Wired had a bit to say about accelerometers, and the iphone's upcoming SDK yesterday evening. It's a good write up, so I figured I'd share their post with you all.

What do accelerometers, the iPhone SDK and touchscreens have in common? They're the three big things that could see cellphone gaming have its first good year. Even the N-Gage revival finally took off on Monday, opening its doors to public testing after months of delay.

"A lot of people were inspired by what happened with the Nintendo Wii," said Matthew Turetzky, RealNetworks' vice president of non-PC gaming, when I spoke to him at a recent trade show. "But touchscreen is the big change, with the iPhone. It's such a perfect technology for the casual gaming experience."

The iPhone could see an explosion of authorized native game development later this month, when Apple releases an official software development kit. By then, thousands of owners of Nokia N81 phones will be playing a limited selection of N-Gage titles on their high-end handsets.

Touchscreens are the hot technology in cellphones, and will see attention from game developers, especially as they become standard-issue features on new models.RealNetworks is one company aiming to make a go of cellphone gaming. Though none take advantage of the new technologies, each sees it moving hugely-successful PC games to the mobile. Recent titles include Luxor 2, the sequel to a puzzle game downloaded 60 million times; MTV Cribs, a rhythm title that puts Hip Hop into the hook; and Collapse Chaos, a mobile entry in another popular franchise."Accelerometers will remain nichey," Turetzky predicted. "Touch will be the next big thing, and we can incorporate that technology quickly."Ulf Wretling, a general manager at Sony Ericsson, sees things differently."We've been looking into accelerometers for some time," Wretling told us late last year. "We've talked to all the game developers and asked them, 'What can you develop with this?'"Sony-Ericsson's accelerometer-equipped K850 ($500), and the similar K910 model, both include a modern version of Atari's classic Marble Madness, controlled by tilting the handset itself. Accessible to Java developers as a standard programmable system feature, the accelerometer is easily integrated into games and other software.While motion sensing of one kind or another is the hot technology, advanced mobile gaming also requires number-crunching chips that can output fast, console-like graphics. Phones containing powerful processors like AMD's Imageon 2300 series are now widely available: among them are the AT&T Tilt and HTC's Touch.

More and more titles are available, created using cross-platform tools like Java, which can be hooked up to the 3D hardware with the OpenGL programming interface.

Mobile chipset maker Qualcomm is using phone games to help pitch its own Java-like programming interface, named BREW.

"The technology, it's already here," said Qualcomm spokesperson Anita Hix, though she said she expects advanced visuals to put to mundane purposes like navigation before they take off in mobile gaming.

Some of the most hyped new games are being produced for Nokia's Series 60 handsets. The N-Gage brand, almost ready to be relaunched, promises Nintendo DS-like 3D visuals and top licenses such as FIFA Soccer and Call of Duty. A public beta of the service opened on Monday.

The original N-Gage was a much-derided Nokia gaming phone launched in October, 2003. Now, however, things are different: the sticker goes on a while range of high-end Nokias, including the N73, N95, N81 and the N93.

"Games run natively, and because of that, they're very visually stunning," said Nokia's Sally Vedros.

Almost 20 titles are expected for launch, costing between $10-$15. All will be hooked up to an online community, with in-game friends lists and, where appropriate, multiplayer competition.

People who already own N-Gage-compatible handsets can download firmware updates to get their game on without forking out for new hardware.

Though there's a tendency to make mobile games compatible with even the most low-end phones, higher-powered mobile gaming is becoming more popular. Verizon wireless reports that mobile gaming revenues increased 38 percent in the first three quarters of 2007, compared to the same period last year. Motorola's Stephen McDonnell said in one interview that he hopes to see the likes of Amazon and Google help spearhead take-up by offering mobile games for sale.

Nonetheless, other companies take a low-tech approach that runs on any old phone. GestureTek is pushing a mobile "gesture control technology" that works on millions on handsets already in Americans' pockets.

"It's deliverable over the air," says Adam Schlegel, GestureTek's lead developer. "We can target the millions of handsets which are already there. We don't need an accelerometer."

Named the "EyeMobile Engine," GestureTek offers shake, rock and roll using software alone. It operates on the same principle as an optical mouse, but tracks what the phone's camera sees instead of a sensor.

GestureTek game titles include a slalom game featuring the Crash Bandicoot stable of characters, and a bowling game that requires the same realistic swoop of the arm as Nintendo's own version. The gesture system can also be used for less entertaining phone functions, like answering calls or changing the volume.

Other mobile gaming schemes announced recently include Sprint Arcade, the carrier's $10-a-game download service, MySpace's gaming channel, and Vollee, a gaming startup that plans to augment cellphones with processing power from their own servers, the results being delivered in real-time using high-speed 3G networks.

Can't wait to see what other kind of games these companies and other freelance programmers come up with! :-)

(Source: A Wired Story)

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gpSPhone, the Gameboy Advance emulator, has been updated to v1.5.0. New changes in this release includes:

- Added support for both scaled/unscaled landscape and portrait view settings.
- Added support for firmware 1.1.3’s “mobile” user. gpSPhone should run well on 1.1.3 now.
- Added hardware accelerated scaling for better performance and look.

This release should be very stable and slightly faster. You now have the option between portrait and landscape mode. Hardware scaling gives a smoothed over looking picture, which some may prefer, with the advantage of performance.

A big thanks to Exophase, the author of gpSP, for his continued work on emulation. Without him, gpSPhone couldn’t exist.

For public domain ROMs (legal homebrew games) , head to Kojote’s great site: http://www.pdroms.de

Downloads for gpSPhone v1.5.0 can be found by visiting the Download section. It is available at the ZodTTD.com public Installer.app repo.

All you folks who earned your manhood (or womanhood) in the trial-by-fire that is the 1.1.3 jailbreak can now play rousing tournaments of Mario Kart with ease, and the scaling and use of OpenGL should make it a lot prettier.

In case you hadn't noticed, Zod also has a cool new look for his blog that's worth checking out.

(Source: ZodTTD)

Well, no more. Thanks to fsaint of the modmyifone forums, it is now possible to type out your shopping list on the ipod touch, and as you go along, hit the "Have" button for items you've already picked up in your shopping cart.

Also, here's a temporary fix for 1.1.3 jailbroken users by the creator himself:

There is a way to set the permissions. So here is the dirty thing ... ShopList stores two files, need and have and the are in /Applications/ShopList.app/. So you need to change the ownership of of need and have:
chown mobile:mobile /Applications/ShopList.app/need
chown mobile:mobile /Applications/ShopList.app/have

and also you need to change the permisions of the directory
I did
chmod 755 /Applications/ShopList.app/need
chmod 755 /Applications/ShopList.app/have
chmod 777 /Applications/ShopList.app/

there might be a more subtle way to set the permissions, but that works. Anyway I have a new version that stores the files in the right place /var/mobile/something. I hope to publish that over the weekend.

[ Download ShopList.app ]

Repo Source: http://mazinger.cs.yale.edu/iphone-apps/index.xml

Now this, I will be taking advantage of. :-) Thank you, fsaint.

(Source: a modmyifone thread)

Very soon ZodTTD.com applications such as snes4iphone, gpSPhone, OpenTTD.app, and psx4iphone will be receiving updates to fully support firmware 1.1.3 change to using the ‘mobile’ user instead of ‘root’. There is however a quick fix for those who want these and other applications to work with 1.1.3. You must chmod (set permissions) to 777 to the /var/root/Library/Preferences/ directory and also chmod 777 the directories used for external files such as ROMs, usually somewhere within /var/root/Media/.

More news to come shortly. Thanks for the continued support everyone!

"Very soon" is now the current estimate. Be patient -- this ain't Duke Nukem Forever, and he didn't say When It's Done™ so we're safe.

(Source: ZodTTD.com)

NOTE: Some people (myself included) are reporting problems with Summerboard coming up as inactive after installing and rebooting, resulting in a non-functional Summerboard install. Thus far we have not determined the problem and therefore have yet to find a solution. If it does not work for you, have some patience and hopefully the collective braintrust (or Nullriver themselves) can come up with a workable solution.

UPDATE: After some straw polling, it would appear as though the ones effected are those who used ipodtouchmaster's all-in-one jailbreak method. The solution that has worked so far is to do the whole jailbreak process all over again and use the official Dev Team GUI 1.1.3 jailbreak method.

I know, you all love me right now. Please put down the crowbar.

UPDATE 2 (Feb. 2nd, 2008): Well, after banging my head against a brick wall bristling with rusty iron spikes tipped with salt and vinegar, I have finally and successfully jailbroken 1.1.3 by starting with a clean 1.1.1 restore, jailbreaking my way through to 1.1.2 and then using the Official 1.1.3 Upgrader and not using the restore feature. It did freeze with a blank screen after the "Jailbreaking System Image" notice, but I forced a reboot and it popped into the 1.1.3 springboard with everything working flawlessly -- including SummerBoard! After 12 hours of futzing around with this whole 1.1.3 jailbreak debacle, I believe I can finally say that I am done.

That's right. There are actually two application versions of Wikipedia.com's database that are available for the iPod Touch (and iPhone, of course).

One huge difference between the two is the size of the download. Wikipedia.app will require ~2GB's of space, while the iPhonePedia.app will only consume an astonishing ~150MB's!

Update (from Patrick [starter of Wikipedia.app] on Jan 4th, 2008)

...the iPhonePedia app needs you to download a dump from the main Wikipedia servers in addition to their 150MB file -- so you end up
with 3.1GB of stuff (not 150MB). Wikipedia.app (the one I wrote :) needs a little under 2GB (keeping this size down was one of the big
goals when developing it).

Here's the basics on Wikipedia.app

What: An offline Wikipedia reader for the iPhone or iPod Touch. I wanted to write an iPhone app over Christmas, and so hacked this together during the break.

Why: It's the warm fuzzy feeling of having the sum of all human knowledge in your pocket. It's the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy realised. EDGE is slow; search is slow; you're abroad, in a plane, a tunnel, or on top of a mountain. You have an iPod Touch.

Size: It'll consume about a quarter of your iPhone's storage—the app, indexes and dumps are almost exactly 2GB together.

Completenes: This still has a lot of rough edges. Some articles can't be opened, and it's not too hard to crash the app.

Other: There's also a mongrel-based ruby server for offline browsing on a PC (was used for debug during development). See sh/server in the source distribution. No screenshots yet.

Download

Application: Wikipedia.zip

Dump: enwiki-20071018-iphone.tar

Source: wikipedia-iphone-0.1.tar.bz2 (GPL)

Installation

Put the app in /Applications. Use something like Customize.app to get it onto your springboard. Untar the dump, and put the contents at /var/root/wp. If using Windows, check out the in-depth Windows installation instructions contributed by rebelxtnut.

Here's the basics on iPhonePedia.app

iPhonePedia is a quite terrible name but summarizes it well: this project allows to run a local wikipedia database on the iPhone and iPod Touch.

You may be wondering what the hell is the point of wasting precious iPhone space for something you can just access onlie. Well, I personally don't really see any, but I have an iPod Touch, hence the need for something offline and the smaller worries about disk space!

Check the following pages to know:

• FeaturesList
• ScreenShots
• HowItWorks
• InstallationInstructions
• ThankYou
• AlternativeSolutions
• DataFiles

Sources:

- (iPhonePedia.app) http://trac2.assembla.com/iPhonePedia/wiki/FeaturesList
- (Wikipedia.app) http://collison.ie/wikipedia-iphone/

Dear SummerBoard Developers,
SummerBoard just may be the number one reason an iPod Touch user jailbreaks their iPod. They are willing to use illegal measures to be able to customize their iPod any way they like. You and Customize run the jailbreak scene; customize has updated so you can run it on 1.1.3, so I am here, asking you, please hurry your ass's up. I miss my background, my customized icons. I miss all the abilities you have given me, then taken away (damn you, 1.1.3!). So, do whatever you need to do to develop a patch, drink far too many coffee's, Red Bulls, what have you; but PLEASE, fix it! I speak for thousands when I say this - BRING SUMMERBOARD BACK!

Love,
Your faithful users

P.S. - It's great to be back.

Edit (February 1st, 2008):
THANK YOU NULLRIVER!

Image credit to: txkimmers

(via iPod Touch Fans)

Edit:
There seems to be a bit of an issue occuring with this guide. Please follow at your own risk.

ipodtouchmaster, Chris Stroud, and ipodtouchhacker have made a repo making it possible to jailbreak firmware 1.1.3 and install the 'App Pack' all with one easy step. Have a look at the instructions posted by Chris Stroud himself, on the ipodtouchfans forums!

Thanks to the efforts of ipodtouchmaster, Chris Stroud, and ipodtouchhacker. We have released a new automatic jailbreak that still requires no computer. Our new version is a spawn of the Dev Team Jailbreak, but it installs the iPhone apps ( The January Software Update) during the install. This should really help simplify things! if u have questions or comments, post them. This Jailbreak may take up to an hour to install!

Our Repo for this is:

http://ipodtouchmaster.com/files/repo.xml

We are currently making a video right now, either check back here, or check ipodtouchmaster's youtube page in an hour or two.
this may or may not work on the iPhone, but we don't see why it wouldn't. Thanks and good luck!

Requirements:

Jailbroken 1.1.2 device

Latest Version of installer

BSD Subsystem 1.5 or greater (2.0 is current)

Turn Autolock to "never"

Attatch your device to a power source (or make sure it has full battery)

- The iPod Elite Team

Disclaimer- if you already have a Jailbroken 1.1.3 and want the 1.1.3 Apps, go to the same repo (you may need to refresh your sources) and install the 1.1.3 iPhone Apps Package, then install the Mail Fix. we are ging to try to merge these in to one file for your conveinience

Disclaimer Discaimer- We have received several requests for paypal information. our current paypal address is: its4you@charter.net

Currently, we are seriously killing Apple's bandwidth, that is why it is soo slow.

Thanks a lot you three. This'll be of much assistance to many, I am sure.

Source: an ipodtouchfans thread

Here is the quote from the ipodtouchfans.com thread:

here is a repository i made to get all the iphone applications for free including the webclips and wiggly icons. So you need a jailbroken 1.1.3 to install this. It does NOT give you any of the iphone preferences!!! so your ipod stays an ipod but with the iphone apps! now to use the mail.app you need to install 1.1.3 fix mail to save your password. that is included in my source.

Add this source to your ipod:
http://madpike05.googlepages.com/repo.xml

Then go to category Ipodtouchmater install the package called The iPhone 1.1.3 Apps.. and there you go! then install 1.1.3 fix mail if you use the Mail.app.

Much thanks to homeruntilly for helping me out with this!

I, Jody Mitoma, can confirm that this does in fact work. I just did it now, without problem. :-)

Source: an ipodtouchfans thread

There is no doubt that the top story right now is the 1.1.3 Jailbreak for the iPhone. It has also been revealed that this jailbreak process also works for the iPod Touch -- as long as you don't mind giving it a split personality with the iPhone's firmware and applications. Now that we've answered the big question, though, the little ones now surfacing en masse: Will my all of my apps still work? Do I still have access to emulator ROMs? What about the 300 meg app limit? Is it still there and can we bypass it like the good ol' days? Fortunately, the masses have been fervently trying everything out, answering these questions and even providing tutorials for you. Today, I would like to gather the most pertinent and useful of these threads together so that those of you who have not been intrepid enough to do the deed can now get as much information as you need in one place to feel a little more comfortable performing the upgrade. Hit the read link below for the whole scoop.

If you followed yesterday's stories about the release of the jailbreak then you have the primary tools and instructions you will need to perform the upgrade and jailbreak. Just so we're clear however, or in case those instructions aren't clear enough, ipodtouchfans.com member ipodtouchhacker has posted a Youtube video tutorial on how to jailbreak to 1.13. (NOTE: Some have reported problems with the Jailbreak method going from firmware 1.1.1 straight to 1.1.3. If you have the 1.1.1 firmware, It is suggested that you perform the 1.1.2 upgrade and Jailbreak first, and then perform this 1.1.3 upgrade.)

Now comes the fun part: Returning your iPod Touch to the functionality and feature list it was at before the jailbreak.

More Touch, less phone

To start with, ficho of ipodtouchfans.com gives us a replacement N45AP.plist file to make the device less iPhone and more iPod Touch:

Okay, I haven't seen this simple fix anywhere si I'll post it here.

What it does?
- makes your iPod act like iPhone, but...
- adds contacts on your springboard
- removes the stupid "iPod" icon and replaces it with standard iPod touch's "Music" icon
- removes all the stuff from .plist that are not needed (tryed removing more, but it disabled the 5 apps and webclips and homescreen reordering)

How it works?
- you backup (just in case) your N45AP.plist file in /System/Library/CoreServices/SpringBoard.app/ and replace it with the attached one you download and unzip.

O, and MAKE SURE YOU RESTART YOUR IPOD for these changes to happen!

(Original thread: http://www.ipodtouchfans.com/forums/showthread.php?t=29470)

Alternatively, the post below this one lists an alternate method for enabling the apps without turning your Touch into a quasi-iPhone.

That pesky app limit

Yes, the 300 meg app limit is still there. Fortunately nothing has really changed here; you can still manually move and symlink the Applications directory to /var/root/Applications, or just install and use BossTool to do the heavy lifting for you.

Compatibility Check

Now we're ready for the bit where we put all our favourite apps back. The question is though, will they work? 1.1.3 underwent some significant system changes that alter the way apps are run , so it stands to reason that this is going to cause some consternation with some programs. Fortunately, plenty of users have taken it upon themselves to extensively test a boatload of apps. This ipodtouchfans.com thread is an ongoing series of tests by users listing which apps work and which apps don't. So far, most of the majors seem to work just fine except for Summerboard, which appears to work for everything except your Summerboard background image. Other miscellaneous apps tend to fail, but for the most part the majority seem OK.

For you LastFM members who lament the incompatibility of MobileScrobbler, you're in luck, as a new 1.1.3-compatible beta version 1.4 has just hit the wires. Get it while it's hot!

Bottom Line

This is not the most ideal jailbreak solution we've seen, and it isn't perfect, but as of right now there is no word on when a Jailbreak solution specifically tailored for the iPod Touch will be released, so this is all we have to work with. Hopefully, if you want to crack your Touch open but have been putting off the procedure because the information was too scattered and unconfirmed, this article will help to gather all of the most important and pertinent information in one place to make it easier for you to decide whether now is a good time to spring your Touch, and how to do it as painlessly as possible.

We will keep you all posted on further developments as they happen.

Read up on how to do so, here:

Have a jailbroken 1.1.3? The iPhone apps are locked away in the firmware. Install the App Enabler to unlock them:

1. Add http://www.modiphone.net/repo to your Installer.app sources list. Refresh sources.
2. Install 1.1.3 Touch Apps under Modiphone.net

Please note that there is ZERO copyrighted code in this package. All we are doing is replacing the app’s Info.plist files with our own. Uninstalling will revert back to the default plists.

Note: MobileMail may or may not show up on your SpringBoard with this version. Please report back in the comments.

Edit Update (1:14PM GMT -05:00):

It is being said that getting the App Pack this way does not install MobileMaps.app. I suggest you install the App Pack using the option previously mentioned below, on Touch Podium!

Source: http://www.modiphone.net/ipod-touch-113-app-enabler/

Please note, you do, of course, have to have a JAILBROKEN version of firmware 1.1.3.

Read his post below!

i have figured out how to get the iphone apps and squiggle icon move for a 1.1.3 jailbroken ipod touch. These are the steps.
1) Im assuming you have a jailbroken ipod touch, so download BSD Subsystem and then OpenSSH.
2) Login to your ipod with Windscp or the mac one with your ip address as host name, root as username, and alpine as password.
3) Go into /System/Library/CoreServices/Springboard.app and rename N45AP.plist to some like N45AP.old.
4) Then change M68AP.plist into N45AP.plist and reboot iPod Touch.

I hope you like it! I am currently trying to get it so just $20 ipod apps show up.
NOTE: This will give you Phone, SMS apps.

Source: an ipodtouchfans.com thread

However, this is not all the news I have for you! dybacz is taking things even a step further, and is working on adding a few more options to the Customize menu!

...

As found in this ipodtouchfans thread, here is what dybacz is working on next:

I was thinking of uploading then thought i might add some extra stuff:
1.like the vasor when u tap screen with the shuffle button ect

2.Whole Video App

3. Maybe TTR

and others if anyone has suggestions

dybacz plans on eventually releasing this Customize add-on within a repo and making it available to all for download.

"PocketGuitar is a virtual guitar for iPhone and iPod touch. You can even have guitar sessions with the songs in your iPod!"

Installation:

Launch Installer and choose "Sources", then add http://podmap.net/apps to your repositories.

PocketGuitar will appear under the "Toys" category.

Also, here is a list of things they plan on working on for the next release:

* Make bass sounds louder
* An option to decrease number of frets and make them more farther apart
* "Auto-Pluck" mode option - the string is plucked when you touch it on the fretboard. It would be less realistic compared to a real guitar, but you'll be able to play it with one hand and it will help you play faster phrases more accurately.
* Make the yellow volume bar more realistic :)
* Reverb and Chorus effecters
* Make plucking less sensitive (maybe as an option) - Instead of plucking when the string is touched, don't let it plucked until the finger is dragged.

Now this, is awesome.

Source: http://code.google.com/p/pocketguitar/

IBM plans to make e-mail software available to users of the Apple Inc.'s iPhone and iPod Touch, according to a report from The Associated Press.

The AP reports that IBM (NYSE: IBM) plans to release a version of its Lotus Notes e-mail program for the portable Apple devices. The company also will release a suite of Microsoft Office-like software, known as Lotus Symphony.

A formal announcement is expected next week at an IBM conference in Orlando, Fla., the AP says.

The partnership could be beneficial for corporate types who use Lotus Notes for their e-mail. Currently, businesspeople can only access corporate e-mail on the iPhone if their corporations use, and properly configure, the Microsoft Exchange program.

But IBM boasts of more than 130 million worldwide users for Lotus Notes - a clientele that, if tapped into, could make the iPhone a more palatable alternative to devices such as Research in Motion's BlackBerry.

Much of the work on Lotus software is done at IBM's campus in Research Triangle Park, where Big Blue employs 11,000. Shares of the company were up less than 1 percent, to $102.17, in afternoon trading.

Source: http://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/stories...

- Jody Mitoma

According to daringfireball.net, Apple must comply with a specific law that was passed back in 2002.

Here is what they had to say:

The $20 iPod Touch Update

There were audible groans in the keynote hall when Jobs announced that the iPod Touch update costs $20. That’s an interesting difference between the Touch and the iPhone. One reason, I think, is that unlike with iPhones, Apple is not accounting for iPod Touches on a subscription bases — so they have to charge something to add features in order to comply with Sarbanes-Oxley. But they could charge something less than $20. I wonder how frequently Apple plans to offer $20 feature upgrades to Touch owners.

No wonder...

Source: http://daringfireball.net/2008/01/keynote_roundup

- Jody Mitoma

[DO NOT PERFORM THE FOLLOWING!]
I am leaving it up to give programmers and non-programmers some ideas so that we could possibly get this done sooner.

...

...

Also, here’s what TUAW.com had to say about all of this: http://www.tuaw.com…ipod-touch-owners-rally…

Digg users are also showing their hatrid for Apple right now. If you are a Digg users, please take a minute to digg this story up.

Thanks for taking the time to hear me rant.

- Jody Mitoma