How Many Have Moved To Smartphones?

[klikklak]

Second Exodous, it's not just cameras. I mean convergence has been going on for twenty years or so now and it shows no signs of stopping. Remember alarm clocks? Standalone calculators? Watches? The fact that these items still exist, doesn't mean that their importance has not lowered and that they're being moved to the 'rich western people' category, for people with too much money. Also a d-pad is not how I started gaming, in the C64 era of home computers joysticks were the norm. So I don't have that much nostalgia for the classic nintendo controller or whatever it is that other people grew up with.

Computers are computers despite what you tack on them, a computer with no radios is no more a computer then a computer with radios. Then it's just a matter of input devices and I'm pretty sure they'll come up with those soon enough, considering the amount of money floating around in the phone circles.

 

[Esn]

Second Exodous, it's not just cameras. I mean convergence has been going on for twenty years or so now and it shows no signs of stopping. Remember alarm clocks? Standalone calculators? Watches? The fact that these items still exist, doesn't mean that their importance has not lowered and that they're being moved to the 'rich western people' category, for people with too much money.

What does it say about me that I own and regularly use all of these? (well, except for the calculator; I mostly use Google these days) I was born in the late 1980s. It's not like I'm burning money, either - the watch is a standard plastic Casio wrist-watch, the alarm next to my bed is a cheap analogue one from Radioshack. I just find them more convenient. People with cellphones are forever fiddling with them or forgetting them somewhere, and checking to see the time always takes them at least 10-15 seconds (compared to 1-2 with a wrist watch).

I mostly alternate between my DS and GP32 for gaming - hopefully the Pandora will become the main instrument for that when it arrives (I might also try and see if I can arrange some sort of VOIP over it, who knows... cell phone plans are too expensive in Canada...)

 

[dnlgreenwood]

Well, I have a smartphone now, and I never us it for gaming. How can one tolerate such horrendous touch screen controls? My touch screen isn't very accurate, but it may be due to th fact that I'm using a screen protector, but still, I've hated controling pretty much any game I've played. I've been sticking with my GameBoy Pocket for these past few weeks, sometimes even using it one-handed for Tetris while doing other things. Anyway, who the hell decided that we needed touch screens? (Damn you Apple and Nintendo! Damn you to hell!)

 

[WarmFluffyUK]

I got fed up of having two or three devices in my handbag as it was getting rather heavy. After getting my iPhone 3GS about a year ago it has revolutionised the way I compute/game on the move, and I really love IOS4 too, plus having an external battery plug in helps a lot with battery life.

I still now and then take one of my consoles with me but it's getting to be rather rare these days, almost like a retro situation where you still love em to bits but only mess around with them on occasion.

Speaking of Retro kit, has anyone purchased a solid state drive for the BBC Micro at all? I picked one up last week and it's flipping amazing, over 300 floppy disks on one MMC card!

Clare.

 

[Pleng]

Anyway, who the hell decided that we needed touch screens? (Damn you Apple and Nintendo! Damn you to hell!)

It's not fair to slate touch screens and touch screen devices! Touch screens are a great way to add a completely new element to gaming (something like Brain Training, for instance simply wouldn't have been possible without a touch screen) as well as making very convenient UIs possible.

The issue is people trying to use touch screens as replacements for hardware controls. Apple decided, no hardwar controls. Applications anf games for it therefore need to be designed with touch screen and accelarometer in mind. And generally, they are. The most fun games for iPhone are ones that don't rely on on-screen dpads and such like. With the DS (and, indeed, Pandora) you have a lot more possibilities, as you can choose code for the touch screen, hardware controls, or both.

 

[migo]

I like having some phone games, but I really don't like having my battery eaten by playing games, so having a dedicated game system on me as well is always nice.