What if the iPhone had four cores? (If I were a rich man!) Such a rumor has, apparently, been circulating around the shell of MacWorld. With four cores, Apple could turn the iPhone into a legitimate gaming platform.
The other half of this four-core rumor is software. Namely, Apple would release Firmware 3.0, in all its glory, alongside the iPhone.
This is where I should ask the audience: how many of you iPhone owners use it as a “serious” gaming platform? Not being an iPhone owner—and now that the Palm Pre is the new hotness—I can’t speak to its gaming prowess. Is it anything more than merely a quick-subway-game-of-puzzler?
I would love it as a gaming platform. However they need to create some 3rd party gear to help it out. It desperately needs an attachment (body case maybe?) that is basically a gamepad. Anything that could get my fingers from using the screen in some games (such as side scrollers and rpgs) would be amazing. There are obviously some games that require on screen touching, but a lot of the ones that I play could use a gamepad and the accelerator alone!
Completely agree. Steve Jobs might not like buttons, but they’re necessary for any serious gaming device. Even just a scaled down SNES layout would work great.
I would just love it to be able to open Google Reader in safari and one other graphics intensive page without crashing. I don’t know if that is just a limited memory issue with the phone or if there are other factors involved but safari crashes so much if I just have 2 windows opened.
For the most part the games I play are pretty limited, moto chaser is about the most intensive and I never have problems with it.
As an iPhone owner, I always have to give an incredulous chuckle when I see folks trying to call it a gaming platform. Even if they could stuff the latest nuclear reactor of a graphics card into the thing, it’s still a three inch screen that I have to jab at with my fat fingers. Even if there were an add-on controller, I still wouldn’t carry it around. It’s my phone, after all. Unless THE MUST-HAVE KILLER APP OF 20XX were developed for the platform, it’ll never be more than a phone with some fun time-wasters to me.
Four cores would be all fine and well, but if developers can’t put together a gaming U.I. for it that works for all comers, including those of use who have fingers like a pack of hot dogs, the processing power of the device will be moot.
Add that to the fact that more processors would mean a greater drain on a system that already munches battery faster than poop through a goose, and you’ve got two very large stumbling blocks to overcome.