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 The
iPhone is the greatest gadget ever made. I've had mine for almost
six months now and I'm still dazzled by what a truly incredible
device it is. Even at its most simple and basic function -- a
telephone -- it's the best one I've ever used. Plus of course,
it has a vast number of other functions, many of which are done
better on the iPhone than anywhere else.
For example, since it's also an iPod, I've loaded it up with
all my favorite music, and since the iPhone has a little speaker,
I can keep the soundtrack of my life playing wherever I am, without
the hindrance of headphones. (Of course, it does have a headphone
jack as well, for those times when headphones are needed or I
want to plug it into a stereo system.) When we're sleeping, I
can set it to play the sound of crickets all night, so we no
longer need a white noise generator, plus it even serves as my
alarm clock now.
Since it's got a very good built-in camera, I was able to
travel all around Disney
World last month without the burden of a full-size standalone
camera and still return with a great album
of vacation photos. And since it's got full email capabilities
too, I can instantly send my photos to others. (I had a great
moment late one night heading back to our hotel at Disney World
when I was able to snap a charming picture of several very tired
children falling asleep on each others' shoulders, which I then
immediately emailed to their delighted mother.)
Since it's on the internet, I have all the world's knowledge
at my ready fingertips wherever I go. I just love being able
to instantly look things up, even when I'm not near a regular
computer. "Well, let's find out!" is something I've
started saying a lot, whenever no one in the group I'm with knows
the answer to a given question. With an iPhone, it's all right
there -- Google, Wikipedia... I can even show off YouTube videos.
The interface is amazing. The touch-screen does take a little
getting used to at first, but after you adapt to the way it finishes
your words for you and automatically fixes your typos and stuff,
you start to love it. It makes texting SO much nicer than on
a regular phone, and while I'd rather have a full keyboard if
I'm trying to get some serious writing done, I can hammer out
text pretty quickly on my iPhone at this point.
Plus of course, you can play games on it. There's endless
fun to be had playing everything from classics like poker to
amazing new videogames that take full advantage of the iPhones
sensors, so that the game is controlled by the movements and
position of the device.
And that's still not all. When traveling, it automatically
shows me where we are on the map, and when we get there, it'll
recommend local restaurants according to my preferences. I can
use it to tell my friends what
I'm doing at any given moment, and find out what
they're up to as well. I can use it as a flashlight, a level,
a ruler, a dictaphone, a tricorder, and a musical instrument.
I can hold it up to a speaker when music is being played and
it will instantly tell me, with amazing success, what the song
is called, who performs it, and what album it's on.
 iPhone
users can even set their phone up to replace the cards
and the Moderator in a game of Werewolf! (This is big news actually
for most folks, since Kory's
new software is just now being released, but we've been playtesting
it for him for months...)
The iPhone is the combination and culmination of so many things
in such a simple little device that I'm still finding it mind-blowing.
It does all these things, yet it's no bigger than the old-fashioned
pocket calculators we thought were so incredible 30 years ago.
(Oh yeah, the iPhone serves as a pretty nice pocket calculator
too.)
Perhaps the best thing of all about the iPhone is that it
keeps on getting better. More new software is constantly being
created for it, and each new ap makes it that much cooler.
Which brings me, at last, to the point of this article. My
iPhone learned a really cool new trick this week: it's now a
Treehouse
dice roller!
See, there's this iPhone ap called Motion-X dice, which is
a dice simulator. It's way cool -- you specify the number of
dice you'll be using (1-6) then you literally shake your iPhone
(like shaking up a dice cup) and watch as 3D rendered dice bounce
around a bit before landing.
I've had MotionX Dice on my iPhone for a long time, but this
week I got the upgrade for it, which makes me love it all the
more. It now comes with over 50 different dice patterns, ranging
from simple standard dice to "decision-making" dice
of every imaginable type, and the newest in the set is the DIG-SWAP-TIP-AIM-HOP-WILD
dice we created for my game Treehouse. (And yes, this was done
with our blessing.)
So now, if you want to play Treehouse,
or Martian
Coasters, or Black
ICE, or Secret Project PD-09, and you have the pyramids but
not the dice, or you just want to be able to play without the
trouble of real dice (which often bounce into the wrong places)
then get a copy of MotionX Dice for your iPhone! It's free!
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