Should the Escapist make an iphone app?

[DigitalSushi]

(By the way, I noticed the difficulty you had with proper spelling. I'm presuming that you typed that message on your iPhone, and the bad spelling is partially a consequence of the terrible on-screen keyboard that they insisted that you use. This message was written using my E71; note that I don't seem to have any noticeable spelling or punctuation errors. That happens to be one of the virtues of a proper hardware keyboard.)

Ohh that reminds me!, I need to send an incredibly poorly written text to my friend!.

Thanks RAK.

 

['-_-]

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes!!!!!!!!!
BTW you should make this a poll

 

[Shenanigans176]

No. Bad idea. Very bad idea... The effort that it would take to make an app would not be profitable at all. You can just use the browser...

 

[Nevyrmoore]

No. Bad idea. Very bad idea... The effort that it would take to make an app would not be profitable at all. You can just use the browser...

Except that you wouldn't be able to actually watch any videos, leaving you with the text-based works.

 

[GrandAm]

The Iphone has more similar competition than it did when it came out. In fact many of the new phones coming out now are directly inspired by the Iphone as far as function. Roller balls and enter buttons are getting replaced by touch screens more and more on new non-Iphone products.

Should anyone make an app., sure if they think it will recover their development costs and even turn a profit.

But the Iphone is becoming less and less a unique piece of tech. What will determine its viability is whether or not consumers continue to adopt/use the Iphone as other competetive products come. What is the largest driving point for sale in a competetive market, cost.

As long as the Iphone is locked in with ATT it will eventually be over run by other now similar products.

My ATT/Iphone bill is $140 USD a month to give me unlimited everything on the ATT carrier. My contract is up in Feb. I will shut it down. I am looking at Boost mobile which offers $50 USD a month for unlimited everything. Plus no long term contract.

I like the Iphone. I like its functionality. It is just so expensive to operate. Especially when other phones and other carriers provide similar function at a third the cost. Apple is in danger losing market share, which brings back the point of whether or not people should make apps. Only if they know that they are going to turn a profit with this tech.

I have read online that Apple is considering making it open to all vendors as a phone for their carriers, by not renewing their contract with ATT. God I hope so. I like ATT's coverage, but they are just too expensive compared to other competition. I predict if they lose the Iphone as a proprietary item, they will be bought out by Verizon within two years.

When the Iphone does go open carrier, they will be the dominate moble tech on the market at least for the next decade.

 

[Nevyrmoore]

No. Bad idea. Very bad idea... The effort that it would take to make an app would not be profitable at all. You can just use the browser...

Except that you wouldn't be able to actually watch any videos, leaving you with the text-based works.

Because the iPhone lacks Flash. Having an Escapist application wouldn't sort that out. I've addressed this already. [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.155147] If you really wanted the proper internet on your phone, you would have waited for the Nokia N900, the only phone on the market with full (!) Flash support.

Personally, it doesn't make a bit of difference to me. I don't own an iPhone and am not currently interested in owning a smartphone (due to not being able to afford them). Only thing kinda iPhone related is the iPod Touch. But even then I'm hesitant to buy it.

 

[Crimsader]

No, they shouldn't.

 

[Viruzzo]

Wouldn't it make more sense to just have a mobile version of the site? Lightweight, made for smartphones and the like.

an application would be useless anyway, because your sub-par phones lack Flash support, and all of The Escapist's videos use Flash.

Aside from the fact that you are a fanboy (and thus fail as much as Apple fanboys), you clearly don't know what you are talking about. It's the players that "use" (read: are made in) Flash, there is no such thing as a "Flash video" (well actually there sort of were, but now everything is just some form of MP4 + H.264 + AAC). This means that if you "link in" the file from the site, Safari for iPhone is perfectly capable of opening it (as is any other browser), with its own perfectly working player.

Edit: actually ZP videos are encoded in the (old and sucky) Flash video format, I guess we should convince Yahtzee to use a more modern, open and efficient format...

 

[Viruzzo]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SWF - container files which are used by Flash Player.

Anyway, nobody's going to bother reworking their video files for the QuickTime framework when the majority of internet users are already using Flash on their computers, particularly not The Escapist. The costs to Themis Media for providing an iPhone-specific set of QuickTime video files would greatly outweigh the advantages.

Again, do more research before writing. The video is not an SWF, the player is. Videos are either FLV (Flash video format, old and crappy) or MP4 (also M4V, which is a non-standard extension for the very same thing).
MP4 is not an Apple product, nor are AAC or H.264! This is a common misconception due to the fact that Apple was among the first to embrace these formats, but they are (as the extension suggest) parts of the MPEG-4 standard (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPEG-4), and there are perfectly good open source encoders for them (better than the commercial ones).

BTW, does it really count as fanboyism if you're willing to accept the advantages of all of the competitors to the iPhone and support them all as choices? Sounds more like fan-hating to me

OK, but anti is as bad as fanboysm (at least because it creates as much flames).

the only reason that I have to do it is because people won't listen to reason and just buy an iPod Touch and a cheaper feature phone rather than the more expensive choice of the iPhone.

That's what I've done, so yeah, that's a decent advice, but buying an iPod Touch AND another smartphone doesn't make much sense.

 

[clairedelune]

Clearly this thread called for a smart phone war.

 

[George Palmer]

yes, as long as I dont have to program it.



The grammar nazis r out n full force 2day. lolz

What, you guys don't know Objective C and have loads of Macs laying around?!? Hehe

We do, its just that I don't want to do it. I'll do the graphics or animation for it, but I leave all the programming and back end to other people.

 

[George Palmer]

Oh and re-encoding our videos for use on iPhone would be very easy. Select all videos, drag into Compressor, output for iPhone, hit render, come back when its done.

I'm not saying that we are doing this or have plans to, just that if we did, the video re-compression aspect of it would be easy. The back end though...I don't know about that.

 

[Kajt]

Yes, that would be quite nice. Unfortunately, I don't have an iPhone.

*grammar Nazi awaaaaay!*

Hehe.

 

[AdamG3691]

This thread has been done before. Recently, in fact. [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.159076]

So, do I want the Escapist to make an application for the iPhone? Hell no! Would it be reasonable for The Escapist to make an application for the very small percentage of their members who frequently use the browser on their iPhones to read The Escapist? No, it wouldn't - an application would be useless anyway, because your sub-par phones lack Flash support, and all of The Escapist's videos use Flash.

Unlike you, I have a proper phone, with a proper mobile operating system. My Nokia E71 runs Symbian S60, the most popular smartphone OS in the world. My phone, running this operating system, can do everything that The Escapist has to offer, because unlike your wastes of silicon, Nokia had the foresight to give my phone Flash support. OK, it needs a separate web browser to open up The Escapist's videos, but then, at least it does it. As for the rest of you misguided fools, maybe next time, you'll support a mobile OS whose designers didn't all have their heads up their arses. Maybe Android, or Maemo, or hell, even Symbian. With all the hype going around about the iPhone, it's easy to forget that Symbian is still well on top, weathering the projected storm nicely by appealing to a market who want a phone that can actually be used properly as a phone.

(By the way, I noticed the difficulty you had with proper spelling. I'm presuming that you typed that message on your iPhone, and the bad spelling is partially a consequence of the terrible on-screen keyboard that they insisted that you use. This message was written using my E71; note that I don't seem to have any noticeable spelling or punctuation errors. That happens to be one of the virtues of a proper hardware keyboard.)

*coughfanboycough*

Apple are not doing flash because they are the makers of quicktime, which happens to be in competition with flash. so to put your argument into perspective "PS3 IZ DUM BCUZ THEY DONT HAV XBOX LIEV" it's silly to say that one phone isn't as good, simply because it doesn't have a format that the makers are competing with.
If you are accusing Apple of having their "heads up their arses" maybe you should have a look at yourself, who is acting like any other phone is trash, JUST because you have a slightly better phone.

The spelling problem is maybe because he/she was rushed, I have an iPod touch and I don't have any problems with spelling, it is entirely due to an individual's competence with a touchscreen (if he/she was actually using an iPhone at all to write the original post.

Personally, I would LOVE an Escapist App, at the moment I am using an RSS viewer, and it does not display things very well, so a dedicated App would be great.

PS. What 'tard buys a phone based on the fact it has Flash?