We’ve begun adding iOS 4 Capabilities to our existing games. This will allow for better multitasking and bring the true ‘fast app switching’ that iOS 4 provides.
The next wave of updates will be catering to the better resolution on the iPhone 4 hardware.
A couple people have asked about how our games are running on the iPad. After a lot of testing we can now say positively that all of our games run flawlessly on the iPad.
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We will begin working on higher resolution or ‘HD’ versions of the games in the near future. Send us an email of your favorite game to get it moved up in our queue!!
Following up the Symbolism release over Christmas, Gabbing Mad is now available for the 
Android. This will be the last Android game while we resume work on a few other projects and updates that worked their way up the todo list.
All in all, ‘Droid’ development is quite enjoyable. The big challenge in Gabbing Mad was adding multiple orientation support (portrait and landscape). But other than that, it was far easier endeavor than Symbolism, which totaled over 25k LOC.
From a business perspective, the early results are showing what is clearly obvious in the market right now, and that is that Android games just aren’t that profitable for developers right now. Again, it is very early for the Android and only time will tell. 
Well, I guess “ChewSoft Does”. Under our Christmas tree this year is the release of Symbolism 1.0 into the Android Market.
For the most part, it was a very straightforward development effort. The idea was to take the iPhone version and port it over as close as possible. Of course, theOpenFeint stuff was yanked out. We also chose to leave out the ‘Timed Game’ mode. Not sure exactly how many people played it, so if you do, please let us know and we’ll sneak it in one of the next few releases.
Now for the techie stuff…As most people know, the iPhone’s SDK supports the Objective-C language and Android supports Java. So from a code perspective, it was virtual rewrite. We were, however, able to save a lot of time not having to redo any of the graphical work (which amount to almost 25% of development on average). The primary sticking point in development was simulating and testing for the various devices and profiles. Unlike the iPhone, Google Android support various resolutions (HVGA/320×480, WVGA/480×800, QVGA/240×320, etc) and multiple densities. The idea for application developers is that they should create separate graphical artifacts that target each resolution. Being a 1.0 version of Symbolism, we chose to stick to 320×480. The bigger resolutions (which are supported) will be stretched a little bit for the bigger displays. Once we sell a few thousand, we’ll dedicate some resources to some of the larger resolutions to make them look more crisp. The final sticky point in development was the memory limitations of Android. Android limits applications to 16MB of heap space. Wow. Just wow. Keeping it short (and I could go on and on), let me just say that this is where the iPhone has a HUGE competitive advantage and imho, could ultimately be Android’s downfall.
All in all, we learned a lot. Will it be profitable for ChewSoft? We’ll keep you posted. In the short term, we’ve tabbed Gabbing Mad as next for the Android platform (because I believe it will be a much easier port). Stay tuned!!
After 12 successful games on the iPhone platform, ChewSoft is venturing out to test Google’s Android platform.
The first game we are going to test is arguably our most succesful, Symbolism. We are very interested to see just how much potential there is in this platform, as well as expanding our audience to as many people as possible. Development is already underway. If there is a particular ChewSoft game that you’d like to see, drop us a line.
In a little over a year, we have developed 12 unique titles, and today, we’ve reached another milestone, 100k games sold. I’d like to thank each and every one of our customers for their support.
In other news, we are still feverishly making changes to our current lineup, with a potential addition only a few months away. Stay tuned for more on that front.
Over the last few weeks, things certainly have been busy. OpenFeint upgrades and the iPhone SDK 3.0 release has been a lot to keep up with. Apple has also recently changed the approval process to require that all applications be ‘certifiable’ on the 3.0 BETA SDK, so currently, it is a new hurdle that we are dealing with and hope to be passed by the end of this week. On the feature front, there is a bunch of new stuff coming down the pipe. Notably, an entire new mini-game inside of Symbolism, which I think is going to be great hit, as well as Feint support for Symbolism Lite. I have also begun work on more iCanSketchIt level packs, which a lot of people have asked for…and a bunch of patch releases for all of the card games as well. Look for all of this stuff over the next couple weeks. The review process at Apple seems to be pretty standardized these days at 7 days. As always, if there is something you guys want in any of the games, just give me a shout.
Quick update…all of the OpenFeint enabled games from ChewSoft are now available in the App Store. Moving forward, it is back to regular feature development. I’ll also post if there are any significant feature additions to OpenFeint, as that will require all new versions of all games.
We have great news at ChewSoft! Over the past month or so, we have been working very closely with the creators of Aurora Feint (Jason Citron and Danielle Cassley) in development of their new platform called OpenFeint.
By the end of the day today, we will have 8 games successfully integrated with the OpenFeint platform and submitted to Apple for review. Those 8 games include (with iTunes Links):
So what does this mean for you guys?
Version 1.3 is all done and you guys should have it in the next day or so. It will have the color enhancements to the squares that will make them much easier on the eyes. 
Additionally, it will be featuring an all new ‘Timed’ game. Timed is a race against the clock. You start with 5 minutes. You will receive an additional 30 seconds for each row and column that is completed, as well as a 2 minute level bonus. Let me know what you guys think!!
