GameCenter: Apple looks to emulate Microsoft’s success with Xbox Live-like video game community for iPhone

I guess Apple is serious about gaming now. It just announced, as one of its many iPhone “pillars,” the development of GameCenter, which our man on the scene, Greg Kumparak, described as “Xbox Live for the iPhone.” Match-making, leaderboards, achievement points, the works.
Developers will be able to mess around with GameCenter as soon as the iPhone OS 4.0 developer preview goes live later today, but won’t be available to the general public till the operating system’s release later this year.
The idea is to leverage the many, many games currently available on the App Store—more than 50,000 by Apple’s count—and build a veritable gaming community, just like what Microsoft has done with its Xbox Live service (even though Microsoft has been focusing on non-gaming enhancement to Xbox Live for some time now).
Given that this was just announced seconds ago, it would probably be wise to slow down before championing the idea that Apple is ready to push Nintendo and Sony, makers of the DS and PSP, respectively, out of the market.

No Multitasking for iPhone 3G and Early iPod Touch Models

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One of the finer points Steve Jobs let loose at the end of the iPhone OS 4.0 announcement today is that only the iPhone 3GS and iPod touch third generation (the most recent iteration from fall 2009) will have the capacity to support the iPhone OS 4.0’s new multitasking features.
In other words, owners of the iPhone 3G, iPhone 2G, and first or second generation iPod touch models will not be able to multitask.
The current generation of devices “will run pretty much everything” in the new mobile operating system. The earlier iterations of iPhone and iPod touch, however, “will run many things, but not everything.” Jobs says they won’t be able to support multitasking because “the hardware just can’t do it.”
That’s bad news for owners of those products, who won’t be able to take advantage of one of the major updates coming in the new OS. This is certainly not unprecedented in the fast-paced world of technology development, but we’re sure there are a number of users of earlier iPhone and iPod touch models who are a wee bit miffed at this point.

Apple Introduces iAds: “Mobile Ads with Emotion”

Apple has officially unveiled its new mobile advertising platform, iAds, the “seventh pillar” of the new iPhone OS 4.0.
The new iAd platform, which we learned about just two weeks ago, will be built directly into the iPhone OS interface. During today’s iPhone OS 4.0 unveiling event at Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, CA, Steve Jobs stated that the company is looking to change the face of advertising. Jobs wants to conduct the ad experience within apps rather than search — a dig at Google — and is looking “to change the quality of the advertising as well.”
How will that work, you ask? Apple’s CEO pointed to what he believes is a flaw of both standard online advertising and TV advertising — the combination of interaction and emotion. The key is that ads will keep users within an app, rather than redirecting users to a browser window.
When you click on an iAd advertisement, it will take up the screen using HTML5. Once it is open, you can explore the ad. Apple demoed an advertisement for Toy Story 3, demonstrating the ability to not only see information about the movie, but to watch trailers, play games and more — all within the same application from which you launched the ad. You will even be able to buy products within ads.
Just like the iPhone app store, there will be a simple revenue split. Developers will keep 60% of revenues, however, rather than the 70% they are awarded for iPhone apps. In return, Apple will host and deliver all of the iAds.

Everything you need to know about iPhone OS 4.0

The iPhone OS 4.0 event just wrapped up and the faithful are filing out of the Apple venue with a slightly shell-shocked look. What happened? Oh nothing, just multi-tasking, iAd, a huge Mail update and a bunch of other stuff. Yes, the long-awaited OS update for the iPhone has just been run down and we’ve got all the details.
Here, in handy bullet point form, are all the things you need to know about iPhone OS 4.0…

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• There have been 50 million iPhones sold so far (along with 450,000 iPads)
• OS 4.0 will be going out to them this summer, but a developer preview will be available today
• Thousands of new APIs, including many “accelerate” APIs which allow developers to add hardware acceleration
• Multi-tasking is coming. They admit they are a bit late to the party. Details below:
  -double tap of home button shows running applications. Invoke at any time, it’ll pause games and so on.
  -the app-switching tray pushes up the other home icons and has a sort of metallic background.
  -it’s a bit disappointing, actually: it’s more the ability to switch quickly between “active” apps. Nice, though.
  -iPhone 3G and iPod touch 2nd gen will not get multitasking. No mention of iPad.
• There are seven background services that will be allowed, and which shouldn’t significantly affect the performance of other apps:
  -Background audio: i.e. Pandora can play in the background and popup controls can control it.
  -Background VoIP: Skype calls will continue if you need to switch apps; a “return to call” button will show, and you can also receive Skype calls on a locked phone.
  -Background location: turn-by-turn directions can continue when you leave the app. Music can run at the same time and will quiet down when directions need to be said. Very slick. Uses cell-tower-enhanced AGPS. A notification will show in the status bar if an app is transmitting your location. You can also turn off location app-by-app.
  -Push notifications: the same push notifications you know and love.
  -Local notifications: in-phone notifications for, say, pop-up alarms and such. Local app stuff.
  -Fast app switching: this is the service by which apps can store their state when you switch to and from them.
• Folders. These are basically stacks of apps. Drag one app onto another to create a folder. This will really help un-clutter some iPhone screens (makes room for people to buy more apps). Makes for a maximum of 2160 apps. Is there an app for taking it easy on app downloading?
• Homescreen wallpapers. Yes, very nice.
• Enhanced mail. Several changes here:
  -Unified inbox. Web mail, MobileMe, multiple exchange accounts – thank god. This is nice.
  -Thread organization. Handy for such a powerful inbox.
  -Attachments for third-party email. Get your Gmail attachments right in Mail now.
• iBooks: I think we all expected this. It looks just like the iPad version, though somewhat smaller, obviously. Sync bookmarks and such between devices. Comes with Winnie the Pooh!
• Better email encryption, and some sort of in-app encryption is in the works.
• SSL VPN support
• Social gaming features: challenge friends to games, compare high scores on leaderboards and so on. Matchmaking and achievements. Nice, looking forward to this on the iPad. Hot seat Civ 4 with someone I’ve never met? Why not?
• iAd: In Steve’s words, somewhat paraphrased: “Developers [of free apps] need to find a way to start making their money. A lot of developers turn to advertising – and we think these current advertisements really suck. If you look at advertisements on a phone, it’s not like on a desktop. On a desktop, its about search. On mobile, search hasnt happened. People aren’t searching on their phones. People are spending their time in apps. The average user spends over 30 minutes using apps on their phone. If we said we wanted to put an ad up every 3 minutes, that’d be 10 ads per device per day — about the same as a TV show. We’re going to soon have 100m devices. That’s a billion ad opportunities per day! “This is a pretty serious opportunity, and it’s an incredible demographic. But we want to do more than that. We want to change the quality of the advertising. We’re all familiar with interactive ads on the web. They’re interactive, but they’re not capable of delivering emotion. We have figured out how to do interactive and video content without ever taking you out of the app.”
  -Apple will sell and host the ads; the revenue will be split 60/40, with devs getting the 60. Anybody can make them, just like apps.
  -Ads are done in HTML5 (a little dig in there for Adobe)
  -Fully interactive; the Toy Story ad he showed looks like a native app, includes a game, graphical interface and everything. They can call out for showing times, current prices, and so on. It’s essentially a commercial break app.
  -Access to APIs: somewhat scarily, ads will have access to location, accelerometer, and a lot of other stuff.

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That’s all! Pretty crazy update, actually. We’ll be filling out coverage throughout the day with more careful examinations of the new features.