Be Excellent To Each Other

I just ordered an iPod touch due to various things one of them being.. Oh I just want one ok?

So I understand you can do stuff with them other than listen to music things such as remote desktop and all sorts of funky shit - where would I obtain such apps on the internet or do I need to go the iTunes store and actually spend money?

You've really done your homework on this expensive luxury device!

This is like an Iphone minus the phone right?

You go to the app store, sign up and then you can buy apps but also obtain free apps.

My reviews: http://iphonetiny.com/ or http://twitter.com/iphonetiny.

Go to search and find all the threads where we've banged on about the iPhone. Almost all of it applies to the iTouch, too.

Apart from the bits that don't, and it isn't immediately apparent. Obv.

Ok Trousers,
step 1) buy a padded envelope.
step 2) carefully slide iPod into envelope.
step 3) Write a list of the apps you want.
step 3) Post it to my address
step 4) Wait just two to three years and you'll get your iPod back with a selection of brilliant apps.

Seriously though, there is also jailbraking that lets you run any code. I've heard Stephen Fry Tweet about it quite a bit.

Also:



This has got a rolling giggle out of me.

Some bloke showed me a load of apps at a kids party and I got quite excited. Surely 5 minutes of some random geezer showing you pretty pictures represents adequate research?

Although anyone who does this to run free apps needs a smack. Most of the devs on the App Store are indies and need support.

I'd definitely go along with that. If paying for stuff from small indie devs is the way to go then I've no objections.

I figured if Stephen 'Twinings' Fry was into it, then it would have more uses than piracy. Surprised it even allows that - as Fry is so vocal about it.

I don't really know anything else, because learning about this world just creates unquenchable desire so what's the point.

Prior to the App Store, you needed to jailbreak to install apps. Now, there's the App Store, and jailbreaks are only really needed for network switching and very niche apps.

I recommend drop 7 addictive as fuck puzzle game that was only 59p last time I looked.

I also recommend Moxie, word making kind of puzzle game. demo video here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRkYiOMuAdc

Ah, it was for before it had an app store? Well that makes sense.

I wouldn't bother with jail breaking it then.

Of course he is - for such an intelligent man, he's a gibbering Apple Fanboy.

I must confess I've never understood the iPod touch. Why not just get an iPhone and carry around one less thing?

Well that's what I mean, a gibbering apple fan boy supporting something that would keep money out of apple's pocket? It's unthinkable.

For a whole lot of people, I can think of 177 good reasons.

Not to mention the extra 630 reasons that come from having the contract. Although don't they come on PAYG now?

Well, this. But if money is an issue, the touch is a very expensive toy.

£177 is the difference between a PAG iPhone and the equivalent iPod touch.


I had this argument on Retro Gamer with a rather, er, 'stubborn' section of the readership. My thinking was that iPod touch isn't actually that expensive, depending on what you compare it with. The low-end model is £165. The PSP's £130, and the DSi will be £150 when it finally arrives here (and anyone thinking the DS won't be mothballed within six months is just deluding themselves). Take into account game price-points, and the iPod touch actually looks fair value.

Do you think the iTouch holds it head up as a handheld gaming device? I've never seen anyone playing games on one, and all the ones I've tried have been uncontrolable gash, to put it kindly (but then I've only tried about five).
What games do you think are the top examples on it? I'll have a go on Mrs. Grim...'s iPhone. Then I'll point at New Super Mario Brothers (which is free, of course, like all DS games) and giggle at you.

(I know you have a blog, but I can't find it now)

You must get Frenzic (which I learned about via Mr. Grannell's website and am now horribly addicted to), WordFu and Zen Bound. All are frippin' excellent.

Then Pinball Dreams is a great conversion of the Amiga game, though I don't think the touchscreen is quite as responsive as the game needs.

I'm also rather fond of Namco's Time Crisis and i Love Katamari, though the latter suffers from some slowdown issues even after the recent patches. Also, EA have knocked out a great port of SimCity, but I think it's a little too deep a game for knockabout iPod Touch/iPhone hijinks.

I would go as far as to say that the DS has the best software line up in history so it might be a bit unfair to compare them (aside: Good point CG, the DSi is the micro isn't it? Oooh new portable soon! Lovely!)

But clearly the choice between a PSP and an iPod Touch is much closer. Neither have a software lineup that is screaming out at me. But the Touch clearly beats the PSP at movies and music and videos. Steve Priestly would be proud.

Ive been tempted by word fu and zen bound. Although I dont like spending more than 1 quid 19p on a game.


You might like moxie zio. No trial version but the youtube video above pretty much shows how it works.

other recommendations

classics: The best reading app on the itouch for me, limited selection but there all classics as the title suggests and it does update with new ones every now and then.

You can also get the curious case of benjamin button short story somewhere on the app store havent read it yet.

Drinks and cocktail recipes free, ad based but it has a ridiculous amount of cocktails on it, you can search by ingredients aswell.

Im+ available for 59p or free, features differ but basically a quick log in for whatever instant message service you use.

Word Warp-basic and free I think puzzle game in which you have to make as many words out of 6 letters or something. Might have been 59p but its ad based so I doubt it.

Glyphos-pretty much picross and was fairly cheap at the most it was 1 quid 19p, cant grumble, works well.

Tiki Towers-Bridge building puzzle game, where you have to make safe structures for monkeys to cross, bargain at 59p.

Trace-fun and free little platformer where you can draw your own platforms.

Textropolis-pretty much them 9 letter grids you get in the paper where you have to make as many words as possible, although these are based on city names so theres no 9 letter word to find. Great presentation and progressive based so its your interest. 59p I think it was.

Theres a puzzle game called combination I like the idea of but Im absolutely useless at it.

PSP seems to be sorting itself out a little this year, theres that resistance game coming out, new god of war Im sure I saw, motorstorm, patapon 2, something to do with little big planet.

I cant really think of many ds games coming out this year except gta.

I'd go as far as to say that jailbreaking is very overrated. Mine's been back to factory-spec for a while now, and I don't miss it at all.

The PSP has some excellent games - Hell, one just got the first S rank on UpYoJump.
Can the touch do proper streaming movies/music from your PC like the PSP can (if you have a PS3)?

I love my PSP to bits. It's got some great games.

But the demo of the Resistance game is pretty awful.

Im looking forward to when I can buy one for 50 quid and all the games are worth a fiver at the most.

Up YOUR jump!

Gogo phone posting!

For book reading I though Stanza was the best app and it's free. Online book catalogues and in program links to all the free libraries as well as pay ones - great bookmarking and pretty much a full feature list of stuff you can do to change the appearance.

Games I've bought so far, though I readily admit that the device is less than ideal for anything other than puzzles or motion orientated games.

Rolando is good in a Loco Roco rip off fashion.
Flixster is a good free movie app which uses wifi on the itouch to tell you what's on at all your local cinemas and has dig down to reviews and trailers.

My iPhone apps-I-like list is here. Most of these are applicable to the iPod Touch.

I've been using Stanza too - seems as good as you could wish for to me.



I dunno, Pinball Dreams works very well (though I'd be the first to confess actual buttons would probably work better than the touchscreen), Time Crisis makes good use of both the touchscreen and tilt controls and iDracula shows that a Robotron-style game can be done fairly well on the system. The only reason I'm not more keen on the port of Sim City is that I just think it's not quite 'pick up n' play' enough for a mobile phone/iPod. That said, I'd really love to see some LucasArts graphic adventures on there. IIRC, there is an iPhone version of ScummVM for jailbroken iPhones isn't there? I vaguely remember it being a bit of a git to setup.

On a related note, can anyone recommend any decent Windows (Vista 64-bit ideally) video conversion tools for converting files to an iPhone friendly format? I don't mind paying a little for it if it works well, as so far I've simply been buying telly programs I want to watch off the iTunes Store.

I use Any DVD Converter. It can basically convert any file into a format of your choosing (including scaling down for iPods and iPhones, etc).

I really like it.

I used the videora ipod touch convertor to put a film onto my itouch took a while but theres plenty of options to convert quicker although poorer quality.

Yay! Mudhoney!

Six months back, I bitched on Cult of Mac about the exact same thing. Now, I'm not so sure. My iPhone has ousted by DS as my main gaming device, and that's not just down to the fact it's always around—it's down to the fact that many of the games are bloody good.


NSMB is very good, and I played it to completion. However, there's zero innovation there. On DS and GBA, I'd cite WarioWare, Rhythm Tengoku and Space Invaders Extreme as real standouts. (Although I'm aware the last of those is effectively a remake, it does more than NSMB with the original formula.)

On iPhone, I can only vouch for what I've played and what I personally find fun, along with some reasoning:

Bejeweled 2: Far from revolutionary, but the best version of the game available. Not quite as good as Zoo Keeper on DS, though.

Dropship: Gravitar-inspired arcade game, with GW-style graphics. Fantastic controls and great gameplay. More limited than many DS games, but it feels and looks better, and it costs 80p less than the game from the 1980s that it somewhat riffs off (Firebird's Thrust).

Eliss: Beautiful, retro-inspired asset management/reaction game. Similar to Frenzic in some ways, with a dash of 1980s Atari vector games and e-motion on the 8-bit computers.

Frenzic: iPhone's Tetris. This game would have been a bargain at ten quid, let alone whatever they're selling it for now. This is a game that, for me, smacks every other action-puzzler about a bit. The equal to Zoo Keeper and more fun than Tetris—and certainly better than modern iterations of Pajitnov's classic game.

MazeFinger: Incredibly simple but highly addictive tracking game. You might play this and go "er...", but it highlights the fact that the App Store can have a massive range of games, from Sim City down to addictive freebies like this. MazeFinger on DS would have to be diluted as part of a compilation, or shat out as a 15-quid budget game. On iPhone, it's free.

Rolando: Quick caveat: I'm not a massive fan of this. However, it's essentially Loco Roco 'upgraded' and somewhat improved, and is a good showcase for what's possible on the platform.

Vector Tanks: A good example of how iPhone's so-called limitations regarding control can actually result in a far more authentic arcade experience. This is Battlezone controls and Armor Attack foes.

Wurdle: I got totally addicted to Bookworm and Scrabble Blast on GBA. This beats both by far, and is my most-played iPhone game.

Most of the above will seem somewhat lightweight compared to the PSP, which desperately wants to be a PS2, and even, to some extent, compared to a DS. However, these simple games are often the ones you stay with (witness the WarioWare games), and the price-point is important. The most important thing for me, though, is fun. I don't have time to wade through manuals, and I want a fairly immediate and fun arcade experience with some depth. iPhone games have that in droves, and that's perfect for a handheld.

@Dr Lave—the DSi replaces the DS, removing the GBA slot and adding a region-locked download store and shit camera.

I tried this last night and didn't really get on with it too well at first, it made the computer flip out a bit. I'm willing to give it a bit more of a go as I quite liked the simple interface. And man, it was slow. I know resizing video is fairly taxing on the PC, but it was annoying.

Exactly my problem with iPhone Sim City - great port, great controls, too complex a game really for the kind of 5-minute thrills the platform excels at.

Also Mr. Grannell, I need to have a go at you. On your recommendation, I purchased Frenzic. Now I can't stop playing it. Absolutely amazing game, I completely see what you mean about it being to the iPhone what Tetris was to the Gameboy.

Yeah, Mr Grannell thanks for eating an hour of my precious time at the moment. Frenzic is very addictive, as is Wurdle.

I don't like Wurdle, maybe I'm broken. I'll get Frenzic then.

now that so many of us have it, isn't there a phpbb skin for the iphone we can use for the forum, i know way of the rodent have one for vanilla, see http://forum.stillwater-rock.com/
\
ah hereis one for phpbb 3
http://demo.phpbb3styles.net/X-iPhone

@Zio & DBSnappa—My apologies. Luckily, most of the stuff I've reviewed on iPhoneTiny of late has been rubbish, and so that will have saved rather than wasted your time! (Some good upcoming stuff, though.)

And Frenzic: mmmm.

Dude, that's fucking horrible! Did you look at it? I honestly can't see how that would give phone users any advantage when it comes to browsing the forum.
I have been giving this some thought, though - just a simple no-fixed-width, low image theme.

I would support this idea. A liquid width text input window would help the most, because at the moment you need to drag back and forth to read each line when you are writing text.

Rather surprisingly, such a theme doesn't seem to exist.
I'll keep looking.

This was my concluson when I looked for one also.

That would be quite handy. Make it so!

By the way, if there are any fans of Bounder here, check out PapiJump Land Lite. It's not 'Frenzic good', but it kept me engrossed for a while yesterday evening.