appToyz appBlaster

Gaming peripherals have a bad reputation, and not without good reason. From the sublime Steel Battalion controller to every ridiculous Wii peripheral, these plastic appendages have one thing in common: they make gamers look sublimely ridiculous. appToyz appBlaster Point and shoot: appToyz appBlaster Even those which …

[Sir Runcible Spoon]

Sir

couldn't someone just program the fps to move forward if you tilt the screen forward past a certain angle? (Same goes for moving backwards and strafing using tilt).

[Greg J Preece]

To hell with that

If the accelerometer performs that function as well as it does in, say, Time Crisis Strike, it'll be awful.

[Greg J Preece]

Already been done

Saw this on YT ages back, where some guy nailed a tablet to the top of a gun. I'll try and find the vid.

[Neoc]

You missed something.

"It would be easier on Android phones and tablets, naturally. Thanks to Google's open Bluetooth policy, PS3 controllers have already been fully paired with devices to control emulator and homebrew games. "

Having recently jailbroken my iPad, one of the thing that I installed on it was MAME. And one of the options in MAME is to sync with a Wii control via bluetooth.

So, while I am no fanboi (I use a win6 phone with an experimental backport of android as dual-boot, for example) I do feel I need to point out your mistake in saying Android is ahead of the game in that arena.

[Jedit]

What mistake?

iproducts are just computers and apps are just code. It's wholly obvious that iOS should be able to run such apps. You should have realised that when you said "I've jailbroken my iPad so I can do it", you also said that if you hadn't jailbroken it, then you couldn't. That is why Apple are behind in the game; because they DON'T let you run these apps, not because their products CAN'T run them.

[Bailey]

AppleBlaster

Cheers for that, Jedit.

I didn't write that Android was ahead of the game, Neoc, just the easier platform. Jailbreaking iOS and pairing a Wiimote for emulators is one thing, but playing an official iOS game with an unauthorised third-party controller is another game entirely.

In its present form, the appBlaster doesn't interface with iOS in any way, so it can't transgress Apple's interface restrictions. If 'appBlaster 2.0' were to have the imaginary bluetooth controls mentioned, developers like Gameloft would have to openly support the interface, which would require a sea change in Apple policy.

Since Google places no restrictions on third-party devices/interfaces, the likelihood of seeing an 'appBlaster 2.0' on Android is that much greater.

Some jailbreak coders are attempting to create a wrapper on iOS that hijacks the touchscreen protocols and conveys those inputs through to a controller (which would retrofit to any and every existing iOS FPS), but they haven't succeeded yet.

[Jedit]

Ah ... now I have to drop the other shoe

You're not much more likely to see appBlaster 2.0 on Android - in fact, as designed it could never work on Android. The reason it works on iOS is because every iOS phone is the same size. Android devices come with a variety of screen sizes and formats, so the touchscreen controls would be of different sizes and in different places relative to the hammers.

[Bailey]

Hammer Time

Ah, but if all the controls were bluetooth, including the triggers, you'd obviate the prodders. Then you've only got to worry about a decent clamp to secure the tablet / phone - games would be controlled entirely through regular inputs.

Tablets aren't all that heavy, so some kind of bar with foam / rubber padding would do. It might look a little ungainly, but it would work.

[Jedit]

Hence my saying "as designed". Redesigning the product not to use hammers would also require re-programming every available app.