http://mailbox.allthingsd.com/20070705/questions-about-apples-iphone/
So let’s get the Unity plug in on there as well.
Who do I call? Anyone know Steve’s number?
Interesting news Davey, thanks for the link.
Flash on the iphone would be awesome… if it supported Adobe Flex and Air. This would allow for some really awesome web apps to be created!
As for the Unity plug-in… I just don’t see that happening. For one thing I kind of doubt the iphone contains the necessary hardware (ie a 3D graphics chip) and I don’t think porting Unity to the ARM processor is something OTEE is working on.
No-one seems to know how much graphics horsepower the iPhone has, although it certainly seems to be fairly ample for what it does. (Apple TV has a stripped down 7300 Go and would make a decent game console.)
Even if you can’t run your Unity-based game directly on an iPhone, you can integrate your games with a website and offer iPhone support on the site. E.g. suppose you were Blizzard, you could put Web 2.0 apps on your site to allow long distance travel, tradeskills, and auctions via the iPhone (and any other web browser).
One of my pet project ideas is an empire-building game (think of Massive Multiplayer Master of Orion) where you can log in via a 3d or web client – different UI but same underlying data. The big difference between the iPhone and other phones is that you’re better off doing an online/multiplayer game for the iPhone since your code needs to live on a web server anyway.
Aside:
Flash support will almost certainly be crippled in some way. The full Flash engine supports (among other things) video codecs Apple probably doesn’t want on the iPhone and VoIP. I’m guessing what held Flash off the original iPhone release was what Apple refused to allow on the iPhone.
he he he … sideburns
J.
Just to give some credit since they jerkily took it all out, that was from Conan O’Brien’s talk show. 
-Jon
Supposedly the iPhone uses a 620-667Mhz Samsung ARM processor, just about the fastest chip ever seen in a hand-held, and the UI (including OpenGL 3D effects and very nice textures) runs ultra fast and smooth (I’ve tried it). Some ARM chips apparently have an integrated GPU like the Intel 2700G, and if that’s possible then I expect the iPhone has something like that.
None of which information can be considered confirmed or reliable, especially coming from me! But what I CAN say is that an iPhone drives coverflow at 480x320 quite smoothly, while a 350MHz PowerMac G3 with 16MB ATI Rage 128 does NOT at that same window size. Yet the PowerMac in question still provides great fun with low-detail 3D games like Unreal Tournament, Quake 3, Descent 3, etc.–all of which have higher polycounts, more AI and other CPU tasks, and more textures than a casual “pocket game” needs to have.
My conclusion is inescapable: 3D games made for iPhone could be FUN and run well–they just wouldn’t have the same complexity you’d run on a Core 2 Duo!
So if and when Apple ever opens the iPhone up further (which I believe they will) I would love to see a Unity plugin for iPhone Safari. (Or even an export-to-iPhone-executable option.)
Frankly, I think Apple should include the Unity plugin with every Mac AND iPhone–Unity is something Apple ought to be promoting!
Now … without any buttons on the iPhone, how you gonna play games ? By pressing the screen ? How can you see the game if your digits are mashing the screen in which the game is displayed ? :shock:
Just a thought,
J.
The screen is big enough for controls on one end while the game is shown on the other. It’s not that small… Uunless you have gigantic hands or something. 
iLove my iPhone, w00t!
Surely you don’t need to smush the entire screen? How about a flying game, where you keep your thumbs on the edges of the screen (and you’re using it widescreen), so the positions of your thumbs equate to movement? Might as well use that multi-touch, eh? Both thumbs high = climb, both low = dive, both middle = steady, left thumb low + right thumb high = bank left, left thumb high + right thumb low = bank right, etc. Nice analog input, even.
Then there’s the usual virtual joystick idea, which seems to me would work a lot better on the iPhone than it does on the iPod.
–Eric
Personally I like the idea of games MEANT for the touchscreen–they’d play differently from any PC or console game. They’d be their own thing, maybe with touch-controls in the UI, but maybe involving only direct manipulation. Dragging or pinching could open up possibilities, but even just tapping alone (which might be all you could do with a plugin) is certainly enough to play a game.
Yeh, I agree with you all … I was just pointing it out/seeking peoples thoughts … I guess I used a negative to provoke a response … it worked. 
It would change the way the game would have to be played for sure and it’s obvious that one would have to consider this when developing a game for a button-less device. Maybe the “tilt” function could be a part of the gameplay too. Instead of changing aspect it could control something?
Question: Can you view widgets on an iPhone ?
J.
Good thought! Someone already made a simple tilt-based Web game for the iPhone.
You can’t put 3rd-party widgets–much less executable apps–on an iPhone right now. ONLY web pages, with JavaScript and no plugins. It’s amazing what people are doing within those constraints, but nothing is possible with Unity yet.
Even on a hacked iPhone (which people are hard at work on), you couldn’t run conventional Mac OS X apps or plugins: they are made for Intel or PPC processors, and the iPhone uses a third architecture: ARM. Without tools for making Mac OS X ARM apps, I don’t see it happening.
BUT I do expect Apple will one day provide such tools
The screen is big enough for controls on one end while the game is shown on the other. It’s not that small… Uunless you have gigantic hands or something.
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Who says that you need to show any controls at all?!
iLove my iPhone, w00t!
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I’ve read that! Personally i don’t need it. Maybe it get’s interesting in it’s third iteration. Actually i’m still a man without a mobile phone.