As with our Nintendo Wii announcement this is likely going to generate a lot of interest and a lot of questions from folks. Please do not hesitate to ask your questions, we’ll do our best to answer them as we too are quite excited about this news. For us this is exciting not just because it’s about the iPhone, but also because it marks another key point in Unity’s history: it’s our first foray into the mobile and devices space. Unity FTW!
To preemptively answer what is likely to be the first question: we do not yet have any pricing or licensing information to share, we are simply announcing the fact that we will be implementing support for iPhone content creation. Please stay tuned for that sort of information as time rolls on.
We’re expecting some news coverage on this and so I’ll do my best to keep this post updated with the various outlets covering our announcement:
The two questions that first come to my mind: What about networking on the iPhone? GPRS/UMTS have terrible lag, so that probably won’t work for anything but turn based games (which could be a lot of fun, too, of course). I’ve read that Bluetooth on the iPhone is somewhat crippled, i.e. it only allows pairing with a headset. Bluetooth obviously is the “hottest” technology for mobile networked games because it allows “quick sessions” with people that are nearby. Is there any way for Unity to make Bluetooth networking possible, or does the SDK not provide access to Bluetooth? If it’s possible - is it also planned to implement that?
Same with WLAN… I think right after Bluetooth, that’s the second coolest option for networking (and for many kinds of applications, it would probably even be better than Bluetooth). Is it possible, and if so, is it planned for “iUnity”?
Ah, a third question comes to my mind: What about persistent data storage. I have one application that I’d like to port to the iPhone which needs the possibility for me to store files that I download (it’s kind of like a persistent cache). All I need is just some way to store some files away and get them back (in the current application, which is a J2ME app, I’m using RMS, which is about as simple as it gets … the files are GZIPed ).
I really like the idea of getting Unity for the iPhone because it kind of bridges two worlds I live in (one is games, the other is very secret, haha … let’s say it’s one of the dinosaurs of entertainment ).
Wow! This is the news I have been waiting for. A few questions spring to mind:
Will this provide all the access to the SDK that say Sega have? Their monkey ball demo was awesome and it would be good to be able to replicate this in unity!
2)Will there be an option to publish a Web Player that Safari on the iPhone can load or is it simply a case of depolying to iPhone in the build settings and feeding it through Xcode somehow?
3)Not really a question, more of a statement, please please please make this a feature of the Indie release, you know it makes sense!
PS. Just think how this could work with google maps! Click on a location and be taken down into a 3D walkaround world!!
Hmm, these questions have more to do with what Apple is providing than Unity.
I think internal storage is done through an SQLite interface. Haven’t looked into it much. If you can store your zipped file in a SQLite database… On this Unity might have to provide some new hooks… not sure.
Haven’t looked into networking at all, but you can get web/internet access from the apps, of course.
My guess is that Unity would provide everything that the Monkey Ball example used. How they give access to the accelerometer data is up to them, but there would be nothing restricting them from doing so. With a little know-how, acceptance into the iPhone developer program and $100 you can access it yourself. There’s no reason I can think of that Unity couldn’t accomplish everything that any app made with Xcode and the new iPhone SDK can do. (In a quote in one of those articles, it is mentioned that Unity will have a new Input API for iPhone specific input.)
My understanding is that it’s not about a web plug-in. I would say that’s an unlikely step as the plug-ins in Safari seem to be under tight control by Apple. I suppose it’s possible, but the ability to sell my game through the iPhone App Store is much more exciting to me. I’m not even sure why you’d want it in a web page on a small device like that. :?
I imagine Apple will probably provide a way to hyperlink from a web page right to your app on the app store as is done with iTunes. Since you can make apps available for free, this is almost as good.
I’m just wondering if the iTouch is supported as well? I actually just ordered one but I’ve been waiting on the next gen iPhones. I can’t see why it wouldn’t work since they are effectively the same device less the phone and camera. I just thought I should ask to be sure there wasn’t an issue.
As a Unity pro licensee I would like to ask if this is going to come as a plugin to the current development environment or as a separate toolkit.
Thanks
Wow, this announcement is listed on the sidebar of Macrumors.com twice. Good going, Unity Technologies!
I can only hope this leads to Unity becoming a more widespread force in the industry. I really love using it, and it would be great to be able to find work using Unity all over the place.
… the files are GZIPed ).
:lol: