Yep… I make my first iPhone app and it really is that simple to compile. No reason for the Chuck Norris image really, I had to use something. I don’t actually have an iPhone yet so I even find the emulator fun to play with at the moment.

The Xcode development platform absolutely rocks but if I’m honest, I only get half of it. It really is a half and half thing. The half I get is the interface constructor, the UI libraries and so on. The half I don’t get is the slightl weird Visual C syntax of the code. If you know C or maybe even AS2 or 3, some of it will be familiar but the rest is propper strange. Most of the answers to “why?” are “because you have to”. Still, I fully realise its my lack of cleverness rather than Apple’s dev platform. They seem to have done pretty well with it so far.

Anyway, I’m off to get some more skill, so watch this space.

This site was has just popped up on my radar…

[ http://www.whattheyplay.com ]

As the header says, it’s aiming to be “The parents guide to video games”. Ok, if it was me I’d have capitalised the ‘THE” but there you go.

Anyway, some great articles on there. Lots of ‘Get the facts’ bluffers guides to popular technologies or platforms as well as links to reports on kids gaming and trends. There are several console categories, a blog and a bunch of interesting articles. Strange they don’t have a ‘web games’ section though given that likes of Miniclip are hugely influential in this space.

Here are some example articles worth a quick scan…

• Parents More Concerned About Video Games than Alcohol or Pornography
• Are You or Your Kids “Extreme Gamers”?
• Miniclip: Get the Facts
• What is WiiWare?
• Kongregate: Get the Facts
• Webkinz: Get The Facts

Needless to say, I’ve signed up to the newsletter, so I expect my spam folder to be a little heavier this month before I figure out where it went.