Be Excellent To Each Other

Yeah it's daft really, I'll take a punt on pretty much anything for under a quid, and I don't feel aggrieved if the game turns out to be pants. Many comments on the AppStore are an affront to those possessed of a brain, without the occasional YouTube humorous gem relieving the tedium.

I paid a 'MASSIVE SHOCK HORROR' £5.99 for Tiger Woods which 'feels' really expensive in AppStore terms, but realistically, I binned twice that on crappy Spectrum games back in the day, when £9.99 was an absolute fuckload of cash. (Two weeks paper round wages, in fact.)

At the end of the day, moaning about games that frequently cost less than a pint of beer is idiotic, especially when there are almost always demo versions to try out first.

EDIT - Yes I know 2 x 5.99 is not 9.99, but you get the point, and I'm sure I paid £12.99 and/or £14.99 for a Speccy and/or C64 game that came with a load of extra pointless shit in the box.

I feel I've missed out on a load of great aps from poor user ratings, and for that I'm incredibly glad we now have proper sites reviewing them (iphonetiny is brilliany, Craig — cheers).

I'm still not sure I understand how applications are sorted on the App Store in the 'Top…' sections, either. However they're sorted, it seems to ignore the ratings, which may not be a bad thing.

Lenslock was a game in itself!

All these software companies bitching about piracy, bring back Lenslock!

How important is the star rating in terms of exposure apps get?

And since the pool or users is so large, couldn't there be some sort of weighting on the votes. And people who have proven themselves not to be an idiot getting bigger weighting in the votes.

AppStore ratings are massively hit and miss, and you can never be sure how much they're being manipulated either.

I take a chance on anything I like the look or sound of (at least for a demo), and will happily try a full version if it's 99p or £1.59 or some such piffling amount.

Similarly, good games or apps can get bad reviews, just because a small number of morons have polluted the rankings, so don't shy away from something you think you might like.

iphonetiny is a magnificent site, but I suppose Craig can only do so much hence a lot of gaps on there

Eurogamer or some other proper games site really need to pull their fucking fingers out when it comes to the iPhone.

@tossrStu: Mmm—the "this is great! *" reviews really irritated me until I started ignoring them, at which point the entire problem went away. Like Amazon and other places with reviews, there's always going to be this kind of problem, exacerbated on the App Store due to the immediacy angle. This is why we really need some decent third-party review content. Unfortunately, due to the pricing of App Store content, publishers aren't remotely interesting in backing anything in print (although, interestingly, MacFormat now has full-page adverts from companies making App Store products), and so the web's the only place this'll happen. To date, only Slide to Play really seems to have got this right, with Touch Arcade being good for news and Pocket Gamer not having a bad crack at a 'magazine' approach.

One thing I didn't mention in my post, which I should have done, is that the low price/poor understanding of value has also led to a huge lack of patience on the part of OS X gamers. Because a game 'only' costs a quid, people play for five minutes, get pissed off, and then stomp off to the App Store to post a "this is POO" review. Clearly, they're not up for a challenge with something wonderful like Eliss and instead want to be dragged through by the hand in ten minutes (at which point they'll instead bitch that the game doesn't last long—sigh).


It scraped a 4 on iPhoneTiny at $3. It's polished, a good 'time passer', but a bit easy until the very end of the quest, and not terribly exciting. For 59p, it's a steal though. Hell, even at a fiver it'd still be recommended.


It's a shame more people don't remember that, or that they don't think about the crap on DS that's £20 and is never updated. Got Settlers for DS? Well, you're fucked! There's a bug that means you can't complete the bloody thing! Got a buggy game for OS X? Chances are the dev will get an update out and it won't cost you extra.


I don't think anyone's managed to figure out how Apple compiles any of its charts, although at least it's not on ratings or sales alone. Often, what Apple comes up with is a genuinely useful set of 'top' or 'chart' apps, and even wee indie retro titles like Saucelifter get the nod now and again.

Anyway, some quick recommendations of stuff I've not yet reviewed on iPhoneTiny, in a BEExclusive (or something):

NLogFree: Freebie analogue synth. Good fun for pratting about with.
AirportMania: Kind of like a cartoonish side-on Flight Control. Occasionally annoying controls but a fun game and only 59p.
ColorSplash: Neat colour-isolation tool for photos.
Factbook: Popular source of info about nations. It's 59p and works offline.
QuadCamera: Really fun camera app that takes quickfire multiple shots and then pieces them together in various formats.
TonePad: Odd little time-based musical toy.


Ultimately, iPT is also going to be biased towards things that make me go "ooh, interesting" and whatever I can get promos for. Unless I get some advertising in, there's no way I'm splashing out a tenner on a game just to review. And while certain companies are absolutely fantastic for supporting people like me (shout-outs in particular to Namco, PopCap and TAITO from the 'big boys'), many aren't interested.

As for Eurogamer, I sounded them out a while back about doing iPhone stuff. They politely declined, saying they intended to do everything internally.

Soccer Manager is excellent if you like the Champ Man games from c1996-2002. Each player and team name has the first vowel wrong due to licensing issues, but you can handily edit it all. Only the top two divisions at the moment, but I'm holding out for an update with Leagues 1 and 2 at some point.

Ooh, me too. When's the next Mac announcement thing? And when is the new firmware coming out for the current iPhone?

WWDC in early June. Rumours are that's when we'll see the v3 iPhone and the v3 OS will ship at the same time the new phone does (to keep all the phones on the OS, for App Store compatibility reasons). Last time they did this the v2 OS appeared in iTunes while Jobs was still on stage.

I want an iPhone.

Devs are already having some updates 'frozen' due to the imminent OS upgrade. That'll almost certainly happen at WWDC. As for the new hardware, I think video is a certainty, which'll make the likes of Flip really happy. And by 'happy', I mean 'teeth gnashingly angry'.

I may crumble when the new hardware is out.

...or buy an old one off you lot when you upgrade, pweez

I've already promised my current iPhone to my dad once I upgrade, soz.

Ha, you don't want mine, it's battered to fuck. If I get a Mac next month I'll pay for the dev program and use this one as a testbed phone I think.

The original 2g ones seem to be holding their value annoyingly well, or actually increasing in price (annoying as I was trying to buy another one for a family member)..

You won't get any change from 200 quid anyway, and they were available for less than that new at one point.

O RLY? Dad can GTFF then.

We'll share then

http://www.slashgear.com/webos-screensh ... e-2942193/

palm preshots,look nice,but not better than iphone imo

I suppose the 2G's are worth so much because of the relative ease to unlock them and the fact that they're the only phones you can get out of contract (though I'm sure there must be a way of getting a non-contract 3G).

Certainly merely trading my 16GB 2G for cash at my local CeX allowed me to get a 16GB 3G at Carphone Warehouse (on the £35 per month contract) and have about £80 in change IIRC.

My ebay one arrived - a bit scuffed around the edges but so far appears to work perfectly. 200 quid well spent.

I keep getting tempted by iPhones but I can't help totting up the total cost. They are atrociously expensive toys really. So many much better ways to have fun with five or six hundred notes.

You could say the same about a laptop or whatever, though. I use mine for so many things I feel like it's paid for itself almost. Only my 360 has had more use out of my gadgety stuff than my iPhone.

It's certainly the only phone / pocket computer / gadget thing like that I've ever considered good value.

Not at "5 or 600" though. Half that, which is what the 2g cost, sure.

There's no point to comparing pricing of the iPhone to anything other than another device with good app support and an unlimited data plan. £500 for a year is a fair bit, but any other unlimited data plans with a decent handset are similar, if not more expensive.

Such as the PAYG ones you get from O2.

I bought a 3G from eBay (ironically for slightly less than a PAYG one from the O2 shop) and have now gone on to a £20 a month contract with O2 (30 day contract though, not 18 month) that gives me unlimited data.

No visual voicemail though, but I can live without that.

I have iPhone Want, but should I wait until the new shizzle comes out?

Yes. Should only be a couple of months.

I got unlimited Data on my 5800, and my plan costs me £17 a month so roughly £200 a year.

But what do you use that device for? My iPhone is a competent replacement/substitution for my laptop when I'm away from home, due to the wealth and quality of available apps. Is the 5800 in the same ballpark?

Hey one of you PM when you want to get rid of an old iPhone or iPod touch so I can give you my address.

Selling phones is for losers.
Giving phones to Lave is for winners.

KTHNXSBYE

(Talking of which I follow iPhoneTiny on twitter. But I don't have an iPhone - I've just realised how pathetic that is. )

Define using it as a laptop

It has openoffice, mail and internet (wifi, 3G etc)access as standard.

I have started using it at home rather than getting my laptop out now.

It's alright, just follow Craig - he retweets everything that iPhoneTiny tweets anyway

Cheeky scamp. There's almost no crossover between @iPhoneTiny and @CraigGrannell. @CraigGrannell and @RevertToSaved on the other hand... (Mind you, that's only because the RTS feed is now literally only for new articles—all 'personal' tweets and microblogging is done via @CraigGrannell.)

@Dr Lave—At least you'll know what apps to go for when you get your iPhone!

I also do this, and find it surprisingly informative for someone who doesn't have an iPhone.

Beneres? Niko fuerto tipomagico - te ay-phon-gizmo. Novello proboscis - molto molto kin agrophos. Vo, tidiaka mit functioni moronico. Te facilos action-pumpo! Zo, nea shopping, nea collo, te "ay-phon-gizmo".

Oh! Ay-phon-gizmo! *pop*

I've got an old one which doesn't work properly as a phone, and is battered to crap. It would still fetch up to 100 quid on the 'bay though. If you really wanted it I could cut you a deal.

An "i".

I'm skint at the minute, and if it's battered to crap and doesn't work then it's probably not the best use of my money. Does it work as an music, video and App player ok? How's the screen?

All fine.

Eeek, Thats quite tempting. So what is wrong with it? Bashed up case, and drops calls or something?

I'll PM you after I've had a think about it.

Yep, do The phone works intermittently or not at all. It's fine on wifi.

Given the launch of the 3GS yesterday, I put together the attached using O2's pricing.

Wonder if it is actually worth going for a 3GS over a 3G. I assume voice control is OS3.0 based and not hardware based.

*pats bargainous 2nd hand iPod touché*

Fuck £30+ 24month contracts. I've got most of the techno gubbins and I'll keep my K800 on payg for calls ta.

I'm still using my K800i, which I've had for three years now. It's a brilliant phone, but starting to fall apart a little bit now.

Mine is getting on for 2 years old now and is in mint condition. I have severe OCD when it comes to looking after my gizmos & gubbins.

My phone has been living in the same pocket as my keys for the last three years, naked. It's survived amazingly well.

Yeah, the headline updates of the 3GS over the 3G are;

• 2x as fast at pretty much everything
• 2MP camera replaced with 3MP auto-focus with video support (VGA res, 30fps)
• on-device video editing, uploading to YouTube etc
• compass
• voice control
• Capacity (16/32Gb versus 8Gb). Note that the 16Gb 3G isn't on sale any more, although you might find some clearance models.

It might have more RAM too, Apple aren't saying. That would reduce the frequency of crashes and Safari closing tabs in the background, both of which are a bother.

I think it's a worthy upgrade, but it depends if you want to shoot video, carry lots of music, or care about phone performance really. The 3G isn't sluggish in use but could certainly use more oomph. I'm locked into my O2 contract until December though, so I'd be looking at another £210 on top to upgrade; that's a bit spendy for my liking.

You are going to get one though

Don't you have oodles of splash cash from your 'cant post on Beteo, but you are posting on Beteo' job?