Willow Design

Those of you who know me might be inclined to to assume I’d automatically pick a Microsoft Smartphone – and indeed I use one of these, the HP Touch Pro 2 – and very nice it is.. as a phone. I’ve been using Smartphones since day 1 so I know what to expect. The HTC handles Exchange mail very efficiently, it handles Google mail slowly and as for calendars and contacts I have no problems. It runs Tom-tom and other sat-nav software and when you stop the car it hasn’t a clue where it is facing.. and that perhaps starts to paint a picture.

When Apple developed the iPhone 3GS they included not only a sat-nav but also a compass and an inclinometer.  Sat-navs only work if you’re moving – because they compare your location at one moment to that at the next moment and hence calculate your direction and speed.

So to go back a little… the later HTC smartphones have sat-nav, inclinometer, touch screen and sound.  The only thing the iPhone adds there is a compass and multi-touch. These simple changes form a large part of the improved experience.  What seems to be the other important item is a strange one.. LACK of multi-tasking. HTC phones almost always feel underpowered – you find yourself thinking.. wouldn’t this be great if only it was a little faster.   It may be horsepower or the fact that the iPhone only seems to want to do one thing at once, but it IS fast enough.

No-where can this be bettered than when performing that most urgent of business tasks – PLAYING RACING GAMES!

I present to you “GTI Racing” – the best racing game I’ve seen for ages. I’ve played DOZENS of these in my time – the PC versions are great but using a keyboard is not the best way to steer and there is not much room on my office desk for a steering wheel (though I hate to admit I do have one somewhere gathering dust). Then there is the X-BOX 360 – I just do not like those controls at all. How about the WII?  Had one of those – sold it – generally speaking the graphics are pretty awful – not a patch on the X-BOX… so I’d just about given up when I spotted GTI racing for the iPhone – the demo is free and so I thought “why not”. It’s brilliant! Acceleration and braking is automatic though putting your thumb on the screen gives you manual control over the latter… it’s the steering that does it for me. Holding the phone in both hands (or one if you’re clever) you simply TURN the iPhone to the left or right to steer – it’s as intuitive as it gets… 

You’d think on a phone the graphics would be limited and a little jerky? No. They are marvellous. On the basis that a picture paints a thousand words, here are some pictures of me totally blowing a race. There is FAR more that can be said of the iPhone and no doubt given time I will – but this one game makes it worthwhile.

Regards

Peter Scargill