Giantbomb iPhone App Impressions

sweep

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Edited By sweep Moderator

Yeah, that's right kids. I just downloaded the Giantbomb iPhone app. Heres what you get for your pennies (£1.19):

EDIT: Apparently requires the 3.0 iPhone OS!!

The app is broken up into 5 sections.

News - All the headlines from the homepage.

Reviews - A list of the recent reviews, listed with 5-star rating.
Videos - All Giantbomb videos can be viewed straight from the app - doesn't have to back out to youtube or anything weird.
Search - Search Giantbomb database for Wiki's and stuff.
Releases - A list of new games releases as seen on the homepage, with links to relevant Wikis.

Each game wiki page has easy links to the GiantBomb review (if it's available), the full Wiki, user reviews, videos and screenshots. The search function is really cool, gives you a nice long list of everything related to your search and then organises them into categories, e.g. Concepts, Characters, Objects...etc

The releases page can be sub-filtered to the relevant consoles and has all the dates of each release.

This app is designed to view giantbomb content and videogame wiki's. You can't sign into your user account or access content like:

blogs
forums
guides
trivia
achievements

Loading times seem ok, video quality is good. Nice app, great job guys!!

IF ANYONE HAS ANY QUESTIONS PLEASE ASK BELOW IN THE COMMENTS.

Thanks For Reading
Love Sweep

14 years ago

sweep

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#1 Edited By sweep Moderator

Yeah, that's right kids. I just downloaded the Giantbomb iPhone app. Heres what you get for your pennies (£1.19):

EDIT: Apparently requires the 3.0 iPhone OS!!

The app is broken up into 5 sections.

News - All the headlines from the homepage.

Reviews - A list of the recent reviews, listed with 5-star rating.
Videos - All Giantbomb videos can be viewed straight from the app - doesn't have to back out to youtube or anything weird.
Search - Search Giantbomb database for Wiki's and stuff.
Releases - A list of new games releases as seen on the homepage, with links to relevant Wikis.

Each game wiki page has easy links to the GiantBomb review (if it's available), the full Wiki, user reviews, videos and screenshots. The search function is really cool, gives you a nice long list of everything related to your search and then organises them into categories, e.g. Concepts, Characters, Objects...etc

The releases page can be sub-filtered to the relevant consoles and has all the dates of each release.

This app is designed to view giantbomb content and videogame wiki's. You can't sign into your user account or access content like:

blogs
forums
guides
trivia
achievements

Loading times seem ok, video quality is good. Nice app, great job guys!!

IF ANYONE HAS ANY QUESTIONS PLEASE ASK BELOW IN THE COMMENTS.

Thanks For Reading
Love Sweep

14 years ago

ververdan0226

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#2 Edited By ververdan0226

What are you using the app on? I'm about to start it on my iPod Touch 1st gen once I've downloaded it and OS 3.0. The loading times on their must be horrendous right?

14 years ago

imayellowfellow

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#3 Edited By imayellowfellow

does it work on an 2nd gen ipod touch without OS 3.0?

14 years ago

The_A_Drain

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#4 Edited By The_A_Drain

Kinda sucks you cant access blogs and forums :( Oh well, still epic stuff.

14 years ago

sweep

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#5 Edited By sweep Moderator

I'm using it on a second gen iPod Touch with the newest OS and it works fine. The loading times for the videos are the same as youtube, wiki's and other pages also seem to load fine. Too early to say I guess?

14 years ago

mike

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#6 Edited By mike

@Sweep: I just bought the app through iTunes and I'm going to try and load it onto my 2nd gen Touch as soon as I'm done devouring this delicious Pho. I'll let you know. (I still have the 2.x firmware)

14 years ago

joey

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#7 Edited By joey

@imayellowfellow said:

" does it work on an 2nd gen ipod touch without OS 3.0? "

I tried downloading it, and it said "This app is not compatible", so you need 3.0 to get it.

14 years ago

sweep

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#8 Edited By sweep Moderator

cool cool, if anyone else has is running on an iPhone or 1st gen iPod touch let me know how it's handling.

14 years ago

JamesF

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#9 Edited By JamesF

I'm gonna download it.

14 years ago

super_machine

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#10 Edited By super_machine

I wish the release category started with the most current week of releases. I had to keep scrolling down and loading the next 25 results. It started in June, and I had to sift through all that old stuff.

14 years ago

Out_On_Bail

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#11 Edited By Out_On_Bail

@MB: It won't work, I tried the same thing. It won't put the app onto the iPod touch without that update. So now I can copy&paste. woot.

14 years ago

BoneMachine

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#12 Edited By BoneMachine

Just grabbed the app, nice work. Great to have mobile access to the video's. Running on a 1st gen iphone under os 3.0.

Couple things that I noticed right off the bat:

The search bar in the navigation controller is a different color than the controller itself. It's visually distracting.
Switching platforms on the Releases tab is difficult because of the size of the selectors. I have to tap several times to get them to register.
I watched one video, paused it, hit done and returned to the Videos screen. The audio for the video started playing again like the video was playing in the background. Could not get it to happen again tho.

14 years ago

mike

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#13 Edited By mike

@Out_On_Bail: Great...I knew it was only a matter of time before I was forced to drop $10 on that firmware. Oh well.

14 years ago

Out_On_Bail

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#14 Edited By Out_On_Bail

@MB: Lol yeah same here. I've put it off until moments ago. I knew eventually I would get it, the GB app only forced that into overdrive.

14 years ago

mike

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#15 Edited By mike

@Out_On_Bail: Ugh, I don't know. I'd rather buy five more copies of the GB app than spend $10 on firmware that will eventually be free.

14 years ago

ververdan0226

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#16 Edited By ververdan0226

@MB: When is it supposed to go free? I just downloaded it... damn. Well, if it wasn't for a while (like more than a week) it's worth it to me.

14 years ago

LordAndrew

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#17 Edited By LordAndrew

Apple charges for firmware updates? What kind of BS is that?

14 years ago

guerrilla_mason

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#18 Edited By guerrilla_mason

@super_machine said:

" I wish the release category started with the most current week of releases. I had to keep scrolling down and loading the next 25 results. It started in June, and I had to sift through all that old stuff. "

That's the only part of the app I don't like. The releases are a mess. But other than that, pretty good video quality for the platform, nice design for 1.0 (I remember them saying they would probably put logging in and stuff in later if supported enough), and pretty slick and quick for a 201 KB download.

14 years ago

mike

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#19 Edited By mike

@LordAndrew said:

" Apple charges for firmware updates? What kind of BS is that? "

It's free for iPhone and $10 for iPod touch/2g. This is the one that grants features like stereo bluetooth (for 2g), copy & paste, and shake to shuffle, among other things. It's optional and I'm sure it will eventually be free.

14 years ago

ververdan0226

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#20 Edited By ververdan0226

Maybe now I can catch up on my Endurance runs...

14 years ago

Kaido

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#21 Edited By Kaido

I don't know if I'm alone in this but the video quality is spectacular, also the streaming speed is pretty fast.

It's got my approval.

14 years ago

Ineedaname

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#22 Edited By Ineedaname

What happened to the star rating system in reviews that's in the screen shots?
Can anyone else see it, or is just me or can't?

14 years ago

Out_On_Bail

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#23 Edited By Out_On_Bail

@Ineedaname: I see it fine, it took a few minutes to load but eventually they popped up. I find it easier to read the stars too, being that I'm color blind I've always had problems seeing the stars on the website. I'm not having that problem on the app.

I'm not sure about the video quality though, I see a lot of you complimenting it, but for me it's not that good at all.

14 years ago

Ineedaname

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#24 Edited By Ineedaname

@Out_On_Bail: Yeah left it a while it came on thanks, and I'd say the video quality is a fair bit better than Youtube, but it's not near perfect, although for Iphone quality it's awesome. I'm only wanting to watch the endurance run which looks awesome on it, even the text is readable.

14 years ago

Lies

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#25 Edited By Lies

@MB said:

" @LordAndrew said:
" Apple charges for firmware updates? What kind of BS is that? "
It's free for iPhone and $10 for iPod touch/2g. This is the one that grants features like stereo bluetooth (for 2g), copy & paste, and shake to shuffle, among other things. It's optional and I'm sure it will eventually be free. "

There's a way to get it for free, but I don't think it's actually endorsed. I won't go into any details, but it's actually pretty easy if you know how to do it. And I doubt those upgrades will go free. The 2.0 firmware never went free for first gen touch users, I would assume the same holds true for the 3.0

The app runs fine on a first gen Touch (3.0 firmware), which is what I'm using.

14 years ago

sweep

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#26 Edited By sweep Moderator

having thought about it a bit, the only real issue I have with this is the lack of access to the guides. I know it would be difficult to arrange but I think that could be really beneficial to the app.

14 years ago

Out_On_Bail

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#27 Edited By Out_On_Bail

Is there a place they are collecting bugs for the app? I don't want to start a new thread for this, but I've had quite a few crashes while toying with the app.

I agree with ya Sweep, I would love to see guides in there. I don't know a thing about coding/api/whatever else, so I can only imagine how difficult it would be to implement.

14 years ago

marlow83

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#28 Edited By marlow83

Good to know, thanks man

14 years ago

sweep

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#29 Edited By sweep Moderator

The announcement for the app has been sticky'd on the forums, but you should probably make another in the Bugs forum and I doubt anybody will cry too much. Those whiskey boys do love their bugs ;)

14 years ago

JohnnyAutoFire

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#30 Edited By JohnnyAutoFire

When i click on the "load 25 more" under the video tab it instantly crashes. Also, I'm not getting any pictures in the written sections. Is anyone else having these problems?

14 years ago

sweep

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#31 Edited By sweep Moderator

Please post all app bugs and issues in this thread.

Thanks :)

14 years ago

End_Boss

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#32 Edited By End_Boss

@Sweep said:

"
Please post all app bugs and issues in this thread.
Thanks :) "

no u

14 years ago

LumpOfCole

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#33 Edited By LumpOfCole

This is how I think the videos section should look :)

Awesome app btw.

14 years ago

ezdude

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#34 Edited By ezdude

I don't own an iPod touch or iPhone, so I was wondering, Can't you just access this site on the normal browser on the devices?

I don't get why you need an app to access this site.

14 years ago

Out_On_Bail

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#35 Edited By Out_On_Bail

@ezdude: Yes you can, but the videos won't work, at least not on the iPod Touch. So by paying the 1.99 pricetag you'd be getting access to the hundreds of videos on your iPod- like the edurance runs. I said the same thing, but then pulled my shoe from my mouth upon realizing the money was also going to the creators of the website. Anything I can do to help donate, I'll try to do it.

14 years ago

lemon360

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#36 Edited By lemon360

Should have a whole Blog section where you can view all the blogs anyone posted. And arrange them by date added, comments, length, views etc and blogs maybe should have a thumbs up/thumbs down scoring system. I'm just throwing things out here.

14 years ago

Wolverine

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#37 Edited By Wolverine

@lemon360 said:

" Should have a whole Blog section where you can view all the blogs anyone posted. And arrange them by date added, comments, length, views etc and blogs maybe should have a thumbs up/thumbs down scoring system. I'm just throwing things out here. "

Yeah, I wish there was something that had to do with the community in the app. After all the whole site is based off of it's community.

14 years ago

deactivated-5c5cdba6e0b96

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#38 Edited By deactivated-5c5cdba6e0b96

Can you use the same apps on the ipod Touch as you use on the iPhone for the most part?

14 years ago

sweep

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#39 Edited By sweep Moderator

@Wolverine said:

" @lemon360 said:
" Should have a whole Blog section where you can view all the blogs anyone posted. And arrange them by date added, comments, length, views etc and blogs maybe should have a thumbs up/thumbs down scoring system. I'm just throwing things out here. "
Yeah, I wish there was something that had to do with the community in the app. After all the whole site is based off of it's community. "

You can read user reviews, and technically every wiki is written by the community, though you can't edit them directly from the app. I don't really see this as a problem, if i'm going to write a blog I want a nice keyboard.

14 years ago

Wolverine

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#40 Edited By Wolverine

@Sweep: Yeah but it would have been nice if it at least let you read other users blogs or add games to your collection. If you buy a game it would be awesome if you could just pull your phone out and add it to your collection.

14 years ago

ZAPBoston

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#41 Edited By ZAPBoston

Have there been any posts recently about the future of the Giant Bomb iPhone app?

It sold enough to warrant a #28 rank in the Entertainment Paid apps category on iTunes. Plus, it was introduced by the best infomercial pastiche I've ever seen!

Yet I'm not sure how useful version 1.0 really is:

1) The app allows me to search and view content from the game database and view current news stories. Fortunately, the app reformats content for easier viewing on the iPhone. Yet I can view and search the game database without many compromises already using iPhone's Safari web browser and pinch to zoom function.

2) You can't view Giant Bomb videos using iPhone's Safari web browser since it doesn't support Adobe Flash. The Giant Bomb app allows a me to see video. Objectively, this features adds functionality. Not sure how often I personally will use it.

What's entirely missing from 1.0 is the community aspect of Giant Bomb. I wonder if future versions will mimic social networking apps like Facebook on the iPhone, allowing users to upload photos or change their status or add/edit the game database.

Taking a step back, it also makes me wonder what a good iPhone app needs to add to the experience when you already have a functional web browser on the phone. I don't think version 1.0 of the Giant Bomb app clears that threshold yet.

14 years ago