ITWire

Well, the Worldwide Developer Conference has finally started, and the event kicked off not with the great 3G iPhone reveal, but in true developer style, a stack of information on just how great a platform the iPhone is to develop on.

We were shown a demo of how easy it is to make an app on the iPhone SDK, along with information on Cocoa Touch and other SDK elements, then demonstrations of an eBay app, Sega’s Super Monkey Ball which is fully ‘accelerometer’ aware so you just tilt the iPhone to play the game, Loopt – a social network which is location aware, a WordPress blogging app which lets you type blogs on the fly and post them along with photos you have already taken, or one you can take ‘on the spot’.

The Associated Press has a news app – cutely called the ‘Mobile News Network’ – which is also location aware – it knows where you are and pulls news from the seven closest sources, can save stories for offline reading and even play videos. You can send news tips to the AP as well.

Next up is another games developer – Pangaea Software – who showed a game called Engimo which is where you need to get water into a container – quite different. It’s apparently heavy on the CPU but they made it happen. They also showed a car racing game called Cromag Rally, where ‘cavemen’ race around the track.

A bit like Mario Kart on the Wii except the controller is the iPhone itself, as you’d imagine.

Then we had a solo developer from the UK who said how ‘easy it is to develop on the SDK’, who has created a music app for the iPhone letting you play a bass guitar, piano, drums, and a ‘blues’ app which was demo’d, much to the crowd’s delight. Any songs can be recorded and played back – “you can start a band!”

MOB.com was next – Major League Baseball and their new iPhone app. Video clips, stats and more.

Then we had an app called Modality for anatomy of the body, highly detailed images, a quiz mode and more – it’s a very smooth looking educational app. Medical apps, also some of the biggest brands in education and consumer reference content. A dozen apps will come only weeks after the App Store opens and many more by the end of the year.

MimVista is another medical app which looks very impressive.

Last app comes from Digital Legends Entertainment. Based in Barcelona Spain, only started on the SDK two weeks ago – and we’re being told that they have developed a game that looks stunning and should belong on a console, apparently.

In four days they ported the game to the iPhone and then spent the rest of the time to get iPhone touch and accelerator features – Open GL and more to get better quality graphics than on other ‘handheld gaming devices’ – it’ll be ready by September this year on the App Store.

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