20 Best iPhone, iPad, Android and Windows Phone games this week - The Guardian (blog)

It's time for our weekly roundup of new games for smartphones and tablets, this time covering iOS, Android and Windows Phone.

The week's pick of new and notable games includes Peter Molyneux's mobile comeback, Angry Birds getting The Force, ponies, hobbits, rope-cutting, magic, knights and word puzzles. A good night in, you could say.

Prices apply to the initial download, so when a game is "Free", it may well include in-app purchases. All prices are correct at the time of writing (8 November), but may have changed if you're reading this at a later date.

This is veteran games designer Peter Molyneux's big new idea for smaller screens: a giant virtual cube that players around the world are chipping away at, trying to discover "the life-changing secret" buried in its centre. Is it a good game? Is it even a game? That's being fiercely debated, but it's true that the actual chipping is rather moreish.
Android / iPhone / iPad

You can read our full review for an explanation of why Angry Birds Star Wars is the best Angry Birds game yet, but as a guide: it does a good job of integrating Star Wars characters and weapons, provides plenty of depth with its 120 available levels, and isn't over-aggressive with its in-app purchases.
Android / iPhone / iPad / Windows Phone

If you've been keeping up with the 'bronies' phenomenon, you'll know that My Little Pony isn't just for young girls these days. That should be good news for Gameloft's official game, which sees you rebuilding the town of Ponyville, playing mini-games, and connecting to friends. It's a freemium game, which parents of younger fans should be aware of when downloading.
iPhone / iPad

Peter Jackson's new Hobbit trilogy hasn't made it to cinemas yet, but there's a new game from social developer Kabam. It sees (in theory) thousands of players teaming up to drum the goblin hordes out of the Misty Mountains. Expect elves, dwarves, lots of diplomacy, and in-app purchases to fund your ambitions.
iPhone / iPad

EA has already turned FIFA into a social mobile game, but now another of its big sporting franchises is following suit. Madden NFL 13 Social has been launched across Facebook and iOS, and sees you building a team and taking on friends, all based on real-world NFL players.
iPhone / iPad

Windows Phone got two Angry Birds games this week, with Angry Birds Space finally making its way onto Microsoft's Marketplace. The game sees you firing birds through gravitational fields across 150 levels.
Windows Phone

And here's one more huge mobile gaming brand making the leap onto Windows Phone. Cutesy monster Om Nom has brought his rope-cutting action to the Marketplace, with 300 physics-puzzle levels and the promise of "more to come".
Windows Phone

Describing itself as a "visceral whack'n'smash action-adventure", Wraithborne uses the Unreal Engine 3 to deliver spiffing graphics alongside its fantasy ("wraiths, goblins and werewolves stalk the lands...") plot. Your job is to kill as many as possible with spells and weapons, while exploring the landscape.
iPhone / iPad

Less a pure game (although that's its App Store category), and more a "GPS-triggered treasure hunt" around the capital city. This is based on a 1908 map of London, and a book by folklorist Edward Lovett. The game involves wandering around London looking for 64 of Lovett's amulets, while listening to audio readings, looking at images and reading the text.
iPhone

Atari is busily updating a number of its famous games from the late 1970s for the apps era, with Outlaw following Centipede Origins and Super Bunny Breakout onto iOS. This takes the Wild West theme of the original Outlaw game and runs with it: a variety of locations, weapons and a freemium pricing structure.
iPhone / iPad

Air Patriots is an inventive take on the line-drawing genre that made Flight Control such a hit: while planes figure here, it's as much a tower defence game than a copy of its predecessor. It's also the first mobile game from Amazon Game Studios – yes, that Amazon – available on its Kindle Fire tablets, but also iOS and Android.
Android / iPhone / iPad

Wreck-It Ralph is the new animated film from Disney, but it's also crashing onto the App Store in game form. In fact, there are three mini-games based on the movie to play here: fixing, blasting and climbing along with characters from the film.
iPhone / iPad

More tower defence here, but with less planes and more shambling undead monsters. Based on the famous movie from the Evil Dead trilogy, it sees you fending off 50 waves of zombies with the help of various characters from the film, with power-ups to help you stay unbitten.
Android

It's a good week for app-based warmaking, with Gameloft joining the fray with its freemium strategy game World at Arms. It sees you building a base, training up troops and then battling other players from around the world, like a modern-warfare (as opposed to Modern Warfare) take on the currently-popular Clash of Clans.
iPhone / iPad

Square Enix's Mensa Academy game started life as a Wii, 3DS and PC title, but has now been ported to iOS. It promises more than 1,000 questions spread between numeracy, language, logic, memory and visual, with shades of Nintendo's famous Dr Kawashima in its tracking and testing features.
iPhone / iPad

More zombies here – a week without any new mobile games featuring zombies remains an unfeasible prospect – but they're joined by robots and ninjas, at least. The game sees you boarding a train to have at them all with a range of weaponry and gadgets, with virtual coins (and thus in-app purchases) fuelling the destruction.
iPhone / iPad

League of Heroes is a charming, social hack'n'slash adventure that sees you slashing (and hacking) your way through monster armies while earning coins, upgrading your character and connecting to Facebook friends.
Android / iPhone / iPad

As elite iOS word-game players mull whether to ditch Words With Friends for Letterpress, Electronic Arts enters the fray with its own literate game, Word Smack. It involves trying to find as many five-letter words as possible over three rounds, playing against individual friends asynchronously.
iPhone / iPad

Here's another interesting puzzle game designed for online multiplayer action, this time splicing poker with match-three puzzles. Friends can be challenged through Facebook or Game Center, as you swipe to match pairs, straights and other cardy combos.
iPhone / iPad

This looks great fun: an Android version of an existing Flash web game called Coign of Vantage, which has been out on iOS for a while. Each level presents you with a cloud of pixels, which you have to rotate until you uncover an image. More a "zen exercise" than a pure game, but still good.
Android

That's our selection, but what are you playing this week on your smartphone or tablet? Make your recommendations, or provide feedback on the games we've chosen, by posting a comment.

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Is A Windows 8 Tablet PC That's Like An Apple iPad 2 Possible? - Tablets Planet

Posted on 24. Jul, 2011 by Paul in Tablets

The Apple iPad 2 running Windows 8 is nothing more than a fantasy.

Now before you go all crazy I don’t mean making a Windows 8 tablet that’s running a mobile operating system like iOS on the Apple iPad 2. What I mean by building a Windows 8 tablet PC that offers iPad 2 benefits. Benefits that include 10 hours of battery life, quick boot and instant-on from sleep, speedy operation throughout the operating system, and a physical weight of 1.33 pounds. Is a Windows tablet with those features even possible?

In the history of the tablet PC there have been some lightweight models but those models were supplied with some very low-end specifications which ruined the Windows experiences. Also in the tablet PC’s history there have been some very powerful models released but they were also very expensive (close to $1000 starting prices), heavy (more than 3x an iPad 2), and battery life was iffy.

Everything about the Windows tablet PC’s past says that an iPad 2-like tablet is not possible. However Microsoft has unveiled Windows 8, and unlike previous Windows tablets the Windows 8 models can use ARM processors instead of the X86 Intel or AMD chips.

Microsoft has shown off Windows 8 running on ARM in a few live demonstrations but those demos haven’t shown anything that could be considered really amazing. In the demos the presenters have only shown Windows 8 on ARM doing one major task (playing a H.264 HD video or running Notepad), basically the demos have shown things that people already knew modern ARM processors were able to do. I haven’t seen a demo that shows multiple programs running at once.

I don’t know about you but when I’m using a full operating system like Windows I’m doing more than just one thing at a time. As I write this article on my Windows 7 computer I’m running 83 processes with six major programs running (Google Chrome, Firefox, Foobar2000, WordPad, VLC Player, and MajicJack) and my computer isn’t lagging at all.

Microsoft presents Windows 8 like it will be a Windows 7-like experience but with a new touch-friendly mode that’s available for users to mess around with on a touchscreen. Right now with Windows 7 Microsoft offers various versions for buyers to run on their PC, there is even a stripped down version for low-powered computers like netbooks (Windows 7 Starter Edition). Will Microsoft have a Windows 8 Tablet Edition available for ARM-powered tablets?

The Apple iPad 2 runs on an ARM processor and the operating system that was built specifically for that type of processor. When Microsoft launches Windows 8 it’s not really clear if they will offer an ARM only edition but my guess is they won’t it due to the extra confusion that would create. You see all the applications that Windows 7 can run right now on X86 processors aren’t coded for ARM support. Microsoft has spoken about creating tailored apps for Windows 8 that work for ARM powered tablet PC’s but it’s only talk about this point.

Microsoft is expected to launch Windows 8 sometime in the early part of 2012, and tablet PC’s running the OS might get shown off at CES in early January of 2012. Now whether a Windows 8 OEM or even Microsoft themselves will have a tablet ready, that can offer those iPad 2 benefits mentioned above, by early 2012 for a live demonstration is unknown.

Tags: apple ipad 2, ARM processor, Microsoft, Microsoft Windows 8, tablet, Tablet PC, Tablets, touch tablet, Windows 8 tablet, windows tablet

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Microsoft may be porting Windows to ARM, but it makes no sense

Bloomberg is reporting that Microsoft will announce that it is porting Windows to run on ARM processors at CES next month. The target will be tablets and other battery-operated, low-power devices.

Microsoft has two operating system lines. There's the Windows NT-derived operating system now selling as Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. And there's the embedded Windows CE-derived operating system, currently shipping as Windows CE 6.0 R3, which sits at the heart of Windows Phone 7. The Windows CE family is already available and running on ARM processors, and has been for many years, so the assumption is that the rumor is talking about the Windows NT family: Windows (or some derivative) for ARM.

Microsoft has refused to comment on the claims, but company insiders confirm that, at the very least, such a port has been worked on. It's been rumored before, by none other than the CEO of ARM. Some kind of Windows-on-ARM release, therefore, seems likely. What we don't know is exactly what form such a port will take—or what the point will be.

ARM processors are famed for their power efficiency. They're used in a wide range of embedded applications, including digital cameras, palmtops, Game Boys, smartphones and, perhaps most relevantly to this news, tablets such as Apple's iPad and Samsung's Galaxy Tab. Though their absolute performance cannot begin to rival that of Intel or AMD's x86 processors, in the power envelopes found in smartphones and tablets, ARM's greater efficiency wins out, making it the best performing option in this market segment.

It's this efficiency—and the lengthy battery life that it affords ARM-powered tablets—that is likely the reason for Microsoft's interest in ARM. The battery life of x86-powered Windows tablets such as HP's Slate 500 is around five hours. In contrast, ARM tablets like the iPad can achieve ten hours, and that difference is, in part, a result of the iPad's A4 processor (a high-end ARM design named Cortex A8) having much lower power usage than the Atom in the Slate 500.

The port could materialize in a few different ways. The most straightforward would be to simply port Windows 7 more or less as is to run on ARM. It would offer developers the same APIs (though they would have to recompile their software), it would offer users the same interface and usage experience; it would be the Windows that everyone knows and uses, running on low-power ARM processors.

In a similar vein, Microsoft could create a similar port, but slap the Windows Embedded label on it. Windows 7 already has an embedded variant; it's like regular Windows 7, but lets OEMs remove the bits and pieces they don't want or need. Microsoft can then sell it to OEMs to slap on their own tablet front-ends. This is one of the models that Microsoft promotes for Windows CE, so could easily be used for ARM Windows.

The other obvious option would be for the company to build an actual tablet operating system with a user interface that's usable on tablets. It would be Windows behind the scenes, but instead of the mouse and keyboard-oriented Windows interface, and all the mouse and keyboard-oriented programs, it would be a new tablet interface, with new tablet applications. A true tablet Windows, built for iPad-like hardware. The sensible option here (and I think one a lot of people would like to see) would be to build on the Metro interface used in Windows Phone 7, as this would provide both user familiarity and allow developers to target both phones and tablets together.

The problem is that none of these really make a whole lot of sense. It's true that at the limit, ARM machines will have better battery life than x86 machines. But battery life isn't the thing standing in the way of widespread acceptance of Windows tablets. The user interface is the problem. The user interface has always been the problem. The iPad has an interface designed for fingers, the Galaxy Tab has an interface designed for fingers, the future webOS tablet will have an interface designed for fingers, and it's no real stretch to suggest that every successful tablet that will ship in coming years will have an interface designed for fingers. And it's this interface that Windows lacks.

If Windows had a proper touch interface, nobody would care about the architecture it ran on. x86 tablets would be good enough, and I suspect that in many cases, the slightly inferior battery life will be more than offset by the better performance of x86 machines.

The most pointless option would be a straight port of Windows to ARM. Such an operating system would have the inappropriate front-end with an added bonus of being incompatible with every existing Windows program ever written. Sure, it would have better battery life, but it would have better battery life on systems that no one would want to use, just like they don't want to use existing Windows tablets.

The embedded option is, at least in principle, the one that Microsoft promotes for Windows CE, so it could be used for embedded Windows. But it's awful for users and awful for developers, and essentially awful for everyone. It's possible that some third parties will do a decent job of creating a tablet interface, but they haven't done it so far and there's no reason to believe that they'll do so in the future.

The final option—creating a proper touch user interface—is of course the one that makes sense. But... it still doesn't make sense. Windows on ARM can't run traditional Windows software; it'll need to be recompiled. And there's no point in recompiling existing software, because it won't have a touch interface. So Windows on ARM will need all-new software. And if the platform is going to need all-new software, what's the point of the port? The only value of Windows NT is that it runs Windows NT software, and if you don't want to run Windows NT software, you don't need Windows NT anymore! Microsoft might as well use Windows CE—Windows CE, which already runs on ARM, already has a touch interface in its "Windows Phone 7" guise, and already has lower system requirements, making it more appropriate to less powerful ARM systems.

Obviously, there is an aesthetic sense in which using Windows NT for tablets is better. Apple uses a variant of Mac OS X for its phones and tablets, and Android is based on essentially the same Linux kernel as people use in their servers and desktops, it would be nice for Microsoft to be able to do the same with Windows NT, to avoid having to maintain dual operating systems—as Steve Ballmer said of Google, why have two operating systems?

But to make that consolidation a prerequisite for an entry into the tablet market? That just doesn't make sense. Tablets need new software, and Windows CE is good enough to run that software. Porting Windows NT can't be a priority.

To further confuse the issue is the suggestion in the Wall Street Journal that it will be a couple of years before Windows on ARM actually ships. By that time, ARM processors should be quite a bit faster—but x86 processors will, in turn, use less power. ARM will probably still have the edge, but as long as x86 is in the same ballpark, the battery life differences will be insignificant.

In two years' time, we're also not going to be talking about Windows 7 anymore: it will be Windows 8. Windows 8, unlike Windows 7, will almost certainly have an interface suitable for fingers. As such, a straight port of this Windows should be suitable for tablets. If Windows ARM will be Windows 8, that would at least explain the earlier rumors that Windows 8 would be on show in CES. But it still does nothing to salvage Microsoft's tablet strategy.

Microsoft might well be porting Windows NT to ARM, and Windows 8 may very well be available for x86, x64, and ARM machines. But if it is, it shows that the company is still fixated with hardware. Windows' problems in the tablet space aren't hardware problems. They have always been—and continue to be—software, user interface problems. That's a problem that needs solving now, not in two years.

There is one area where a port of Windows NT to ARM does make some sense: the server room. Future ARM designs might work well in cloud and virtualization server scenarios. Given that Windows on the desktop shares a common codebase with Windows on the server, a port of Windows for future ARM servers would of course result in a "free" port of Windows on the desktop.

But an announcement at the Consumer Electronics Show won't be about Windows Server. It will be about Windows on tablets. Making this announcement, if it comes, a bizarre distraction that brings Redmond no closer to having an iPad competitor of its own.

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