iGame Radio

Not that this is incredibly surprising news, but MacRumors posts news of a possible siting of an unknown iPhone type that doesn’t match any that have been launched.

iPhone developer Pandav has informed MacRumors that they have spotted usage records for an unreleased iPhone in their app’s analytics. The app used was iBART [Free / Paid], a public transportation guide for the San Francisco train system.

PinchMedia who provides the analytics for the application breaks down customer usage including what specific devices are being used. This list of devices is reported to developers using internal device identification numbers assigned by Apple. In this case, “iPhone3,1″ was first spotted in Pandav’s usage logs in November. This “iPhone3,1″ identifier does not match up with any shipping iPhones. The last iPhone released to the public was the iPhone 3GS which carries the identification string “iPhone2,1″.

Now, when iPhone 3GS was spotted in the wild, that was October 2008. Considering the release schedules of the iPhone (about once a year), it seems perfectly normal to see at this point the testing of the new iPhone that supposedly will be announced early next year, and released in June/July. The real speculation is not about when or what, but what it will be able to do, and what telecom it will be able to connect with.

I’m not dead…just very, very busy. Podcast next week, on Wednesday, for reasons I’ll mention then.

Meantime, I figured you’d like this tidbit about the Mobius invite-only event. Microsoft-sponsored about what they are doing in the mobile space. The picture says it all. LOL!

Picked this tidbit up through Gamespot:

Steve Perlman of OnLive has announced via his blog that their streaming game service will be available for cell phones, especially for the iPhone. They showed a tech demo of the service running on a television, PC, and two iPhones hooked up all together. “The large tiles that make up the OnLive user interface work perfectly on the iPhone touch screen, allowing easy access to all of the features of the OnLive game service.”

At this time, they only have a tech demo available, and for the foreseeable future the service would only be available for cell phones to access the social and community features…for example, checking out what your friends are playing and spectating that. But there is a definite intention to bring new games to the cell phone platform.

There is, unfortunately, no timeline for this, and no date of availability announced. Perlman stated that there was more development to do, and permissions to obtain from a few more cell phone manufacturers.

But…OnLive on the iPhone. As Perlman put it, “That’s Awesome!”

I will be making a whole lot of posts today, because I’m finally cleaning out my inbox of iPhone and Mac gaming goodness. So, get ready for some awesome info today!

First up, Sean Maher has announced that the update to his self-described zombie casual shooter, Dead Panic, is out. Dead Panic: Survival has a whole slew of new features (some addressing issues I pointed out in my review), including an infinite “survival” mode, two new weapon types, a money/upgrade system, and multi-touch controls. There’s more (see below) but it looks like a much improved game on a great idea. I’ll check it out and report back!

“Dead Panic: Survival” adds:
* An infinite “survival” mode
* Four new maps
* Two new weapon types
* A money/upgrade system
* Multi-touch controls
* OpenFeint challenges and achievements
* High scores
* Upgraded sound and graphics

• An interview with Maarten Lens-FitzGerald, co-founder of Layar, about this new augmented reality system for the iPhone. What is it, and what games might you see with it?
• Also, a review of Machinarium by Amanita Design. Help Josef the robot defeat the Black Cap Brotherhood and save his kidnapped girlfriend in this delightful, artistic, and fun puzzle adventure game.


Show Notes:

• Tim Langdell continues to plague anything with the name “Edge”, and developers fight back.
• Epic releases free Unreal development kit; does that mean we can finally get Unreal Tournament 3??
• Storm8′s stormy controversy…are your cell phone number’s safe? Even Apple doesn’t think so.
• And Apple has taken even further steps in dealing with iPhone developer rage, with the launch of some new tools of transparency. Baby steps, but steps nonetheless.
• Yeah, about that Modern Warfare 2 dedicated server thing? It sucks, don’t it? Welcome to the club, PC gamers. We sell cookies.

After a week off, I’m back now so that I can play catch-up. I figure I’ll be done playing catch-up just in time to have another week off. ;-)

While I was out, Gendai Games announced the launch of their GameSalad membership program. This is a two-tiered membership program that CEO Michael Agustin talked a bit about in his interview with me recently where members can publish their games developed using GameSalad to the iPhone. The cost of the Express membership is $99 per year, intended for casual and prosumers, while the Pro membership, intended for studios and pro developers, is $1999. I question why anyone who is a “casual” developer would pay $99 per year, but there it is.

For those unfamiliar with GameSalad, this development tool allows folks to create their own games without knowing an ounce of programming code. All one needs is the design ideas for their game, although a developer can upload their own art assets and even tweak the code as necessary. GameSalad Creator is downloaded to develop custom games, GameSalad Viewer is an iPhone app that is used to view the game’s action on an iPhone in real-time through a wireless connection without having to use an Xcode build, and the iPhone export service is, well, self-explanatory.

GameSalad gives access to game developers to a community of developers and experts to rely on for help, as well as interactive media for resources.

Click here for a video of GameSalad in action.

So, despite the fact that I am taking a week off, that doesn’t mean that I’m not working. It just means that I’m not getting a podcast out the door this week. As such, I did get something done today already that I hope everyone will be happy about. I finally figured out why it was that I couldn’t seem to locate the comments RSS feed URL.

I hath found it!

So, for your viewing pleasure, you may now subscribe to the comments posted and know instantly when someone has replied to a comment of yours, or a post on the site. Just click here to subscribe, or look over at the sidebar where the RSS feeds are located to do the same.