Facebook’s Virtual Farming Now on the iPhone
Steve Jobs’ statement that the iPhone’s thousands of applications are more than enough to keep people from wanting to play Flash was quickly met with much disagreement (along with many other things he stated in his open letter regarding Adobe and Flash). Of course, of all the comments, none was more poignant than the statement that Flash games such as Farmville has millions of users, and these users will not be happy with just any Apple app.
Now it seems that Steve Jobs finally has something to talk back with. Zynga has announced that they are going to release an iPhone app that will allow users to access their virtual farms –a feature that was originally not present in the iPhone since Farmville is a Flash based application that became famous on Facebook.
The app is reported to support the original accounts of Facebook users so it will be the same as playing the browser version of the game –complete with access to the user’s friend networks.
This move by major web game developer Zynga might be the start of change in the way game developers make their games. Cross compatibility with various devices will often keep developers from making apps that suit Apple’s strict requirements, but with the large user base that Apple offers, that is an option that devs will be hard pressed to ignore. Unless other platforms, such as Android and Windows Phone 7, are able to offer the same market access, Apple will always be able to get their way.
For Farmville users, this news update is a major improvement. The game’s system is rewarding for users that are able to tend to their virtual farms more often. With the upcoming Farmville iPhone App from Zynga, users can be able to check their virtual farms anytime, anywhere.
