I was a bit on the fence about iOS versions before because I still have a first-generation iPad (iOS 5.1 maximum) and I wanted to make games for it. I have a new iPhone 5S as well.
I originally wrote game code with OpenGL ES, and then tried very hard to make the same code work on a Mac with regular OpenGL. It took more time than it should have to see results and it wasn’t that fun. About all I can say is that I learned a lot and OpenGL clearly runs efficiently.
After seeing Sprite Kit (Mac OS X Mavericks and iOS 7 only) and working with it, I am now completely devoted to these latest OSes. That framework has solved virtually all of my Mac/iOS parity issues, while allowing code to be almost identical in ways that really impressed me. Sprite Kit requires far less effort and it produces far greater results. About the only downside I see is that there would be no hope of porting my code to something like an Android phone (and I don’t happen to care about that).
It doesn’t hurt that Mavericks is free so about the only device left out in the cold is my old iPad. I decided that I was probably holding myself back by trying to support it anyway; the device is quite slow compared to almost any other iPad. I will likely just buy a new iPad.
I originally wrote game code with OpenGL ES, and then tried very hard to make the same code work on a Mac with regular OpenGL. It took more time than it should have to see results and it wasn’t that fun. About all I can say is that I learned a lot and OpenGL clearly runs efficiently.
After seeing Sprite Kit (Mac OS X Mavericks and iOS 7 only) and working with it, I am now completely devoted to these latest OSes. That framework has solved virtually all of my Mac/iOS parity issues, while allowing code to be almost identical in ways that really impressed me. Sprite Kit requires far less effort and it produces far greater results. About the only downside I see is that there would be no hope of porting my code to something like an Android phone (and I don’t happen to care about that).
It doesn’t hurt that Mavericks is free so about the only device left out in the cold is my old iPad. I decided that I was probably holding myself back by trying to support it anyway; the device is quite slow compared to almost any other iPad. I will likely just buy a new iPad.