I met PJ Cabrera on Twitter where he goes by the handle dreadpiratepj. As I went through the launch of my first iPhone game, WordFlipper, PJ was there to cheer me on.
I didn't even know he was writing the book on iPhone Games... 
iPhone Games Projects from Apress officially launches today. I can't wait to get mine!
Seriously, I can't wait. Take a look at the lineup:
Chapters by:
Olivier Hennessy & Clayton Kane, Posimotion
Joachim Bondo, Cocoa Stuff
Richard Zito & Matthew Aitken, Swipe Interactive
Aaron Fothergill, Strange Flavour
Brian Greenstone, Pangea Software
Mike Kasprzak, Sykhronics Entertainment
Mike Lee, co-founder of Tapulous, now at Apple
PJ Cabrera, FoneGears Systems
I'm grateful that PJ was able to knock out this interview and pleased to rock it out to the masses!
The PJ Cabrera iPhonespaz Interview
JG: OK! First thing's first... How many apps do you have on your personal iPhone and what got you hooked on the platform?
PJ: I don't feel like counting them all, but on my iPhone there are 5 pages of games, and 2.5 pages of utility apps. Each page has 11 apps, so this adds up to something like 82 apps installed.
As for what got me hooked on the iPhone platform, I'm a gadget geek, plain and simple. I've owned PDAs and smartphones since 2000. When the iPhone was announced at Macworld 2007, I just had to have one because of my gadget lust. But since getting one, it's become more than just another device. While I like playing with gadgets, the iPhone is the first gadget I really love.
JG: Obviously, I can relate! iPhone Games Projects comes out on 6/22. As noted above, you have a rockstar lineup contributing... What was it like to work with all of those great developers? I'll bet you learned a ton!
PJ: My job on this book, besides writing 2 chapters, was to check my co-authors' chapters for technical accuracy. The book was written as a series of independent essays, we were all writing our chapters at the same time without direct input from each other. So I really didn't work with the other authors until they each submitted their first draft. That's when I got to find and point out any typos in the code, or incorrect statements in the text.
I've been programming games as a hobby since I first learned to program BASIC in the late 70s. In 2001, I learned to hack my Dreamcast and PS2, to run my own games on them, just for fun. But my co-authors are all established professionals, some of them with many years of game development experience on several platforms. I am humbled to be part of this book, and to be associated with such an amazing group of people.
There is a lot of info in this book I haven't seen anywhere else. Not to downplay the chapters by the other writers, but Aaron Fothergill and Mike Kasprzak went to town showing how to write iPhone games in OpenGL ES and plain ol' C. Console game developers afraid of Cocoa and Objective C should pick up the book just for those two chapters. The other chapters are great too, with everything from game design to performance tuning. Brian Greenstone's chapter, for example, is bordering on academic, and covers many performance tips and tricks.
JG: That last paragraph alone made me run out and pre-order the book. I think I have the whole Dave Mark boxed-set now! Dave owes me a Christmas card or something!
JG: Moving on to apps, what's your favorite iPhone app and why do you love it?
PJ: Gosh, there are just so many to choose as favorites. All the ones I have installed are great, or I would have removed them long ago.
For when I'm on the go, Mail, Nambu and Facebook apps get used a lot. They keep me in touch anywhere, any time. The Maps app gets me where I want to be without problems. While these apps are useful and I would be loath to do without them, I wouldn't necessarily say they are my favorites or that I love them.
That honor goes to Postage app by Rogue Sheep, and Flower Garden by Snappy Touch. These two apps have so much effort go into how they work, and have so many little flourishes and attention to detail, they're a pleasure to use. And they're not even utility apps, they're apps you get because you want to send people something nice in their email, like a bouquet of virtual flowers or a virtual postage card. What can be more lovely than to make someone's day with some flowers or a post card?
As for games, anything by NimbleBit is great for a bit of quick fun. Even my mom loves their games. Of course, she plays on my iPhone. I offered to get her Scoops and SkyBurger on her own iPod Touch for Mother's Day, but she declined because she was afraid she'd never put it down. I think that's a compliment for Ian's work!
One game that has me captivated lately is Slingshot, by Giraffe Lab. The graphics and sound are simplistic, but the gravity simulation is top notch. Fun in a brainiac kind of way.
JG: Sometimes the simplest games are best. I still place Trace with my kids. Let's get a little geeky here... Considering that you've written code in half a dozen languages, what's your take on developing for the iPhone vs. say... a website? Do you feel constrained or maybe a bit more free?
PJ: Native iPhone app programming in Objective-C and Cocoa Touch is a lot like Java and C# desktop app programming: there are pre-defined visual components to choose from when creating your screens, and documented APIs to work with those components. These components and APIs constrain you a little bit but they make development go faster than was possible in older environments.
Web development is in general freer, because you can almost place any component anywhere and you could code each and every URL in a different language and it would be your choice how to do that. Good luck figuring out major bugs if you were to choose different languages and to program recklessly with no separation of view, model and control code.
Native environments like Cocoa Touch constrain you to work within a limited set of languages and design patterns, but it's for your own good. But with experience, you can always bend the rules a bit. 
JG: Without bending the rules it wouldn't be fun, right?! Since we're onto breaking rules, what's the spazziest thing you've done with your iPhone?
PJ: I don't know if these things merit me a restraining order, but I could see people's eyes bulging out as I did these things on my iPhone.
Last week, I was walking from my hotel to Moscone West, and at one point, a group of people stopped me to ask if I knew where a specific hotel was located. I didn't know, but I said that I could look it up. I pulled my iPhone out of my pocket, opened the Maps app and entered the name of the hotel. Then I asked for walking directions from my current location to the hotel. In less than 15 seconds, I had sent these people on their way to their destination.
My high school graduating class had a 20 year reunion last December. I was taking pictures with my iPhone using the Facebook app. After each picture, my friends got on my case because they thought I was fiddling with the phone instead of hanging with them. Until I mentioned it, it didn't occur to them that I wasn't just taking pictures with my phone. I was tagging people, writing captions and uploading the pictures as I took them. Once I mentioned this, each time I took a picture, people clustered around me to see how I tagged people, etc.
Everybody loves the iPhone, even if they don't have one.
JG: Ha! I was demonstrating my game in a bar the other night and the same thing happened! But in my case, people gathered around just in time to watch me knock over the drink special menu!
Thanks again, PJ! Best of luck with iPhone Games Projects!!
0 comments…