iPhone Game Emulator

[ilovevideogames408]

Would this be possible at all?

The accelerometer can be accounted for by using the analog nub to emulate it. The Pandora already has touch screen, so that solves the controls problem. Perhaps even a way to map keys to certain areas on the screen (so real controls can be used in games like Real Soccer or Kroll)

 

[senorgomez]

100% agree! I have to say I am looking forward to all the iFart apps.
/s

I heard there aren't any good games for the Iphone, just gimmick ones.

 

[Aethix]

Except that the iPhone's touch screen is multi-touch and the Pandora's touch screen is single-touch. And the processor is 620MHz, which is more than two-thirds of the Pandora's processor's max capacity. Sorry, but we're more likely to see the PS2 emulated than the iPhone.

 

[Tom`]

Except that the iPhone's touch screen is multi-touch and the Pandora's touch screen is single-touch. And the processor is 620MHz, which is more than two-thirds of the Pandora's processor's max capacity. Sorry, but we're more likely to see the PS2 emulated than the iPhone.

I wouldn't be so quick to say that - for iPhone games you almost certainly wouldn't have to emulate the hardware, you could do something more like Wine does and translate the system calls.

Still, I wouldn't expect it to actually happen, because it would take a lot of work, the Pandora lacks the input methods of the iPhone (particularly multitouch, but the analog stick wouldn't really do a perfect job for the accelerometer), and there probably aren't enough really good iPhone games to make it worthwhile for a developer. But it's more likely than playable PS2 emulation.

 

[lulzfish]

meh.....
That would give the Pandora more appeal to people who like having hundreds of tiny programs that do nothing at all, and can't even be linked together like Unix programs.
I personally don't need it. The iDevices don't have any programs worth emulating, it would just a giant "suck this" to Apple and nothing more.

 

[Dauric]

I agree about the quality of iPhone apps (a flight simulator that -only- sims the Hudson River crash? It was worth the effort to sim that -one- event?!?!) Though taking this surplus of wasteable time in to account...

meh.....
<Snip> it would just a giant "suck this" to Apple and nothing more.

I wouldn't doubt that somewhere out there is the exact combination of excess hours in the day and irate need to tell Apple "Suck this!" to make such a thing exist.

 

[warmi]

meh.....
The iDevices don't have any programs worth emulating, it would just a giant "suck this" to Apple and nothing more.

You think so ? There are like 15 000 000 people using these things ...
For every Pandora developer there are most likely about 300 iPhone devs ...how long do you think before iPhone platform accumulates anough cool software to make it worthwhile ?

 

[Dauric]

meh.....
The iDevices don't have any programs worth emulating, it would just a giant "suck this" to Apple and nothing more.

You think so ? There are like 15 000 000 people using these things ...
For every Pandora developer there are most likely about 300 iPhone devs ...how long do you think before iPhone platform accumulates anough cool software to make it worthwhile ?

A lot of those apps aren't even games, but things like digital levels and compasses and navigation software, none of which the Pandora can do without external hardware. On top of that a lot of the iPhone apps are shovelware, you can have millions of developers but that's no guarantee of anything worthwhile. Even if those infinite monkeys do produce some to-be-classic software it still falls to the shovelware conundrum: Is it worth rummaging through infinite piles of shredded paper and broken typewriters filled with monkey-s4!t to find it?

 

[ilovevideogames408]

An iPhone Game Emulator would be appealing to a lot of people. But the problem is how to actually use the controls. Sure, the accelerometer can be used by the nub, but what of the multi-touch. P

Playing Asphalt with one finger is hard. Same goes for Kroll and Real Soccer and other games. Perhaps the game screen can be treated as a graph and keys could be mapped to certain areas like the topmost area or the leftmost area, etc. That could take care of the controls.

Then, of course, there's the legality of it... Wine is fully legal because it's a re-implementation of the Windows core made from scratch, so the emulator has to be made from scratch and cannot include code from Apple.

Now, the actual appeal of it. Most likely it won't be made. It's just too messy, but still Apple has made a lot of games and they are successfuly because of it. The games themselves are very fun, and the very reason I am interested in the Pandora is because I have came from an iPhone homebrew community.

It probably won't be made, but I'd sure love to see it. So would a lot of people. If somebody does consider the hassle, awesome. I won't stop you, and if anyone thinks it's a waste of time, don't waste you're time trying to stop that wonderful dev.

 

[lulzfish]

I don't like the idea, but it might make the Pandora more popular.
Someone should definitely look into it.

 

[Exophase]

Sounds like way too much work. Think of how long it took Wine to get off the ground. iPhone's OS is not at all small.

 

[fiveseven]

Even though both devices are ARM (correct me if I'm wrong on this one), wouldn't there still be some kind of hardware emulation needed (other than accelerometer, multitouch, etc), or would it only require something similar to wine?

 

[lulzfish]

From what I've heard, the iPhone is pretty locked down, so I think most of the stuff 'apps' do is system calls. So it would mostly be high-level emulation, like WINE.

But that's just for the apps, I don't know how one would go about emulating the hardware, firmware, embedded Safari, etc.

 

[ilovevideogames408]

Re: iPhone Compatibility Layer

Something like wine would make more sense. This compatibility layer could handle system calls and natively too, which would make it faster than emulation.

BUT A workaround must be implemented for the controls. The Pandora does NOT have an accelerometer or multi-touch screen. Again, the analog nub and mapping keys to certain areas can solve that, respectively. Not sure if the compatibility layer will support that or will these have to emulated separate from the layer.

Although, the iPhone is "locked down", I'm sure that enough is documented about running apps.

I'm obviously not a seasoned coder or dev, so what I'm saying might just be rubbish.

 

[EmuGuy]

A better approach would be to contact the dev of the iPhone app that is desired, and asking for a Pandora port. Maybe they'll have heard of it, maybe not, but hey.

 

[ilovevideogames408]

I'm still all for the iPhone CL.

 

[warmi]

From what I've heard, the iPhone is pretty locked down, so I think most of the stuff 'apps' do is system calls. So it would mostly be high-level emulation, like WINE.

But that's just for the apps, I don't know how one would go about emulating the hardware, firmware, embedded Safari, etc.

Uh .. not really .. depends what you are doing.

I have a 3d engine running on iPhone and there are about 5 relatively small iPhone specific .mm files there ... out of about 70 C++ files.
If you use OpenGL then the only thing you need from their API is context/swap interface ( unfortunately they are not using EGL - rendering on the iPhone is done to a texture which then the underyling API is using to composite with other system layers - that's why there is no anti-aliasing supported for OpenGL Apps), touch interface and timer services - that's about it.

 

[Skofo]

What killer apps does the iPhone have that couldn't be replaced with a freedomware rewrite?

 

[danielpwnsricky]

i'd just like to say this is even more pointless and stupid than attempted windows through qemu and wine.

 

[ilovevideogames408]

As I have said, if you don't like the idea, don't post and waste your time. Perhaps if you have an legit argument of why not instead of negative comments, I'd be more willing to listen.