pouët.net

hello. we're thinking of making a "pure" scene production for iphone, and if anyone's found the way to spread such a production without adding fake interactivity to it and calling it "game" - please share your thoughts?

There's the jailbreak distribution channels, but that's not really ideal.

Why not add a menu to the start, with a bit of info about what the scene is and links to a few scene sites plus a button to start the demo? I guess that will get past the censors.

If you want people to see it you'll have to put it on the App Store, but I mean - not much has to be included in it to make it be accepted. Just a link to some website and a few buttons to toggle sound, start the demo and such. Oh, and you'll have to stick to the officially accepted SDK, but I guess it shouldn't be a problem.

There are loads of musicians and bands making "iPhone apps" which are just their music in a player, some photo gallery and a link to their Twitter-feed. I can't see why yours should be any different.. unless you include porn. :)

sure we're including porn! and also some mandatory photos from the boozembly! \0/
..

ok, thanks. and yes, on spreading i sure meant appstore for vanilla iphones, not jailbreaked ones.

There is a way to custom upload applications to non-jailbroken iphones, avoiding appstore.
http://www.innerfence.com/howto/install-iphone-application-ad-hoc-distribution read this article.
And it's need to know UDID of iphone, to make a build for it.

Raynoa: This can only be done for a maximum of 100 different UDIDs

Puryx: thanx, didn't knew that limit, I'm not a coder;)

raynoa, i'm afraid that's the way to test an app rather than to spread it.

and btw, is there still no way not to pay 99$ even if your app will be free?

You have to pay the $99 to get access to the store, certificates to sign the binaries, etc. No way around that, unless somebody is prepared to upload it for you (could be an option here i think if you don't mind losing control a bit..)

99$ for Moskova is a problem?=)

yep, you can ask frends-developers. who has sertificates etc to upload your application on their own risk.

when you're done you can port the code for the nokia n900.. comparable hardware..

Actually forget what I said before. Pay the $99. Borrow the money if you have to. Your sales on day 1 will be >$99 easily.

How is the N900 comparable to iphone?

Other than both being phones...

N900 has amazing gems *cough, hi Gargaj* that iPhone doesn't have.

Hmm iphone often lacks cool demos to show it off. I'd pay 99c for some good demos. Maybe you could get your 99$ back - there must be a lot of non-sceners who would like cool demos too.

$99 / 99c = 100

just my 2c :)

Fuck, that was in the wrong thread! I mixed this one up with the xbox puzzle game thread somehow. I don't want to start paying for demos :( (And $99 day one sales for a demo is a weeny bit optimistic too!)

Well, I guess one option could be to make it kind of 'donation ware', and charge $1 until you've made your $99 back then make it free? The tax forms etc. will make it hard work though.

mind you it's $99/70c = 141.42857143etc :)

Best way is to do it for some free platform that doesn't restrict application development and deployment. Like Android, Maemo or Symbian. Besides, iPhone's screen is really crappy anyways. I wouldn't want to watch a good mobile demo from any other than AMOLED (or equivalent) display anymore.

wah wah wah, yet somehow we manage to enjoy using these things

This way, you have to pre-register all the devices that will be able to install it to your compiler, and all ad-hoc installed apps will uninstall themselves after 4 monthes.

Unless it's mind-blowingly-awesome, and you spent years working on it with a huge team: don't charge for the demo. Give it away for free and use it as a showcase for your work. The $99 App Store developer-fee is just something you're going to have to swallow - in the same way people had to pay for the XNA developer access on Xbox 360. If you want to be on the platform: pay for it. Don't pass on that puny amount to your potential viewers, that's just stupid.