not be able to get away with its dream pricing.
Yes we all know that Tegra 2 tablets are fast, but we have also seen their shocking, unreasonable prices. Prior to the iPad 2, they had room to say that it is for the sake of power as they were ahead of the iPad by a fair leap.
But now with the iPad 2 coming up in weeks (March 11th in US, 26 major countries planned for March 26th, I'm reasonable and expect them by April 9-16th ie 2-3 weeks later as on the original iPad), at the same price as the original iPad, this excuse will likely no longer work out.
This baby will force them to cut their margins and get their prices in line with the iPad prices or they will kick themself and even more so the chances for Android 3.0 out of the game for another 6+ months. With the Xoom prices we have seen we talk about price drops for Android 3 tablets in the range of 20-30% of their original target and initial release prices.
Crosspost from http://www.gamedevuniverse.com/blog/2011/03/the-ipad-2-and-its-impact-for-developers.html
We have seen what Apple has been working on to fight the Android 3.0 hype, where they listened to their users and especially devs and how far Apple is willing to drag the fight.
But what do this things mean to me, to you, to probably all developers working on iOS and Android?
First off I've to say that I am pretty happy with what we've seen.
The rumors previously indicated, that Apple might not upgrade the graphics chip in the iPad reasonably, after already the original iPad suffered reasonably from it on the gaming end, but the claims they put out indicated that they did not only upgrade the SGX535 to an SGX543 but even to an SGX543MP2 or MP4 gpu (as in Samsungs Enyxos 4210 also used in the Galaxy S II and Galaxy Tab 10.1), while at the same time keeping the screen resolution on the same 1024x768 level the previous iPad had, which would be massive leap ahead.
With power like that, the 2 tech demos Epic put on the AppStore (Citadel and Infinity Blade) will look like last generation games. Still good but they won't compare to the high profile games that we will likely see happening.
The first impact of the iPad 2 is pretty clear, with the additional power, the camera, Verizon, the same prices and battery lifetime as the original iPad andstarting on a massive collection of applications right from day 0 on all on native resolution we are talking about a power horse here which Motorola surely didn't want and expect to see that fast when they brought the Xoom to market.
I already considered the original iPad as a rather solid replacement for most tasks I had a netbook, but the new iPad 2 (as the Tegra 2 / Enyxos 4210 Android 3 tablets) make netbooks obsolete if you hook them up to bluetooth input devices at home.
The second impact the iPad 2 will have for us developers is that the competition on the Android side will not be able to get away with its dream pricing.
Yes we all know that Tegra 2 tablets are fast, but we have also seen their shocking, unreasonable prices. Prior to the iPad 2, they had room to say that it is for the sake of power as they were ahead of the iPad by a fair leap.
But now with the iPad 2 coming up in weeks (March 11th in US, 26 major countries planned for March 26th, I'm reasonable and expect them by April 9-16th ie 2-3 weeks later as on the original iPad), at the same price as the original iPad, this excuse will likely no longer work out.
This baby will force them to cut their margins and get their prices in line with the iPad prices or they will kick themself and even more so the chances for Android 3.0 out of the game for another 6+ months. With the Xoom prices we have seen we talk about price drops for Android 3 tablets in the range of 20-30% of their original target and initial release prices.
Crosspost from http://www.gamedevuniverse.com/blog/2011/03/the-ipad-2-and-its-impact-for-developers.html
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