Hey all,
So I was in the Apple store today, found a cool stand for my iPad. I am paying for it and the young lady helping me says 'So, find any cool Apps lately?' 'Yes!' I answer quickly. She asks what they were, and I begin telling her in detail these cool Apps I have found.
Mind you, some I only use one or two times and never again, but I was just dying to see what they were and did. Some are used daily, and some I am still learning.
And when I was in the car, leaving the mall, I thought on it... How much it is just like Flight Simulator, back in the early days, when there were TONS of developers, and every week had a huge yield of new freeware as well as some new payware, which was a new thing back then, which became heavy in FS2004. You bought FS to run all the Addons on. You could find some really cool websites that had all the newest, coolest freeware, hear reviews on them, fly online with people and talk about them and compare notes.
In reflection, I think that perhaps the true beauty of FS was its SDK. The tools that let you put planes in FS were the big thing, and it was easy then, (fs2002, 2004). So many people were creating innovative planes, and others could go in and do some tweaking and improving and modifying, doing repaints, etc. People like Bill Lyons, doing scenery as well as planes, missions, even...!
Those were fun times.
The thing I am getting at, and wanted to post on, was that I see so much of a simularity between Flight Simulator and iPhone. They are 'media players'. They run 'addons'. Apple have promoted the heck out of the iPhone and its OS, and have gone out of their way to make SDK's that are super simple, have a huge SDK department at Apple that help developers, have online schools (I am a student there) and offer all these resources to get people to make Apps for iPhone, and its dang fun! Seeing all these new apps you can download, and most are free or just .99 cents. Some mind you are a big $2.99, $4.99, and even up to $20.00 or more, but most are either free or .99 cents.
When developers of FS were starting out, they made freeware and it was a big thing. Your name was up at the main websites like FlightSim.com and they would do a review on your plane. Great reviews were like fuel for the soul in making more planes. Then, you dared to cross the payware line, and bing, you were now treading on the land of 'investments' and possible criticisms.
FS was like iPhone OS. It was an ingenious playground for developers to make things for and people would download new things on the weekends to run on their simulators. Same with iPhone. On Friday nights, Saturday nights, or a really slow night where I cant sleep, I go into Mac mode, go to itunes, and just start parusing the various Apps and things that I can get for my iPhone and iPad. Some of these programs that are free are try-outs, and the producers iron out the bugs, then go to payware, and usually they remain affordable, nothing too expensive, just affordable fun.
By the way, this is why I made my new Skylark so inexpensive. I thought it would be neat to duplicate the pricing index and see if I could quadruple sales. It may not have worked as people may have thought it was 'cheap' and not worth it if its just $12.00. It was an experiment I had been wanting to do, and it was fun to finally do it. I guess I was trying to blend in my learning and viewing of Apple Apps with Flight Simulator marketing.... Perhaps two horses of totally different colors.
I sometimes miss the ole FS2004 days...
Bill
So I was in the Apple store today, found a cool stand for my iPad. I am paying for it and the young lady helping me says 'So, find any cool Apps lately?' 'Yes!' I answer quickly. She asks what they were, and I begin telling her in detail these cool Apps I have found.
Mind you, some I only use one or two times and never again, but I was just dying to see what they were and did. Some are used daily, and some I am still learning.
And when I was in the car, leaving the mall, I thought on it... How much it is just like Flight Simulator, back in the early days, when there were TONS of developers, and every week had a huge yield of new freeware as well as some new payware, which was a new thing back then, which became heavy in FS2004. You bought FS to run all the Addons on. You could find some really cool websites that had all the newest, coolest freeware, hear reviews on them, fly online with people and talk about them and compare notes.
In reflection, I think that perhaps the true beauty of FS was its SDK. The tools that let you put planes in FS were the big thing, and it was easy then, (fs2002, 2004). So many people were creating innovative planes, and others could go in and do some tweaking and improving and modifying, doing repaints, etc. People like Bill Lyons, doing scenery as well as planes, missions, even...!
Those were fun times.
The thing I am getting at, and wanted to post on, was that I see so much of a simularity between Flight Simulator and iPhone. They are 'media players'. They run 'addons'. Apple have promoted the heck out of the iPhone and its OS, and have gone out of their way to make SDK's that are super simple, have a huge SDK department at Apple that help developers, have online schools (I am a student there) and offer all these resources to get people to make Apps for iPhone, and its dang fun! Seeing all these new apps you can download, and most are free or just .99 cents. Some mind you are a big $2.99, $4.99, and even up to $20.00 or more, but most are either free or .99 cents.
When developers of FS were starting out, they made freeware and it was a big thing. Your name was up at the main websites like FlightSim.com and they would do a review on your plane. Great reviews were like fuel for the soul in making more planes. Then, you dared to cross the payware line, and bing, you were now treading on the land of 'investments' and possible criticisms.
FS was like iPhone OS. It was an ingenious playground for developers to make things for and people would download new things on the weekends to run on their simulators. Same with iPhone. On Friday nights, Saturday nights, or a really slow night where I cant sleep, I go into Mac mode, go to itunes, and just start parusing the various Apps and things that I can get for my iPhone and iPad. Some of these programs that are free are try-outs, and the producers iron out the bugs, then go to payware, and usually they remain affordable, nothing too expensive, just affordable fun.
By the way, this is why I made my new Skylark so inexpensive. I thought it would be neat to duplicate the pricing index and see if I could quadruple sales. It may not have worked as people may have thought it was 'cheap' and not worth it if its just $12.00. It was an experiment I had been wanting to do, and it was fun to finally do it. I guess I was trying to blend in my learning and viewing of Apple Apps with Flight Simulator marketing.... Perhaps two horses of totally different colors.
I sometimes miss the ole FS2004 days...
Bill
