That is the reason I don’t use my current phone for an mp3 player. I’d be charging the darn thing all the time. Gaming is worse, especially if there is any 3d elements in it, will suck your battery dry in a couple hours.

Couple this with the fact that you can’t (easily) swap batteries with the iphone/pod, it really emphasizes how nice it is to have seperate devices (at this time).

~S

I do still see some parallels to the PDA world – in particular the Palm. They launched and sold more devices in a year than the other ‘serious’ PDA’s to date (Newton, HPLX and Psion) had sold in total over the course of several years. Quickly PalmPilot became synonymous with PDA sort of like Xerox and Kleenex. That spawned a huge market for add-on software. And a decade ago people really wanted PDA’s in ways they don’t now.

One big difference is that the relationship was different. Palm wasn’t hosting and taking a cut – it was independent vendors. They had no vested interest in what was sold, and therefore we ended up with 500 lousy clock apps. All that Palm (and later Microsoft) cared about was touting numbers, so they implicitly condoned hacks creating useless junk that filled up shareware sites.

I agree that for a 1.0 release, the App Store is pretty amazing. I could use more granularity in categories and more advanced search methods. And let’s not forget that the system completely lacks a demo / trial system!

I guess one area I somewhat disagree with you on is the commercial impact of the iPhone *in the context of competing with the DS / PSP*. The $200 ‘price cut’ has been debunked as ‘razors & blades’ pretty much everywhere … you lose the ‘savings’ within the first year. Which is not to say that the system won’t sell well – it has already done very well – but it is competing in the fairly narrow smartphone market. If anything, it will impact the PSP – which is much more centered in the ‘hey, look at me, I’m soooo cool’ market than the DS crowd (particularly anyone playing Guitar Hero On Tour in public ).

As for actually gaming on the iPod Touch, I still find it only ‘good’. The bottom line is this – the leaked capacitance sensor of the iPhone offers neither the precision nor sensitivity of the PDA screen (also the DS). I have been putting loads of time into the Sega CD port ‘Vay’ – which is really good by the way – but am constantly dealing with control issues I wouldn’t see with a traditional touch screen. But, on the positive side – it is reportedly at least as powerful as a Dreamcast, and is definitely more technically capable than either the DS or PSP.

Aaron:
- The DS has sold ~75 million worldwide, and the PSP ~35.
- You are right – this is not a ‘zero sum game’.
- Most people don’t want to carry multiple devices (I’m looking at my cell phone, PDA and iPod Touch on my left right now … ), but they also don’t like crap … like using most cell phones as PDA’s or music players (or video players or web browsers). The iPhone has the best portable video player I’ve used, excellent music capability (not as good as a dedicated iPod), best handheld web browser I’ve used, excellent utilities and just the right amount of flexibility and control. It is about the best case for a mainstream ‘convergence device’ I think I have ever seen.

But, for Apple to gain traction doesn’t mean Nintendo or Sony have to lose.

The DS didn’t see a million less sales when the iPhone debuted which suggest, as much as you like your iPhone, the ground work of Nintendo and Sony has already been laid for their handheld gaming systems.

Last sale figures of the Nintendo DS? Nearly 20 million units in the US alone. 20 million!
Last sale figures of the Sony PSP? More than 10 million units in Japan (still tracking down total US sales)

All I am saying is Nintendo and Sony don’t (and probably won’t) have to lose for you, or anyone else, to enjoy gaming on your iPhone.

Personally, I like my gaming device to be built for gaming. When I need to use the phone, I pick up the phone. But I’m probably just the kind of consumer the corporations and advertising companies really want to “converge”.

Sure the Touch has the App store and lower development/publishing costs as a result along with ultra-convenience, but not going to happen.

The Touch will be good for some games no doubt. And will probably be the best cellphone gaming platform, but……

I suppose they could come out with a button/d-pad attachment. Even then Nintendo knows this market as you’ve seen lately with the Wii and DS. They know games. And as Apple knows there are advantage to doing both hardware and software.

The facxt that this stuff is so good out the gate is even more impressive.

Tell me more about the Trek game?

I am currently playing a bunch of games, and all of us had fun playing Tap Tap Revolution over vacation and I taught my kids Othello. I also have some adventure, puzzle and other games (as well as obviously filling up on utilities).

But one thing struck me – I grabbed a Star Trek game, which is very similar to one I had on my Newton and have played in various incarnations for longer than Tetris … and the thing that struck me is that the iPhone / Touch is more like the PDA’s of the last 20 years than it is like the smartphones of the last couple.

I mean, on vacation I also brought my Pocket PC, which has portable versions of Doom, Heretic, Hexen, Wolf3D, as well as some things like Bejeweled 1 & 2, Bubble Babble, LodeRunner, Chess, Solitaire, Othello, and some strategy and RPG games. My other one has Call of Duty 2 as well (16MB graphics processor).

So what does that mean? Well, ask yourself – what has been the impact of the PDA market on the DS / PSP / GBA? Yeah, pretty much nuthin’. And while I think that the iPhone / Touch market will be somewhat bigger and better, paging through the stuff at the App Store reminds me of an upgraded version of e-tailers for PalmOS and Pocket PC apps 7-8 years ago.

That said, one of my favorite things is reading a review (or an article) and going to the App Store, grabbing the app instantly and getting to use it. Just grabbed a ToDo app while writing this.

Actually, I am excited. I got the Itouch for music, so I am pleased that there are some fun games. Usually, Apple and games don’t go in the same sentence unless you include “lack of.”

How much are “old” IPhone 1′s going for now? How much will they be going for when the iPhone 3G Mark II – or whatever – comes out next year?